'Swan Dive is to ballet what Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential was to restaurants, a chance to go behind the serene front of house to the sweaty, foul-mouthed, psychofrenzy backstage.' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times Award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin, aka the Rogue Ballerina, gives readers a backstage tour of the real world of elite ballet - the gritty, hilarious, sometimes shocking truth you don't see from the orchestra circle. In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB's first Asian American female soloist Georgina Pazcoguin lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She pitches us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humour about the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions. Rocked by scandal in the wake of the #MeToo movement, NYCB sits at an inflection point, inching toward progress in a strictly traditional culture, and Pazcoguin doesn't shy away from ballet's dark side. She continues to be one of the few dancers openly speaking up against the sexual harassment, mental abuse, and racism that in the past went unrecognized or was tacitly accepted as par for the course - all of which she has painfully experienced firsthand. Tying together Pazcoguin's fight for equality in the ballet with her infectious and deeply moving passion for her craft, Swan Dive is a page-turning, one-of-a-kind account that guarantees you'll never view a ballerina or a ballet the same way again.

From having three top-forty hits before he was twenty, to being an in-demand studio musician recording with hit artists, Jimmy Ryan tells about his early years with The Critters, sharing the playbill with pioneers of rock 'n roll like The Rascals, The Ronettes, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Jay and the Americans; and, later, collaborating and recording with megastars such as Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, Elton John, The Doors, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart and many others. Behind is an adventure told in a series of revealing, entertaining, sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic tales that take the reader into the minds of pop stars, the shadier side of the music business, the struggle with setbacks, and the joys of success. From partying at the Playboy Mansion to panicking in a local prison with his bandmates, Ryan shares the experience of over six decades in the upper echelons of the music business. Behind is an insider's look into the people and business of the music industry. It examines how superstars and their musicians handle stress, their humanity, frailty, insecurities, and neuroses. It chronicles one musician's lifetime in the profession, sometimes in the spotlight, more often behind it, and most often in the recording studio as a composer, arranger, musician, producer, and engineer. And, though by no means a tell-all hit piece, it instead employs humor, humility, occasional touches of gentle sarcasm, and masterful storytelling to craft a portrait of those who achieved stardom, their rewards, and their excesses, the alcohol and drugs, the emotional breaks, and self-destruction that befell so many, as well as those who failed in its pursuit. Ultimately, Behind is a light hearted and joyful narrative that documents important moments in rock history. At the same time, its colorful stories and collection of personal photographs evoke memories of youth, concerts with friends, turbulent times of social change, and the delight of hits that mark unforgettable moments in of our lives. I invite you to take a first-hand look into the wonderful, often insane world of music through the eyes of a lifer, a musician who has found success and fulfillment by shape-shifting his way through a lifetime Behind the stars.

Double Take is a true account of 50 uplifting stories of personal synchronicity experienced by author Michael Clenshaw over 50 years of his life. They offer insight and hope into the purpose and relevance of these fairly rare experiences. The reader is invited to a delightful participation in the sharing of these meaningful events. Synchronicity was a term coined by Carl Jung, the Swiss Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to denote two or more meaningful coincidences. Albert Einstein once said that 'coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous'. The author has faithfully documented 50 true personal stories involving synchronistic events which have happened to him over 50 years. These events have almost always been answers to his own personal life questions although the reader is encouraged to identify with events in their own lives, which may offer them significant insights into their own inner worlds and experiences.