Memoir Dance

Dance Until it Rains shares the life of a remarkable lady, and in so doing, highlights the amazing lessons that each of us can learn, not only from her life, but also from our own. It is an inspirational story of love, hope, courage and overcoming the many obstacles life throws our way. It will help you to find the motivation to create a better level of wellbeing and a happier life for yourself.

If you could travel back to the 1950s with Doc Brown and Marty from Back to the Future, you’d find a simpler, more innocent time. At gas stations, attendants greeted you by name, pumped your gas, checked your oil, and cleaned your windshield—a full-service experience often taken for granted. Teens were happy and energetic, and artists sang with enthusiasm, delivering carefree lyrics like “Why do birds sing so gay?” without concern for misunderstanding.

A riveting cautionary tale about the ecstasy and dangers of loving Marvin Gaye, a performer passionately pursued by all—and a searing memoir of drugs, sex, and old school R&B from the wife of legendary soul icon Marvin Gaye. After her seventeenth birthday in 1973, Janis Hunter met Marvin...

New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary offers a “zany, relatable essay collection” (Oprah Daily), told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser. “Ann Leary is a damn delight...Read this book!” —Glennon Doyle Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a...

Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR From "one of our most nuanced thinkers on the intersections of race, class, and feminism" (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) comes a memoir "as electric as the title suggests" (Maggie Nelson, author of On Freedom). A...

Luther Standing Bear was seemingly everywhere in the course of his extraordinary life. He met Chief Crazy Horse on the eve of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, was enrolled in the first class at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, witnessed the Ghost Dance movement, toured the US and Europe with showman Buffalo Bill, and devoted his later years to Indian rights. His firsthand accounts of those experiences—and his reflections on Sioux culture, customs, and traditions—combine to make this narrative a landmark of Native American literature.

After twenty years of shiny floors, sambas, and sequins, we’re more captivated than ever by the ‘Strictly Journey’ – a contestant’s inspirational roller-coaster ride of personal growth as they learn each new routine. It’s a process that requires stamina, resilience, and an openness to total self-expression - and it teaches you as much about yourself as it does the dance. No one knows this journey more deeply than Strictly’s Head Judge, Shirley Ballas. In Best Foot Forward, she takes you on her own personal journey, sharing the tools she’s developed to live life to the fullest.

The Masked Dance is a candid personal reflection on the psychological, religious, and cultural influences at the core of domestic violence. Monica vividly conveys her spiritual battle against the entanglements of the abuse cycle while unveiling the latent messages that cultivate emotional and physical violence against women. This book opens urgently needed conversations about Christian culture and what its hidden messages say about the value of a woman’s soul versus the value of her marriage.

This is an archeological-autobiographical dig both on and off the stage into the life and mind of a now 87-year-old actor, writer, father, grandfather, ex-husband, former lover, humorist, and longtime-sober alcoholic’s thrust into and through the present-day human experience. It's not a confessional, but stories of human vulnerability abound.

Cheryl Burke has been dancing since the age of four and competing since she was 13 years old. Over several exciting seasons, she has captivated Dancing with the Stars audiences with her incredible dance performances, Emmy-nominated choreography, high energy, and bright smile. In Dancing Lessons, she takes you from her childhood years into the world of competitive ballroom dancing and on to the hit TV show.

Janka was a Polish Jewish girl, and Alberto, a Spanish Greek Jewish man. This tale reveals how love and hearts of kindness came out of the horrors of the concentration camps. In 1949, they came to Australia, bringing two cultures, 13 languages and their toddler Nina, to forge a new beginning. These two people would never have met and fallen in love, if they hadn’t survived the attempted extermination of a race in the death chambers of Europe. They knew and taught their children, that we cannot move on without forgiveness.

From Tony Award-winning director and recipient of the prestigious Mr. Abbott Award, Kenny Leon, comes a powerful memoir of the lessons he has learned on his incredible life journey. When Kenny Leon's grandmother told him to "take you wherever you go," she could hardly have anticipated that he...

In August 1982, a 30-year-old woman, Jane Goodwin, was found murdered in her Newark, New Jersey apartment. Her killer had strangled Jane until she passed out. Then, reportedly, he ripped open her blouse, posed her with her breasts exposed, and repeatedly stabbed Jane in the chest. He left no fingerprints or DNA-just a shattered, grieving family. Over the next 19 years, three other women were attacked in a similar fashion. Police eventually caught their assailant, Edwin “Ned” Snelgrove, a promising college grad with an uncontrollable desire to hurt women.

A Syria-born dancer offers his deeply personal story of war, statelessness, and the pursuit of the art of dance in this inspirational memoir.

A powerful meditation on identity and belonging, Sejal Shah explores the tension of being both invisible and hyper-visible in a country that struggles with race. The daughter of immigrants from India and Kenya, Shah wrestles with her experiences growing up in—and returning to—western New York, an area of stark racial and socioeconomic segregation. Her work illuminates how we are all marked by family and place; by the limits of our bodies; by our losses and regrets; by who and what we love; by our ambivalences and our silences.

Arguably the greatest choreographer who ever lived, George Balanchine was one of the cultural titans of the twentieth century—the New York Times called him "the Shakespeare of dancing." His radical approach to choreography—and life—reinvented the art of ballet and made him a legend. Written with enormous style and artistry, and based on more than one hundred interviews and research in archives across Russia, Europe, and the Americas, Mr. B carries us through Balanchine's tumultuous and high-pitched life story and into the making of his extraordinary dances.

Coming to terms with advancing dementia, Mary has no choice other than to move into her daughter’s home. Her daughter, Kayla, caught between her cognitively impaired mother and her belligerent teenage son, soon finds caregiving is more challenging than she imagined. Sage, the family’s golden retriever, offers comfort and unconditional love, but she has her own problems, especially when it comes to dealing with Mary’s cat.

When Lauren Kessler was 12, her ballet instructor crushed not just her dreams of being a ballerina but also her youthful self-assurance. Now, many decades and three children later, Kessler embarks on a journey to join a professional company to perform in The Nutcracker. Raising the Barre is more than just one woman's story; it is a story about shaking things up, taking risks, and ignoring good sense and forgetting how old you are and how you're "supposed" to act.

From the most brilliant and audacious choreographer of our time, the exuberant tale of a young dancer’s rise to the pinnacle of the performing arts world, and the triumphs and perils of creating work on his own terms—and staying true to himself Before Mark Morris became “the most...