cover image The Dewey Color System: Choose Your Colors, Change Your Life

The Dewey Color System: Choose Your Colors, Change Your Life

Dewey Sadka. Three Rivers Press (CA), $14 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-5062-8

In 1981, Sadka began experimenting with color as a means of better understanding people's personalities. Today, his Dewey Color System has become a patented business of its own, boasting a website, merchandise--such as stuffed animals and home decorating systems--and a number of devotees. Starting with the question""What's your favorite color?"" Sadka leads readers through a series of questions to help them get to the root of their hopes, dreams and fears. His system relies upon various combinations of a person's favorite and least favorite colors, which the reader selects from four palettes provided with the book. Astrology-like descriptions of the inner workings each color profile (e.g. if yellow is your favorite color""finding common ground is the game you play best"") make up the bulk of this book. The rest of it consists of arguments that support the validity of the test that may or may not sway skeptics. Credulity aside, however, Sadka's test is lots of fun, and his personality descriptions may surprise even the most cynical of readers.