Toni Bentley

Presents the journal of Toni Bentley's life as a dancer for the New York City Ballet, her day-to-day activities, and the emotional struggles that members of George Balanchine's troupe faced.

A Dancer's Journal

Winter Season

Few women do it and even fewer will admit to it. But in Toni Bentley's daring and intimate memoir, The Surrender, she pulls the sheets back on an erotic experience that's been forbidden since the Bible and celebrates "the joy that lies on the other side of convention, where risk is real and rapture resides." From Story of O to The Kiss to The Sexual Life of Catherine M., readers have been enthralled with sexually subversive memoirs by women. But even those erotic classics didn't navigate the psychosexual terrain that Bentley does when she meets a lover who introduces her to a radical and unexpected pleasure, to the "holy" act that she came to see as her awakening. The Surrender is a witty, intelligent, and eloquent exploration of one woman's obsession that will be sure to leave readers questioning their own desires.

An Erotic Memoir

The Surrender

Karinska's costumes ran the gamut of theatrical genres, from burlesque and Broadway to Shakespeare and Moliere. As one of legendary choreographer George Ballanchine's closest collaborators, Karinska dressed over 75 of his productions. This lavishly illustrated chronicle of Karinska's life and career is filled with anecdotes from those who knew her, plus an astounding collection of 242 personal photos and costume sketches, 78 in full color.

Costumes By Karinska

A Balanchine Story

Serenade

Suzanne Farrell

The life and accomplishments of one of America's most famous ballerinas is highlighted in this monumental portrait of Suzanne Farrell, the celebrated muse to George Balanchine. (Performing Arts)

An Autobiography

Holding on to the Air

From The Story of O to The Sexual Life of Catherine M, readers have been enthralled with sexually subversive memoirs by women. Here, Toni Bentley recounts her experiences when she meets a lover who introduces her to a radical and unexpected pleasure.

Toni Bentley, a dancer for George Balanchine, the greatest ballet maker of the 20th century, tells the story of Serenade, his iconic masterpiece, and what it was like to dance—and live—in his world at New York City Ballet during its legendary era. This breathtaking book is a "unique document about one of the greatest ballets ever created…. A beautiful read” (Mikhail Baryshnikov). At age seventeen, Toni Bentley was chosen by Balanchine, then in his final years, to join the New York City Ballet. From both backstage and onstage, she carries us through the serendipitous history and physical intricacies and demands of Serenade: its dazzling opening, with seventeen women in a double-diamond pattern; its radical, even jazzy, use of the highly refined language that is ballet; its place in the choreographer’s own dramatic story of his immigration to the United States from Soviet Russia; its mystical—and literal—embodiment of the tradition of classical ballet in just thirty-three minutes. Bentley takes us inside the rarefied, intense, and thrilling world Balanchine created through his lifelong devotion to celebrating and expanding female beauty and strength—a world that, inevitably, passed upon his death. An intimate elegy to grace and loss and to the imprint of a towering artist and his transcendent creation on Bentley’s own life, Serenade: A Balanchine Story is a rich narrative by a dynamic artist about the nature of art itself at its most ephemeral and glorious.

Mavis Gallant

Malcolm Gladwell

Alec Wilkinson

Nicholas Schmidle

Rachel Aviv

Oito grandes reportagens sobre crimes da melhor revista jornalística do mundo Fundada pelos jornalistas Harold Ross e Jane Grant em 1925, a New Yorker é uma instituição norte-americana. Desde a sua fundação, a New Yorker se destacou pelo espaço que dava para os novos talentos literários, a sensibilidade fina com que analisava as notícias contemporâneas, e o rigoroso processo de checagem de dados, que até hoje é reconhecido como um dos melhores da imprensa mundial. John Hersey, Hannah Arendt, Dorothy Parker, Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger, John Updike, John Cheever e Jonathan Safran Foer são alguns dos nomes da longa lista de autores consagrados que contribuíram com contos, ensaios críticos, ou reportagens. Um trabalho, porém, é crucial para entender a gênese do livro Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker. Em 1965, quando Truman Capote iniciou a série de artigos na revista que viriam a se tornar o livro "A Sangue Frio", deu-se início a um novo gênero literário; o chamado "crime real", que nas décadas seguintes se consolidaria como um dos mais populares gêneros literários da nossa era. O livro Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker é uma seleção dos melhores artigos publicados nas últimas décadas, tratando de crimes reais, suas consequências, e o que eles podem jogar de luz sobre nossos sistemas legais, nossa sociedade, e nossa humanidade.

Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker

'Sisters of Salome' explores how four influential dancers embraced the persona of the femme fatale & transformed the misogynist image of a dangerously sexual woman into a form of personal liberation.

Toni Bentley

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