Finalist, 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
Named one of “The 10 Best Books of 2010” by the editors of the New York Times Book Review
A 2011 Choice "Outstanding Academic Title"
A 2012 American Library Association Notable Book for Adults (Nonfiction)

For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has... > Read more

Expanded paperback edition of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller features 16 pages of new material, including 3 new songs decoded.

Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one... > Read more

The remarkable odyssey of a classical guitar prodigy who abandons his beloved instrument in defeat at the age of twenty-five, but comes back to it years later with a new kind of passion.

With insight and humor, Glenn Kurtz takes us from his first lessons at a small Long Island guitar school... > Read more

This one-of-a-kind anthology features thirty-six hilarious short plays by major American playwrights and emerging new voices, all guaranteed to send readers and audiences into peals of laughter.

From the surrealistic wit of Steve Martin’s “The Zig-Zag Woman” to the biting political satire of Steven Dietz’s“The Spot,” from Christopher Durang’s wonderfully loopy... > Read more

From Anna Deavere Smith here is brass-tacks advice to aspiring artists of all stripes, in the tradition of Rilke's classic Letters to a Young Poet.

Hailed as a pioneering force in American theater for her signature documentary style of performance, Anna Deavere Smith here looks back on lessons from thirty years of... > Read more

Stephen Sondheim has won seven Tonys, an Academy Award, seven Grammys, a Pulitzer Prize and the Kennedy Center Honors. His career has spanned more than half a century, his lyrics have become synonymous with musical theater and popular culture, and in Finishing the Hat—titled after perhaps his most autobiographical song, from... > Read more