The book is a combined memoir and impressionistic history of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. At first affiliated with New York's Museum of Modern Art and Cornell University, the Institute housed architects, artists and historians who worked on creative design and intellectual projects and would become world renown. Its creation and direction was in the hands of its able leader, Peter Eisenman. Besides a documentary study of the work that went on there, among an international clearing house, the book is laced with impressions of the author's experience there. It has been in the works for over 12 years and was originally financed by the Graham Foundation for the Study of the Fine Arts and has subsequently been aided by Dr. Jenny Kaufmann. The photographs of the Institute at the height of its activity are included and so does an original ground plan of its West 40th Street office done by Scott Brandi who also designed the book. It ends with 27 interviews of prominent members of the Institute who comment on it and their experiences. The book should appeal to architecture students and those interested in architecture and urbanism of the seventies when the government in the United States was more reasonable in economic and political equity.

“Lifting the veil on the shadowy world of art insiders, Costamagna delivers an entertaining reflection on the dealers, devotees, and decision makers.” —Town & Country Magazine It’s a rare and secret profession, comprising a few dozen people around the world equipped with a mysterious mixture of knowledge and innate sensibility. Summoned to Swiss bank vaults, Fifth Avenue apartments and Tokyo storerooms, they are entrusted by collectors, dealers and museums to decide if a coveted picture is real or fake and to determine if it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Raphael. The Eye brings to light the rarified world of connoisseurs devoted to the authentication and discovery of Old Master art works. This is an art adventure story and a memoir all in one, written by a leading expert on the Renaissance whose métier is a high-stakes detective game involving massive amounts of money and frenetic activity in the service of the art market and scholarship alike. It’s also an eloquent argument for the enduring value of visual creativity, told with passion, brilliance and surprising candor. “[A] rollicking and erudite tour of the art world . . . Costamagna’s candor and well-earned hubris make for an entertaining foray into the high-stakes art world.” —Publishers Weekly “As thrilling as a police novel.” —La Croix “An insider’s look at the dramatic world of attributing and dating art . . . This art world Sherlock Holmes travels the globe . . . Delightful.” —Introspective Magazine “One comes away feeling somewhat re-sensitized to beauty and somewhat nostalgic for an era when museums weren’t the selfie-stick madhouses they are today.” —The Washington Post

Do you wonder; • Why is there so much national debt? • Where has the middle class gone? • Why do my kids have less opportunity than I did? If so, this book is for you! • 97% of money is created by the banks, not by governments. • The Federal Reserve is a private bank controlled by private banks. • Adam Smith did not say an invisible hand guides the markets. • Government debt was static until the mid-1970’s and has soared since. • Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan both admitted to fundamental economic errors. • About 1/3 of an average persons’ spending is goes to banks as interest. • Corporations are using treaties to overrule nations and democracy. • The TARP bank bailouts were the biggest theft in history.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * An ALA Rainbow Book List Top 10 Title for Young Readers Three kids who don’t belong. A room that shouldn’t exist. A year that will change everything. Perfect for fans of Rebecca Stead and Meg Medina, this debut middle grade novel from award-winning author Mark Oshiro is a hopeful and heartfelt coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t fit in. San Francisco and Orangevale may be in the same state, but for Héctor Muñoz, they might as well be a million miles apart. Back home, being gay didn’t mean feeling different. At Héctor’s new school, he couldn’t feel more alone. Most days, Héctor just wishes he could disappear. And he does. Right into the janitor’s closet. (Yes, he sees the irony.) But one day, when the door closes behind him, Héctor discovers he’s stumbled into a room that shouldn’t be possible. A room that connects him with two new friends from different corners of the country—and opens the door to a life-changing year full of friendship, adventure, and just a little bit of magic. “Sometimes hilarious, sometimes devastating, but always full of heart, The Insiders carves out a space for us all to be our true selves.” —Kwame Mbalia, New York Times bestselling author of Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

The eighties were my formative years, and while other teenagers were gyrating to rock 'n' roll, we were praying for revival. We were taking communion, not cocaine. We treated virginity like a wedding present, not a cold sore. And why wouldn't we? We were told we could be, we already were, anything we wanted to be... We were armed and dangerous. Armed with the power of God and dangerous in the eyes of Satan. Tanya Levin grew up in the church that became Hillsong—the country’s most ambitious, entrepreneurial and influential religious corporation. People in Glass Houses tells how a small Assemblies of God church in a suburban school hall became a multi-million dollar tax-free enterprise and a powerful force in Australia today. Opening up the world of Christian fundamentalism, this is a powerful, personal and at times very funny exploration of an all-singing, all-swaying mega church.

A New York Times Editors' Choice Book From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America. Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family’s estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world. With spare and graceful prose, Jung Yun's O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman’s attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.