The candid self-portrait of one of America's most famous ballerinas and a story of the high-pressure world of dance that brought the acclaimed dancer to a nightmare world of illness, drug addiction, and suicidal despair

Hal's summer affair with Barry Goldman ends tragically when Hal discovers he is much more committed to the relationship than his friend.

Seeking to merge the information of theologians and anthropologists, this book looks at the variety of ways in which cultures around the world deal with death and give it meaning. In some cultures, most famously Ancient Egypt, families would virtually financially ruin themselves in order to deal with the death of just one person. Other cultures such as the nomadic peoples of southern Africa, simply pull down the roof of their dwelling onto the body and move on, while the wrapped bodies in Torajan (Indonesian) houses are used as shelves. The reader is guided through such diverse areas as myths about death, belief about ways to mourn, joking at funerals, post-mortem videos, cannibalism, headhunting and royal mortuary ritual.

WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE "A compelling and important history that this nation desperately needs to hear." -Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative Chasing Me to My Grave presents the late artist Winfred Rembert's breathtaking body of work alongside his story, as told to Tufts Philosopher Erin I. Kelly. Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers, joined the Civil Rights Movement as a teenager, survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement, and spent seven years on chain gangs. There he learned the leather tooling skills that became the bedrock of his autobiographical paintings. Years later, encouraged by his wife, Patsy, Rembert brought his past to vibrant life in scenes of joy and terror, from the promise of southern Black commerce to the brutality of chain gang labor. Vivid, confrontational, revelatory, and complex, Chasing Me to My Grave is a searing memoir in prose and painted leather that celebrates Black life and summons readers to confront painful and urgent realities at the heart of American society. Booklist #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year * African American Literary Book Club (AALBC) #1 Nonfiction Bestseller * Named a Best Book of the Year by: NPR, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, Barnes & Noble, Hudson Booksellers, ARTnews, and more * Amazon Editors' Pick * Carnegie Medal of Excellence Longlist

The liberating power of anger has rarely felt so good and healing as in this complete collection of a landmark in feminist poetry."She digs her teeth into the slaveries of woman, she cries them aloud with such fulminating energy that the chains begin to melt of themselves. Reaching into the hive of her angers, she plucks out images of fear and delight that are transparent yet loaded with the darknesses of life. Diane Wakoski is an important and moving poet."--The New York TimesIn 1971, Diane Wakoski published The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems to tremendous acclaim. In the decades that followed, she wrote additional "betrayal" poems, which are now collected here in one volume for the first time. Relevant, moving--at times shocking--it is Wakoski's honesty and bravery as an artist that continues to astonish, delight, inspire, and liberate readers.Wakoski responds to betrayal in a variety of ways including fantasies such as drilling bullet holes into the bodies of unfaithful lovers. But even her anger can be winking, as in the book's sly dedication to "all those men who betrayed me at one time or another, in hopes they will fall off their motorcycles and break their necks." There is joy here because it is self-knowledge that the writer seeks, as in the collection's title poem: So some white wolves and I will sing on your grave, old man and dance for the joy of your death. "Is this an angry statement?" "No, it is a statement of joy." "Will the sun shine again?" "Yes, yes, yes," because I'm going to dance dance danceDiane Wakoski's art as a confessional, storytelling poet has rarely been equaled. Her revelations become shared emotional truth with readers. The collection's new introduction by poet and Green Mountains Review editor Elizabeth A. I. Powell gives context to the long wake of Wakoski's inspiring influence on generations of readers. Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch is for anyone who ever lost a love and wishes to embrace the freedom, rather than the pain, it can bring.

From the co-author of I Would Find a Girl Walking and an award-winning true-crime television reporter comes the shocking story of Debbie Flores, a Las Vegas showgirl whose dreams of a dazzling career ended in a nightmare… Vivacious Debbie Flores was a college educated Washington Redskins cheerleader when she headed for “Sin City.” It was a smart move for the aspiring showgirl who’d soon be making her star-making solo debut at the legendary Luxor. But after the morning rehearsals of December 12, 2010, no one saw Debbie alive again. A cryptic text message she left for her mother led authorities to Debbie’s charismatic boyfriend, Jason “Blu” Griffith. A fellow Vegas dancer, Blu was hiding a terrible secret. It involved a rental van, bags of cement, two plastic tubs, and a handsaw. When the details of the crime unfolded, everyone asked: how could a girl with such passion and promise come to an end so violent and unexpected? In time, the truth would reveal a life more tumultuous than believed—and what exactly transpired on Debbie’s tragic final day would stun the nation. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Ramon Sosa, a successful businessman and former pro-boxer, thought he had found the perfect woman. The devoted father of three, committed to rebuilding his life after his first divorce, met Maria De Lourdes Sosa (aka Lulu) while out dancing at a salsa club in Houston, Texas. She took his breath away. They began a whirlwind romance and married a year later. Shortly after the wedding Lulu, a once doting and loving wife began to change. She was now a U.S. citizen with her grandiose sights set on the American Dream for her and her children. Those plans no longer included Ramon. She wanted it all; the house, the business and the money and she would do everything in her power to get it, including having Ramon murdered. “I Walked On My Own Grave” tells the harrowing story of how Lulu, after trying to destroy Ramon’s life for months, plotted with two “hitmen” to have her husband killed. Her carefully orchestrated plan would have been successful, were it not for the quick thinking of a brave young man who Ramon had once mentored. Little did he know one day his protégé would return the favor by saving his life.

A "meticulously researched and comprehensive" (Financial Times​) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.

"The author's long-term engagement with the company has given her unprecedented access to Urban Bush Women. This Clearly contributes to her in-depth understanding of the dynamics of the company and of the choreographic processes that undergird Urban Bush Women Concert Pieces."---Sarah Davies Cordova, author of Paris Dances: Textual Choreographies in the Ninettenth-Century French Novel --