Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, American Radiance, at turns funny, tragic, and haunting, reflects on the author's experience immigrating as a child to the United States from Ukraine in 1991. What does it mean to be an American? Luisa Muradyan doesn't try to provide an answer. Instead, the poems in American Radiance look for a home in history, folklore, misery, laughter, language, and Prince's outstretched hand. Colliding with the grand figures of late '80s and early '90s pop culture, Muradyan's imagination pushes the reader forward, confronting the painful loss of identity that assimilation brings.

"Combining new research, never-before-published color photographs, and detailed entries on each artwork, American Radiance is indispensable for students and collectors, yet broadly appealing to the folk art market. The book celebrates the opening of the Museum's new building, where the Esmerian Collection is the widely publicized inaugural exhibition."--BOOK JACKET.

“An engrossing and ambitious novel that vividly portrays a critical time in American history.” — Booklist (starred review) “Enthralling. A Fierce Radiance shines with fascinating detail.... Belfer’s powerful portrayal of how people are changed in pursuit of a miracle makes this book an especially compelling read.” — Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank Set during the uncertain early days of World War II, this suspenseful story from the New York Times bestselling author of City of Light follows the work of photojournalist Claire Shipley as she captures America’s race to develop life-saving antibiotics—an assignment that will involve blackmail, espionage, and murder.

"Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its invisible rays trigger biological damage, birth defects, and cellular mayhem. From the end of the nineteenth century through the use of the atomic bomb in World War II to the twenty-first century's confrontation with the dangers of nuclear power, Craig Nelson illuminates a pageant of fascinating historical figures: Enrico Fermi, Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, FDR, Robert Oppenheimer, and Ronald Reagan, among others. He reveals many little-known details, including how Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler transformed America from a country that created light bulbs and telephones into one that split atoms; how the most grotesque weapon ever invented could realize Alfred Nobel's lifelong dream of global peace; how emergency workers and low-level utility employees fought to contain a run-amok nuclear reactor, while wondering if they would live or die. Brilliantly fascinating and remarkably accessible, The Age of Radiance traces mankind's complicated and difficult relationship with the dangerous power it discovered and made part of civilization"--

The renowned Navajo artist relates the story of his life and progression of his art, accompanied by numerous photographs of Gorman at work, along with full-page color reproductions of his lithographs, paintings, and drawings.

A revolutionary exploration of the relationship between human energy and color, visualized through more than 200 photographs from the “the Annie Leibovitz of aura photography” (New York Times) and a “Dutch painter on acid” (Vogue). The prodigal daughter of a visionary painter mother and a two-time commune founding father, Christina Lonsdale was raised by her parents on a commune in Taos, New Mexico, at the dawn of the digital age in the 1990s—formative years when science (the advent of the worldwide web, the introduction of the cell phone) and spiritualism (New Age) occupied equal bandwidth. Having her aura photograph taken awoke a passion that combined her spiritual and technological interests (an aura is an energy field emanating around a living being comprised of mental, spiritual, and emotional levels; an aura camera captures the colors of the aura on Polaroid film). With her first aura camera—the Auracam 6000—she began photographing and analyzing family and friends, then in 2014, took her skills and equipment on the road. Radiant Human includes hundreds of Polaroids selected from the author’s vast archives of some 45,000 images she has taken over a six-year period. The book explores the nature of the human aura, and the notion that aura images may not only capture a person’s essence in that moment, but reveal characteristics of their overall disposition. As Lonsdale describes what all the colors suggest, considering their many variations and nuances, and in relationship to each other. To illuminate her discoveries, she shares her subjects’ stories throughout the book, sometimes accompanied by a single shot, other times by a series of images taken over a period of year. She also includes profiles of well-known people she has photographed including Chloë Sevigny, Joseph Altuzarra, Busy Philipps, and SZA. Lonsdale makes clear that we are not just physical bodies, but collections of energy as well—giving consideration to the relationship of how we present ourselves to the world and who we are as well as the potential reality of the space in between. Her aura work is a study of humanity, and the energy we radiate and receive—the good, the bad, and the weird vibes—helping us understand better who we are.

The first career retrospective by the award-winning poet Elizabeth Alexander, including her poem delivered at Barack Obama's presidential inauguration We crave radiance in this austere world, light in the spiritual darkness. Learning is the one perfect religion, its path correct, narrow, certain, straight. —from "Allegiance" Over twenty years, Elizabeth Alexander has become one of America's most exciting and important poets, and her selection as the inaugural poet by President Obama confirmed her place as one of the indispensable voices of our time. Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010 gathers twenty pages of new poetry, along with generous selections from her previous work. The result is the definitive volume to date by this American master.