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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2010


WASHINGTON BESTSELLERS HARDCOVER


FICTION 1 DEAD OR ALIVE (Putnam, $28.95). By Tom Clancy


2 THE CONFESSION (Doubleday, $28.95) 2


with Grant Blackwood. Jack Ryan and his compatriots are back, taking on a cruel and powerful terrorist.


8


By John Grisham. After nine years, a man confesses to a murder for which another was imprisoned.


3 CROSS FIRE (Little, Brown, $27.99) By James 5


Patterson. Alex Cross tracks a killer taking aim at corrupt politicos inWashington.


4 THE GIRLWHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST 5 HELL’S CORNER (Grand Central, $27.99) 6 PORTMORTUARY (Putnam, $27.95) 30


(Knopf, $27.95). By Stieg Larsson. The Millennium Trilogy ends as Salander hunts for her failed assassin.


6


By David Baldacci. This fifth Camel Club entry juggles an assassin’s plot and Osama bin Laden.


3


By Patricia Cornwell. Scarpetta is pulled back into the military’s sphere of influence for a new case.


7 FALL OF GIANTS (Dutton, $36). By Ken Follett 8 THE HELP (Amy Einhorn, $24.95). By Kathryn 9 FULL DARK, NO STARS (Scribner, $27.99) 10 SQUIRREL SEEKS CHIPMUNK 12


The debut of a historical trilogy following five families through the upheavals of the 20th century.


71


Stockett. A frank chronicle of the lives of several black maids working in a town in 1960s Mississippi.


6


By Stephen King. Murder, revenge and secrets drive these four unsettling tales.


6


(Little, Brown, $21.99). By David Sedaris.Wry, dark animal tales comprise this modern bestiary.


COSTAS The opening scene of “Serenade” byGeorge Balanchine, who transformed ballet in America. Of choreographers and kings ballet from B1


to Earth to execute fancy pirouettes and intricate gambols. This is pre- cisely how ballet was born. The king in question was Louis


XIII, a contemporary of Shakespeare and Molière, and a uniquely gifted dancer. He choreographed all the ballets himself, designed the cos- tumes and assumed the leading roles in his dazzling spectacles. Often, he was seen as Apollo, grabbing at the sun. These were hardly pompous affairs: They were part burlesque, part acrobatics and filled with “out- landish obscenities.” But Louis XIII’s famous son and


heir, Louis XIV, soon raised the art to a higher level. Perhaps because he had shapely legs and a comely face, young Louis’s performances ac- quired a noble air. Magnificently staged and elaborately costumed, these were not bawdy shows. Louis XIV took dancing very seriously. Meant to convey supremacy and power, the king’s ballets becamemat- ters of state. La belle danse, in short, began as a


manly art. Learned alongside riding and swordsmanship, it became part of a man’s obligatory regimen — an adjunct to the military—and, in the process, a ballet master became as essential to a 17th-century nobleman as a personal trainer might be to a Wall Street executive today. A court- ier had to look good, after all. Danc- ing badly was not just embarrassing, it was “a source of deep humiliation.” But as one century slipped into the


next, kings lost interest, courtiers no longer danced, males ceased to play female roles en travesti, and ballet masters began to cede the stage to ballerinas. By the 18th century, the Paris Opera’s ballet dancers were all famous beauties, some of them dou- bling as notorious courtesans. One of them, Marie Sallé, transformed the art by substituting a new eroticism for the old pomp and gravitas. She dressed in skimpy costumes, writhed “in disarmingly natural ways” and moved ballet from the court to the boudoir. By the 1750s, ballet was trans-


formed again by an intellectual named Jean-Georges Noverre, who pulled it back into a serious realm.


Noverre had begun by performing withMarie Sallé, although he was 20 years her junior — much as Rudolf Nureyev would one day perform alongside an older Margot Fonteyn. Eventually, Noverre became a star in hisownright, a prodigiously talented choreographer and ballet master in Marie Antoinette’s court. It was Noverre who separated ballet from opera, establishing it as a full-fledged art, and it was Noverre from whom the ballet asweknowitwouldspring. Homans invests her captivating chronicle with a deep knowledge of what it means to move a body in novel ways. She recounts how Noverre’s successor, Auguste Vestris, instituted the exaggerated foot posi- tions that came into vogue after the French Revolution. That strictness and extremity of position altered the balletic body, molding its joints and limbs inways that would have lasting effects on dancers. A joining of the heels — the feet making a loose, informal vee, all too easy to achieve— now became a draconian straight line, which had the effect of realign- ing the knees, hips and torso. No- where was the quest for precision taken more seriously than inRus- sia, where dancers eagerly submitted to this extreme. Eventually, Russians — obsessed by the art’s architecture and phys- ics—would make ballet utterly their own. Finally, “Apollo’s Angels” proceeds to an engrossing tour of ballet in its most glorious century. Here is the masterful Marius Petipa choreographing “Sleeping Beauty” to Tschaikovsky’s flamboyant score; here is the genius Sergei Diaghilev in carnal love with his own pupil and creation, Vaslav Nijinsky; and here is the immortal George Balanchine, stealing rations in the bone-chilling cold of a St. Petersburg winter. Here, too, are Jean Cocteau’s chic sets and Pablo Picasso’s clunky costumes, and the privileged FrederickAshton com- peting against a butcher’s son, Ant- ony Tudor, to win British audiences away from the Russians. Homans explains how, for all the hardships and privations of communism, it was the SovietUnion that ultimately pro- duced ballet’s shining moment. The


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glories of the Bolshoi and the Kirov, and the emergence of one Russian star after another—Ulanova,Marko- va, Baryshnikov, Makarova, Plisets- kaya — were so exhilarating, the pride so pervasive and national, that the Kremlin itself became involved. Even Stalin was an ardent fan. As time passed, America


came to inherit many aRus- sian star, including Bal- anchine, who single-hand- edly transformed ballet in this country. Homans’s comprehensive history does not stint on this part of the story: She includes Jerome Robbins, Arthur Mitchell,


Maria


Tallchief, Martha Graham,


Fred


Astaire. A rich arc of history issues from first page to last, and it is impossible to do it justice in this re- view.


