Laura Warrell

Nov 18, 2024 | latimes.com | Laura Warrell

In a 1976 book showcasing his career, Mikhail Baryshnikov, arguably the greatest dancer of his generation, proclaimed, “ ; you have to want it more than anything.”The relentless dedication ballet requires, and the havoc it wreaks on the bodies and minds of its students, has been an endless source of fascination for storytellers. From stage to screen to books, ballet dancers have personified the human drive toward excellence and been presented as cautionary tales of creative ambition run amok.

Jul 1, 2024 | latimes.com | Laura Warrell

Book Review Grown Women By Sarai JohnsonHarper: 400 pages, $28If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

Sep 13, 2023 | bookweb.org | Hiron Ennes |Shannon Bowring |Laura Warrell |Elizabeth McCracken

Sep 13 2023 The Fall 2023 Reading Group Guide Preview Printer-friendly versionThe American Booksellers Association’s Fall 2023 Reading Group Guide will continue as a free e-newsletter delivered to customers by email via Matchbook Marketing. This summer's guide will be sent on October 12. This guide includes the following categories: Dazzling Debuts, Family and Coming of Age, Historical Fiction, Nonfiction & Memoir, and Small Bites.

Jul 7, 2023 | yahoo.com | Laura Warrell

On my sofa watching Season 2 of “The Bear,” I suddenly got tears in my eyes. In the hit TV show, the character Sydney Adamu, a Black unapologetically ambitious sous-chef, is attempting to help the show’s hunky, emotionally touchy male protagonist transform his dead brother’s sandwich shop into a Michelin-star restaurant. Sydney was born around the year I graduated from college. We have decades between us. Her youthful overconfidence felt unfamiliar and a tad naïve. So why did she make me cry?

Jun 13, 2023 | nytimes.com | Laura Warrell

Nicole Cuffy’s DANCES (One World, 277 pp., $27) follows 22-year-old Cece Cordell as she becomes the first Black female principal dancer for New York City Ballet, a long-held dream that is occasionally frustrated by the self-doubt she suffers beneath one of the dance world’s brightest spotlights. The people she loves aren’t much help: Her boyfriend and dance partner blows hot and cold as her best friend abandons her for a new romance.