Book picks similar to
Basic Principles of Classical Ballet by Agrippina Vaganova
ballet
dance
non-fiction
nonfiction
Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet
Jenifer Ringer - 2014
From the heart-pounding moments waiting in the wings before a performance to appearing on Oprah to discuss weight and body image among dancers, Dancing Through It is moving and revelatory.Raised in South Carolina, Ringer led a typical kid’s life until she sat in on a friend’s ballet class, an experience that would change her life forever. By the age of twelve she was enrolled at the elite Washington School of Ballet and soon moved to the School of American Ballet. At sixteen she was a professional dancer at the New York City Ballet in Manhattan, home of the legendary George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.Ringer takes us inside the dancer’s world, detailing a typical day, performance preparation, and the extraordinary pressures that these athletes face. Ringer shares exhilarating stories of starring in Balanchine productions, working with the famous Peter Martins, and of meeting her husband and falling in love at the New York City Ballet. Ringer also talks candidly of Alistair Macauley’s stinging critique of her weight in his 2010 New York Times review of The Nutcracker that ignited a public dialogue about ballet and weight. She unflinchingly describes her personal struggles with eating disorders and body image, and shares how her faith helped her to heal and triumph over these challenges.
How the Mind Works
Steven Pinker - 1997
He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to write in the New York Times Book Review, "No other science writer makes me laugh so much. . . . [Pinker] deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him." The arguments in the book are as bold as its title. Pinker rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas, such as that the mind is a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection, and challenges fashionable ones, such as that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1997 Featured in Time magazine, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Lingua Franca, and Science Times Front-page reviews in the Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe Book Section, and the San Diego Union Book Review
The Elements of Typographic Style
Robert Bringhurst - 1992
Combining practical, theoretical, and historical, this book is a must for graphic artists, editors, or anyone working with the printed page using digital or traditional methods.Having established itself as a standard in its field The Elements of Typographic Style is house manual at most American university presses, a standard university text, and a reference work in studios of designers around the world. It has been translated into italian and greek, and dutch.
The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle
Steven Pressfield - 2002
Pressfield believes that “resistance” is the greatest enemy, and he offers many unique and helpful ways to overcome it.
Tending the Heart Fire: Living in Flow with the Pulse of Life
Shiva Rea - 2013
Tides, breath, and blood flow in rhythm. We are born into a universe of currents, and our heart is the great conductor of the body, orchestrating our flow."The mystical foundations of all the world's spiritual paths meet in a single, sacred place: the heart of the seeker. We have reached a time when scientific understanding mirrors the teachings of the great wisdom traditions in revealing our energetic heart as the light of consciousness, the fire of love, a field of intelligence. Tending the Heart Fire, the first book by pioneering yogini Shiva Rea, is an invitation to embody our extraordinary potential at this turning point in time, to reconnect your life to the rhythms of your body and the natural world—to live in flow with the pulse of life.Weaving together wisdom from the great world traditions—including yoga, Ayurveda, Tantra, and modern science—Shiva presents an essential resource for becoming a firekeeper of the sacred heart. This diverse treasury is filled with mediations, life guidance, seasonal rituals, and daily practices, including:Insights for harmonizing with the sacred junctures of time—the daily, weekly, lunar, and solar cycles of manifestation and renewal• Aligning with the seasons—how to adapt your diet, exercise, and yoga rhythms throughout the annual cycle Ways to honor the great sacred holidays, rites, and festivals• Awakening of sahaja—the natural flow at the origins and source of yoga asana and sacred embodiment at the heart of yoga and Tantra• Skills for tending your inner fire in every aspect of life and healing imbalances that can support a renewable energy lifestyle• A visual teaching with over a hundred full-color images, including reference charts, diagrams, illustrations, and ancient poetry for inspirationThe legacy of the Heart Fire is more than eight hundred thousand years old—and in our modern world, we need more than ever to consciously reconnect to the radiant field that transcends time, space, and culture. "The direct awakening of the heart often happens when we are at a crisis point, when the armor of our heart has to crack," writes Shiva Rea. "Let us return to the power and magnificence of our hearts—as living fire, as intelligent energy and electromagnetic radiance, and as our illuminating guide toward love, creativity, and deep knowing of our true sacred nature."
Basic Music Theory: How to Read, Write, and Understand Written Music
Jonathan Harnum - 2001
The book is written by an experienced teacher using methods refined over more than ten years in his private teaching studio and in schools. Lessons are short, well-paced and enjoyable. Whether you're a beginner of any age, whether you're an experienced player who wants to bone up on your theory, or whether you teach music and need a fun way to do it, you'll find this book valuable and will refer to it again and again. You will discover how easy it is to: * Learn quickly and efficiently with easy lessons designed by a professional teacher. * Learn the symbols used in written music. * Understand the terms musicians use. * Learn the piano keyboard and the guitar fretboard. * Use memory devices to learn terms and symbols. * Use the included study guides to remember it all. * Apply what you have learned with short, easy Practical Use sections at the end of each Chapter. * Tune in to radio shows, television shows and the Internet to find musicians demonstrating great music. With Interludes On: * How to practice. Some topics: equipment, how to improve, ear training, listening, private teachers. * Conducting. What does all that arm-waving mean? How does it help? Find the answers and learn how! * Learn Some Italian. Many musical terms are in Italian. Learn them in this section. * Ultra-brief history of music notation. Special Features: * Piano Keyboard w/ Note Names * Guitar Fingerboard w/ Note Names * Practice Aids * Staff Paper * Specially Designed Reviews * Practical Use Exercises * Extensively Cross-Referenced * Musical Terms Dictionary * Book Index * If you are a teacher, you might be interested in the FREE Teacher's Supplement. It contains quizzes and keys, each with four different versions to curb cheating.
Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
Matthew Salesses - 2021
The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing—including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability—and aspects of workshop—including the silenced writer and the imagined reader—Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces?Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, "When we write fiction, we write the world."
Literature: A Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing, Interactive Edition
X.J. Kennedy - 1979
MyLiteratureLab icons are found in the margins of the text along with a list of media assets at the front of the anthology. The most popular Literature anthology continues to bring students the finest literature from fables to poetweets. The Twelfth Edition of "Literature: An Introductiuon to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing," edited" "by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, includes eleven new stories from students' favorite authors: ZZ Packer's "Brownies," Ray Bradbury's, "The Sound of Thunder," Anne Tyler's, "Teenage Wasteland," David Leavitt's, "A Place I've Never Been" and Isabel Allende's "The Judge's Wife." More than 60 new accessible and engaging poems have been added including former Iraqi soldier Brian Turner's "The Hurt Locker," Katha Pollit's "The Mind-Body Problem" as well as poetweets from Lawrence Bridges and Robert Pinsky. In addition, there are new poems from Kay Ryan, Benjamin Alire Saenz, H. D, Gary Snyder, Joy Harjo, Tami Haaland, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, and William Carlos Williams. Three new one-act plays help "ease" students into the study of this genre. The new plays include two comedies-- David Ives's, "Sure Thing" and Jane Martin's "Beauty"--as well as Edward Bok Lee's experimental drama "El Santo Americano." In addition, Milcha Sanchez-Scott's" The Cuban Swimmer "has been added." "
Found
Jennifer Lauck - 2011
More than one woman's search for her biological parents, Found is a story of loss, adjustment, and survival. Lauck's investigation into her own troubled past leads her to research that shows the profound trauma undergone by infants when they're separated from their birth mothers—a finding that provides a framework for her writing as well as her life.Though Lauck's story is centered around her search for her birth mother, it's also about her quest to overcome her displacement, her desire to please and fit in, and her lack of a sense of self—all issues she attributes to having been adopted, and also to having lost her adoptive parents at the early age of nine. Throughout her thirties and early forties, she tries to overcome her struggles by becoming a mother and by pursuing a spiritual path she hopes will lead to wholeness, but she discovers that the elusive peace she has been seeking can only come through investigating—and coming to terms with—her past.
Here is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History
Andrew Carroll - 2010
Sparking the idea for this book was Carroll’s visit to the spot where Abraham Lincoln’s son was saved by the brother of Lincoln’s assassin. Carroll wondered, How many other unmarked places are there where intriguing events have unfolded and that we walk past every day, not realizing their significance? To answer that question, Carroll ultimately trekked to every region of the country -- by car, train, plane, helicopter, bus, bike, and kayak and on foot. Among the things he learned: *Where in North America the oldest sample of human DNA was discovered * Where America’s deadliest maritime disaster took place, a calamity worse than the fate of the Titanic *Which virtually unknown American scientist saved hundreds of millions of lives *Which famous Prohibition agent was the brother of a notorious gangster *How a 14-year-old farm boy’s brainstorm led to the creation of television Featured prominently in Here Is Where are an abundance of firsts (from the first use of modern anesthesia to the first cremation to the first murder conviction based on forensic evidence); outrages (from riots to massacres to forced sterilizations); and breakthroughs (from the invention, inside a prison, of a revolutionary weapon; to the recovery, deep in the Alaskan tundra, of a super-virus; to the building of the rocket that made possible space travel). Here Is Where is thoroughly entertaining, but it’s also a profound reminder that the places we pass by often harbor amazing secrets and that there are countless other astonishing stories still out there, waiting to be found.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
George SaundersGeorge Saunders - 2021
In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.
Real Happiness: A 28-Day Program to Realize the Power of Meditation
Sharon SalzbergSharon Salzberg - 2011
Beginning with the simplest breathing and sitting techniques, and based on three key skills—concentration, mindfulness, and lovingkindness—it’s a practice anyone can do and that can transform our lives by bringing us greater resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance. This updated 10th anniversary edition includes exercises, journal prompts, and ten guided meditations available for download online and through scannable QR codes.
The Elements of Style
William Strunk Jr. - 1918
Throughout, the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help you communicate more effectively by showing you how to enliven your sentences.
This Book Will Change Your Life
Benrik - 2003
Is the year ahead looking much the same as the last? Another 365-day grind of meetings, dinner dates, and deadlines? If so, try this book.Part instruction manual, part therapy, part religious cult, part sheer anarchy, THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE will help you poke a stick in the spokes of your routine and make every day of the next year the first day of your new life.
What It Is
Lynda Barry - 2008
What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”