Drawing Us In: How We Experience Visual Art by Hilton Als, Dorothy Allison, John Berger, Mark Doty, Mary Gordon, Bell Hooks, Alfred Kazin, August Wilson

For the contributors to Drawing Us In, visual art makes us see what we haven’t seen before; it surprises, transforms, and comforts us. Dorothy Allison explains how a painting in a Baptist church taught her as a child that art connects people from disparate backgrounds. Alfred Kazin reflects on his wanderings around New York’s museums as a teenager. Mary Gordon finds that Bonnard’s still lifes put in perspective her mother’s struggle with illness and aging.

For anyone who has felt moved by the visual, this collection offers a delightful range of views on how and why art matters in our psychic, social, and political lives.