{"product_id":"how-it-feels-to-be-alive-encounters-with-art-and-our-selves","title":"How It Feels to Be Alive: Encounters with Art and Our Selves","description":"\u003ch1\u003eHow It Feels to Be Alive: Encounters with Art and Our Selves\u003c\/h1\u003eMegan O'Grady,Megan O'Grady\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003eApril 21 2026\u003cbr\u003eEAN: 9780374613327\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 037461332X\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eItems marked as \u003cb\u003eWAREHOUSE\u003c\/b\u003e may take additional time to be delivered to your address or picked up in the store.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSynopsis: \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA vital testament to how art makes us who we are--and offers new ways of seeing our world and our lives.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBarbara Kruger once defined art as the ability \"to show and tell, through a kind of eloquent shorthand, how it feels to be alive.\" Testing that claim, Megan O'Grady takes us on a journey to explore art's intimate effects and how it might help us find clarity in an uncertain world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen O'Grady was a teenager, she saw a photograph in a museum that changed her life. When she was at the end of an early marriage, art stoked new ways of thinking about connection and transformation. When she was a new parent, it guided her to confront vulnerability and shame. Whether she was seeking a home or contending with crises personal, political, and ecological, art was a critical lifeline, a source of beauty, solace, and provocation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLooking closely at five artworks and the context in which each was made--and often drawing on personal conversations with the artists--O'Grady traces the works' rippling impacts, suggesting sometimes unexpected lineages and genres. How does art expand and redirect our imagination and attention? When bottom-line or nihilistic thinking dominates our public sphere, what meanings and alternatives does art offer? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA vital call to engage deeply, to see in new ways, and to consider all that we take for granted, \u003ci\u003eHow It Feels to Be Alive\u003c\/i\u003e inspires and exhorts, providing a template for thinking through the knottiest problems in our culture and our selves, and the connections between the two.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"27th Letter Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67391596036141,"sku":"WHS-4ed6df1b82de4f7e86103c3297fc317c","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0673\/3588\/0749\/files\/original_679a99fd-72da-4f95-bdb1-d13f2272f786.jpg?v=1787355671","url":"https:\/\/27thletterbooks.com\/products\/how-it-feels-to-be-alive-encounters-with-art-and-our-selves","provider":"27th Letter Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}