A Perfect Red

[scarpe_scrappy]

I knocked down another one last night while running on the treadmill:

A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire - Amy Butler Greenfield
Lovely little book about the discovery of the extreme red dye derived from the cochineal insect that grows on the nopal cactus.  Domesticated by the native Indians of Mexico, cochineal

Comments

[deridere]

I'm having a hard time getting into Malinche by Laura Esquivel - I'm taking it with the gym tonight so as to not escape it, and oooooh, I don't know start a book about circumcision.

[scarpe_scrappy]

I liked Malinche, but I had just gone through my Conquistador history phase, so maybe the story resonated a bit more with me :P

Personally, I kept getting bogged down by the typos in the galley copy (damn ARCs)

[deridere]

There was one that stood why the out, but I think they just used the wrong word.

It'll be good once I get into it and can actually pronounce the names.

[scarpe_scrappy]

I gave up trying to pronounce them. I just ended up saying "Wakka Wakka!" in my head when a weird one popped up.

E.g. "wakka wakka man hoisted me onto a horse."

[deridere]

Oh geez, now look what you're going to make me too. I was saying Pow Wow, and inserting Indian type words where I couldn't pronounce words like Quetzalcoatl.