A searing novel of forbidden love on the Yorkshire moors—“a British version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (The Times U.K.)—from the author of the critically acclaimed debut Wake England, 1911. At Sharston Asylum, men and women are separated by thick walls and barred windows. But on Friday nights, they are allowed to mingle in the asylum’s magnificent ballroom. From its balconies and vaulted ceilings to its stained glass, the ballroom is a sanctuary. Onstage, the orchestra plays Strauss and Debussy while the patients twirl across the gleaming dance floor. Amid this heady ambience, John Mulligan and Ella Fay first meet. John is a sure-footed dancer with a clouded, secretive face; Ella is as skittish as a colt, with her knobby knees and flushed cheeks. Despite their grim circumstances, the unlikely pair strikes up a tenuous courtship. During the week, he writes letters smuggled to her in secret, unaware that Ella cannot read. She enlists a friend to read them aloud and gains resolve from the force of John’s words, each sentence a stirring incantation. And, of course, there’s always the promise of the ballroom. Then one of them receives an unexpected opportunity to leave Sharston for good. As Anna Hope’s powerful, bittersweet novel unfolds, John and Ella face an agonizing dilemma: whether to cling to familiar comforts or to confront a new world—living apart, yet forever changed. Praise for The Ballroom “The Ballroom successfully blends historical research with emotional intelligence to explore the tensions and trials of the human condition with grace and insight.”—New York Times Book Review “Part historical novel and part romance, The Ballroom paints an incredibly rich portrait of the mentally stable forced to live in an asylum. [Anna] Hope transports readers inside the asylum, to feel the thick humidity of the stale summer air of the day room, and the gritty and brutal reality inside those walls.”—Booklist “A compelling cast of emotionally resonant characters, as well as a bittersweet climax, render Hope’s second novel a powerful, memorable experience.”—Publishers Weekly “Hope’s writing is consistently beautiful. . . . Recommended for readers who enjoy historical fiction by Sarah Waters or Emma Donoghue.”—Library Journal “A beautifully wrought novel, a tender, heartbreaking and insightful exploration of the longings that survive in the most inhospitable environments.”—Sunday Express “The Ballroom has all the intensity and lyricism of [Anna] Hope’s debut, Wake. At its heart is a tender and absorbing love story.”—Daily Mail “Compelling and masterful . . . Anna Hope has proven once again that she is a luminary in historical fiction. . . . She delivers profound, poignant narratives that stir the emotions.”—Yorkshire Post “As with Hope’s highly acclaimed debut novel, Wake, the writing is elegant and insightful; she writes beautifully about human emotion, landscape and weather.”—The Observer “A brilliantly moving meditation on what it means to be ‘insane’ in a cruel world . . . All the characters are vividly and sensitively drawn. . . . Deeply moving.”—The Irish Times

Legendary features Gerard H. Gaskin's radiant color and black-and-white photographs of house balls, underground pageants where gay and transgender men and women, mostly African American and Latino, come together to see and be seen.

A guide to general dancing skills accompanies sequential photographs and foot-pattern diagrams illustrating the fundamentals of the fox-trot, waltz, cha-cha, tango, polka, and other popular ballroom dances.

An instruction and technique quide for learning to dance the American style waltz, tango, foxtrot and Viennese waltz.

Dance your way from A to Z. An animal ABC with a difference. Join alpacas, bears, camels and a host of other animals as they conga, can-can and hip-hop the night away. Find out why the jaguar blushed and what happened to the elephants when the music stopped. Look for the musical instruments hidden on all the alphabet pages, and discover who is responsible for their disappearance. A sumptuous, playful picture book with a dash of mystery and a lot of monkey business.

Told in interconnecting stories, Ballroom is a beautifully crafted debut novel—reminiscent of the works of Elizabeth Strout and Jennifer Haigh—about a group of strangers united by a desire to escape their complicated lives, if only for a few hours each week, in a faded New York City dance hall. Time has eroded the glamour of the Ballroom, but at the end of the 1990s, a small crowd of loyal patrons still makes its way past the floor-to-ceiling columns which frame the once grand hall each Sunday evening. Sweeping across the worn parquet floor under a peeling indigo ceiling, these men and women succumb to the magic of the music, looking for love and connection, eager to erase the drab reality of their complicated lives. Nearly forty and still single, Sarah Dreyfus is desperate for love and sure she’ll find it with debonair Gabriel Katz, a dazzling peacock who dances to distract himself from his crumbling marriage. Tired of the bachelor life, Joseph believes that his yearning for a wife and family will be fulfilled—if only he can get Sarah to notice him. Besotted with beautiful young Maria Rodriguez, elderly dance instructor Harry Korn knows they can find happiness together. Maria, one of the Ballroom’s stars, has a dream of her own, a passion her broken-hearted father refuses to accept or understand. As the rhythms of the Ballroom ebb and flow through these characters’ hearts, their fates come together in touching, unexpected ways.

At the end of the 1980s, 'Voguing' suddenly entered the mainstream when featured in Madonna's 'Vogue' video, Malcolm McClaren's 'Deep in Vogue' single and the 1990 documentary 'Paris is Burning' won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Photographer Chantal Regnault spent many years capturing the emergent underground gay ballroom scene in Harlem at the end of the 1980s, from where Voguing emerged. A riot of fashion, image, poly-sexuality and a radical subversion of style, sexuality and race is vividly captured in the hundreds of amazing, never before seen, photographs in this deluxe book. The book also features interviews with key figures from the movement, essays, flyers and documents from this momentous era.