Why Millions of Grownups Are Buying These Coloring Books for Adults

By Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

Amazon’s Top 100 book list changes hourly, but there are a few mainstays right now: All the Light We Cannot See, of course, and the unreleased Go Set a Watchman.1. mainstay: 主要依靠，支柱；All the Light We Cannot See: 《所有我们看不见的光》，2015年普利策奖获奖小说，作者安东尼·多尔（Anthony Doerr）；Go Set a Watchman: 《设立守望者》，是美国作家哈珀·李（Harper Lee）继1960年普利策奖作品《杀死一只知更鸟》（To Kill a Mocking Bird）后的又一力作。Oh, and two coloring books for grownups.

An artist named Johanna Basford pretty much owns two slots of the top seven books on Amazon, next to household names like Erik Larson and the omnipresent Dr. Phil.2. slot: 位置；household: 家喻户晓的，熟悉的；Erik Larson: 埃里克·拉森（1954— ），美国记者、畅销书作家，其著作《白城恶魔》（The Devil in the White City）荣获2004年埃德加·爱伦·坡奖最佳罪案实录；omnipresent:无所不在的，普遍存在的；Dr. Phil: 菲尔·麦格劳博士（Dr. Phil McGraw），是美国家喻户晓的电视心理学家、当红脱口秀节目主持人、畅销书作家。But Basford’s books aren’t novels—they’re collections of black-and-white drawings. The artist,who graduated from design school in 2005 and is based in Scotland,has turned her lovely ink drawings3. ink drawing: 墨水画。into coloring books “for grownups.” And they’re wildly popular, selling millions of copies.

If you’re like me, you didn’t realize coloring for adults was a trend. What is it about these books that has made them so popular with adults? Basford told me that when she first pitched4. pitch: 力图推销，劝说。publishers the idea of a grownup coloring book four years ago, “coloring for adults wasn’t the trend it is now. You can imagine how quiet they went after I suggested it.”

But the book she ended up drawing has become a phenomenon:2013’s Secret Garden: an Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book5. Secret Garden: an Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book: 《秘密花园：一本探索奇境的手绘涂色书》。is currently #2 on Amazon’s Top 100 and has sold 1.4 million copies.

The followup, Enchanted Forest: an Inky Quest & Coloring Book6. Enchanted Forest: an Inky Quest& Coloring Book: 《魔法森林：秘密花园II》。, is #6 right now. She’s working on a third. Why is coloring suddenly, according to MarthaStewart.com, a craze7. craze: 时髦，风靡一时的事物。amongst grownups?

For starters, The Guardian calls them “terribly therapeutic.”8. for starters: 首先；therapeutic:使人心情好转的，使人平静下来的。User reviews on Amazon give us a glimpse, too:

＊ I am an adult colorer or is it colorist? Whatever, I love this book.

＊ So relaxing to sit down with this book and my adult colored pencils and just color away to my heart’s content.

＊ Not for children, but I love this book. Can be used for mandala9. mandala: 曼荼罗，印度教和佛教中象征宇宙的圆形图案，指一切圣贤、一切功德的聚集之处。like concentration.

Still, that doesn’t quite explain what motivates adults to color rather than,say, draw or paint or just doodle10. doodle:（漫不经心地）乱涂。. Is it about nostalgia11. nostalgia: 怀旧。? Or do stressed-out adults feel comforted by the infantilizing nature of returning to an activity for small children?12. stressed out: 压力过大的；infantilizing: 幼儿化的。Is it about ceding13. cede: 割让，让予。control of a task, or making something with zero pressure? Or is it something else entirely?

不知何时，《秘密花园》、《魔法森林》等成人涂色绘本开始刷满朋友圈、微博等社交网络，并在各大电商畅销书榜居高不下。成年人纷纷重拾画笔，像小时候一样认认真真涂起色来。涂色向来被认为是学龄前儿童的活动，而如今为何得到成年人如此强大的青睐呢？它究竟有什么魔力？是大人渴望回归本真的驱使？还是真有传说中“减压神器”的功效？又或许这只不过又是一场昙花一现的跟风追捧呢？

I asked Basford why she thinks the books have been so successful amongst fully-grown humans. She pointed to three reasons—first, that coloring books are a way for adults who don’t normally draw or paint to be creative. “A blank sheet of paper or an empty canvas can be daunting, but a coloring book acts as a bit of a buffer in this situation,”14. 一张空白的纸或画布可能会令人生畏，但是涂色绘本在这里起到一个类似缓冲的作用。canvas:油画布；daunting: 吓人的，令人气馁的；buffer: 缓冲物。she says.

Second, coloring books don’t require anywhere near as much logical thought as, say, drawing a portrait. There are psychological benefits in zoning out15. zone out: 走神，开小差。, too:

I’ve heard from so many people ranging from lawyers,financial advisers16. financial adviser: 财务咨询师，财政顾问。, business owners and busy mums, all say the same thing: that coloring in helps them relax. Then there’s people who are recuperating from illness or dealing with a difficult time in their lives, they too find the calming,almost meditative effects of coloring is beneficial to them.17. 还有一些刚刚经历了病痛或者困境的人，他们同样觉得涂色具有让人平静、类似冥想的作用，这对他们十分有益。recuperate: 恢复健康，复原；meditative: 冥想的。

And then there are the existential reasons. “Chances are the last time you spent some time coloring you didn’t have a mortgage, a horrible boss or a worries about climate change,”18. 有可能你上次涂色的时候，并没有房贷问题或一个可怕的老板，也不为气候变化而担心。Basford says.

What’s so striking about Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest is that they’ve managed to stay at the top of Amazon’s best seller list as physical books, alongside instant gratification vehicles that can be instantly downloaded and read.19. striking: 引人注目的，显著的；instant gratification:即时满足；vehicle: 工具。Basford hears that too: She points out that her books are an activity that can be done without the help of your WiFi router20. router: 路由器。. “It’s a chance to unplug, look away from the screens and do something analogue and fun,”21. unplug: 拔出……的电源插头；analogue: 类似的。she says.

There’s a game some of my friends like to play: What would you do if there was no internet? What would entertainment be? What would you do for fun, or to relax?It’s a horrifying idea for most of us, but as people chew on22. chew on: 仔细考虑。the question, they get excited. Just “doing nothing,” for most of us, means scrolling through Instagram or checking an app,23. scroll: （使屏幕）滚动翻页；Instagram: 一款照片即时分享应用。even if it’s via the couch. Maybe Basford has plugged into a vast and unacknowledged desire to really, actually do nothing—to let the liminal brain take over, without the murmur of technology as an ever-present cognitive buffer.24. 也许贝斯福德开启了人们普遍的却不被承认的欲望——真正地什么都不去做——让大脑阈限发挥作用，远离作为认知缓冲的科技无所不在的喧嚣。plug into: 接通，连通；luminal: 阈限的，阈限是心理学名词，指外界引起有机体感觉的最小刺激量；murmur: 持续的低语声；ever-present: 始终存在的。

Or maybe it’s a viral trend. Suit yourself.25. suit oneself: 按自己的意愿行事，随你便。