{"product_id":"how-it-feels-to-be-alive-encounters-with-art-and-our-selves-hardcover","title":"How It Feels to Be Alive: Encounters with Art and Our Selves - Hardcover","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eMegan O'Grady\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\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, \u003ci\u003e How It Feels to Be Alive\u003c\/i\u003e braids criticism with personal narrative to consider art's intimate effects and how it might help us find clarity in an uncertain world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen Megan O'Grady was a teenager, she saw a photograph in a museum that changed her life. At the end of an early marriage, art stoked new ways of thinking about connection and transformation. As a new parent, it guided her to confront vulnerability and shame. Whether 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--often drawing on personal conversations with the artists--O'Grady examines the work's rippling impact, implicating sometimes unexpected lineages and genres. How does art expand and redirect our imaginations and attention? When bottom-line or nihilistic thinking dominates our public sphere, what meanings and alternatives does it offer? A vital call to engage deeply, to see in new ways, and to rethink all that we take for granted, \u003ci\u003eHow It Feels to Be Alive\u003c\/i\u003e inspires and exhorts, providing a template to think through the knottiest problems in our culture, our selves, and the connections between the two.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMegan O'Grady\u003c\/b\u003e is a critic and an essayist. She was a writer at large for \u003ci\u003eT: The New York Times Style Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, where she created the Culture Therapist column. Her reviews and essays about art and life also appear in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books, \u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e. She was a contributing editor at \u003ci\u003eVogue \u003c\/i\u003eand a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Currently, she is an assistant professor of art and art history at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she lives with her family.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 272\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.14 x 8.54 x 5.62 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 21, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52029259252013,"sku":"9780374613327","price":28.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0938\/3185\/6429\/files\/DywfWGJFWa9780374613327.webp?v=1777463442","url":"https:\/\/ishookbooks.com\/products\/how-it-feels-to-be-alive-encounters-with-art-and-our-selves-hardcover","provider":"iShook Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}