26 Books Like Dreaming in Colour

Sometimes, restraint can be a good thing. As much as I normally advocate using the whole paint palette, I was enthralled by the story of a lone color: indigo.

Deceptively modest, this color is celebrated worldwide and has influenced designers, crafts people, artists, and more. From secret dye recipes to historic batik prints to skirts of one hundred pleats to distressed Japanese “boro,”–Indigo endures. Visuals abound in this encyclopedic and fascinating volume.

When a book has compelling content plus is a beautiful object, I call that “having it all.”  This handsome volume takes us inside the nature-centric world of color and is an admirable, elegant treatise on the subject.

I enjoy sitting with this book, flipping through the pages, rewarded on every spread with engravings, etchings, color swatches, marbled end papers, and tasteful typography. I can either dig deep and explore an unrivaled tutorial on the subject, or I can focus on the endless visuals—either way, the enduring beauty of Nature is richly represented in this stately volume.  

This book is a visual banquet revealing a lavish historical collection of color charts and swatch boards. Thanks to the astute full-color reproductions I felt I was holding these rare sample books in my hands; and the fulsome text satisfied my urge to know every back story.

I discovered charts for textiles, feathers, fibers, automotive paints, ribbons, yarns, felt, paint colors, cosmetics, and more. Although I frequently search for images of color charts online, this impressive volume consists of a wealth of new-to-me examples—literally, the mother lode. 

This impressive volume brings together two of my favorite topics: art journals and color. A unique idea sparked a round-robin collaboration between fifteen noted mixed-media artists: Each artist was invited to select a color and create a beginning for an art journal. 

The volumes traveled throughout the United States for over a year and were worked on by all the participants. Eventually, each journal returned home, absolutely bursting with creativity. The inclusions ran the gamut of custom musical CDs, found objects, poetry, fold-outs, quilted textiles and embroidery, and more. 

The lavish photography on each page makes this book a feast for the eyes, and the emotional stories from the artists provide insights into the healing nature of art journaling. From pure white to mysterious black (and every color in between), the true colors in this book lifted my spirits.  

No biography of Richard Burton succeeds like these diaries in giving us a sense of what it meant to be a truly global star, a consummate actor, a father, and a lover. We glimpse, too, the pressures on a man whose often troubled private life was presumed to be public property.

Burton’s surviving, voluminous diaries were meticulously edited by the historian Chris Williams, providing just the right amount of background and explanatory material to enlighten yet not bombard readers. From the early 1939-40 diary of the schoolboy Richard Jenkins, to the detailed diaries of the 1960s in particular, we can also discern the actor’s literary ambitions. I treasure these personal diaries: rich, revealing, and infinitely fascinating.

The author was one of a platoon of young, bicycle-riding male messengers that roamed the sprawling Warner Bros. studio in Burbank before World War II, delivering scripts and memos to directors, writers, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, and yes, Errol Flynn (who got a big thumbs-up from the messenger boys).

Jerome pulls no punches on the stars he liked and those he detested and provides graphic details to back up his rankings. This book shows the stars as real people, for better or worse, while also providing an invaluable look at the inner workings of one of the most successful studios of old Hollywood.

Elizabeth Taylor—not to be confused with the actress of the same name—has been called ‘the unsung heroine of British twentieth-century fiction.’ I wholeheartedly agree, and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is Taylor at her sublime best. It’s the tale of an elderly woman, wealthy but recently widowed, who’s faced with a choice: "Do I spend my last days in a care home—or check into a grand hotel?" She opts for the latter and finds herself among a group of fascinating characters, each as eccentric as she herself. 

Insightful about the sadness and loneliness of ageing, this book did not make me feel despondent about growing older. On the contrary, it showed me that love, happiness, and a sense of adventure can be ours at any age, if we’re willing to take chances and open our hearts to others.

At last, a book about Elizabeth Taylor that takes her acting skills seriously, analyses her prodigious output, and is neither sensational nor trivial. I was entranced. Like Sybil Thorndike, Taylor’s career lasted 65 years. Kennedy puts it in context, refreshingly focusing on her professional rather than personal life.

Commenting on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, he remarks: ‘At some point we have to reject the idea we’re watching the Burtons air their dirty laundry and embrace the possibility we’re watching them act. Brilliantly’. This readable, thoughtful book examines Taylor’s 56 movies and includes television, theatre, and special appearances such as a play reading in 2007, part of her remarkable fund-raising for AIDS.

I fell in love with designer Vicky Tiel’s 2011 memoir because of what I’ll call its “sex-positive” rompiness, which reads like a Swinging Sixties female version of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. (I stumbled upon it during research because it includes some of my characters, primarily Mia Fonssagrives, daughter of supermodel Lisa Fonssagrives and stepdaughter of Irving Penn.) 

In the book, Tiel, who made her name designing catsuits, hotpants, and miniskirts, explains how she and Mia went from being design students in New York to “It” fashion designers in Paris pretty much overnight. They have many adventures, bed many men, and pick up practical life advice from models and movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor while growing up. It’s a total period piece but also, it hasn’t aged. With pictures and recipes!  

I loved this book because it’s tough, hard, and very, very real. I think it is a timeless reminder that AIDS has no cure and that in the 1990s, HIV was a death sentence. I love this author’s gritty writing; he’s a gay survivor of that era who never pulls his punches.