In the end, Homans’s book is as


much elegy as celebration. “In recent years,” she writes, “I have found going to the ballet increasingly dispiriting.” The art, she claims, has become all too timid, imitative and insecure. Audiences sense it. For bal- let to make a comeback, she adds, “we would have to admire bal- let again,” reach for its noble origins, grab at the sun. Never mind the gloomy


parts. It’s like a ballet, really — say, “Giselle,” “Swan Lake,” “Firebird,”


“Jewels” or “Astarte.”Nomat- ter who dies, we know that beauty, nobility of the spirit and pure love will prevail. An art that celebrates such abiding human values cannot possibly be swept away with the scenery. Or can it?


aranam@ washpost.com


NONFICTION/GENERAL 1 DECISION POINTS (Crown, $35)


6


By GeorgeW. Bush. Bush 43 reflects on crucial turning points in both his life and two-term presidency.


2 UNBROKEN: AWORLDWAR II STORY OF


SURVIVAL, RESILIENCE, AND REDEMPTION (Random House, $27). By Laura Hillenbrand


3 CLEOPATRA: A LIFE (Little, Brown, $29.99)


By Stacy Schiff. Classic sources illuminate this biography of the Egyptian queen and icon.


4 EARTH (THE BOOK) (Grand Central, $27.99) 12


By “The Daily ShowWith Jon Stewart.” A cheeky guide to the human race and itsmyriad accomplishments.


5 LIFE (Little, Brown, $29.99). By Keith Richards


RAPID FAT-LOSS, INCREDIBLE SEX ... (Crown Archetype, $27). By Timothy Ferriss


8


A brutally honest memoir by the celebrated guitarist and song writer from the Rolling Stones.


6 THE 4-HOUR BODY: AN UNCOMMON GUIDE TO 7 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN: VOLUME 1 8 GUINNESSWORLD RECORDS 2011


(Univ. of California, $34.95). Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith et al. The authorized edition, 100 years later.


14


(GuinnessWorld Records, $28.95). A new design and an emphasis on American-specific stats.


9 BAREFOOT CONTESSA HOWEASY IS THAT?


AND UNDERSTAND AMAN (Amistad, $24.99). By Steve Harvey


FABULOUS RECIPES&EASY TIPS (Clarkson Potter, $35). By Ina Garten. Stress-free.


10 STRAIGHT TALK, NO CHASER: HOWTO FIND, KEEP,


Rankings reflect sales for the week ended Dec. 19, 2010. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from Nielsen BookScan. Copyright 2010 by Nielsen BookScan. (The right-hand column of numbers represents weeks on this list, which premiered in Book World on Jan. 11, 2004. The bestseller lists in print alternate between hardcover and paperback; the complete list can be found online.)


7 2 1 4 5 7


6


Paperback bestsellers at voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm Tuesday IN STYLE: CortrightMcMeel


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS


Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881-1931)


SAM HOLDEN


LITERACY TUTOR TRAINING JANUARY 2011


SPECIAL NOTICES | The Literacy Council of Montgomery County will hold several orientation sessions for volunteers interested in helping adults learn to read, write and speak English: Thursday, Jan. 6, and Monday, Jan. 31, both at the Rockville Library, 21 Maryland Ave., Rockville, Md. Once volunteers have completed the orientation, they can select a two-part training session that fits their schedules. The next planned workshops will be held on Saturday, Jan. 15 and 29, and Saturday, Feb. 12 and 26, both from 10:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. at the Rockville Library. For complete details, call 301-610-0030, e- mail info@literacycouncilmcmd.org or visit www.literacycouncilmcmd.org. TheWashington Literacy Council, a volunteer organization dedicated to helping adults learn to read, will hold an information session for those interested in training as a reading tutor on Thursday, Jan. 6, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. This initial meeting provides information on the program and the chance to get answers to all of your tutoring questions. It also will include the first half of the mandatory one-


on-one “Comprehension andWriting Tutor Training” that will continue on the following Thursday, Jan. 13, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. All training is held at the council’s location, 1918 18th St.NW, Ste. B-2. A $50 fee (tax deductible) is requested to help offset the cost of materials (this fee is for the full training sessions only, not for the information session). For more details and to download a tutor application, visit www.washingtonliteracycouncil.org. The Literacy Volunteers of America, Prince William County chapter, will hold a two-part training session for volunteers interested in helping adults improve their reading and writing skills on Saturday, Jan. 15, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, Jan. 29, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Ferlazzo Building, 15941 Donald Curtis Dr.,Woodbridge, Va. There is a one-time fee of $35 to cover the cost of textbooks and materials. For details and to register, call 703-670-5702, e-mail lvapw@aol.com or visit www.lvapw.org. For more literary events, go to washingtonpost.com/gog/ and search “book event.”


BOOKWORLD THISWEEK


COMINGINSTYLE


MONDAY | In Mr. Hooligan, a thriller by Ian Vasquez, a drug-runner hopes to pull one last deal and then quit the game.


TUESDAY | Short, by Cortright McMeel, is a novel about a naive young man caught up in the unsavory world of energy trading.


WEDNESDAY | In The Still Point, a novel by Amy Sackville, a woman reconstructs the life and times of her polar-exploring ancestor. Adam Levin’s The Instructions is an epic novel about a 10-year-old boy with messianic ambitions. And our monthly Newin Paperback column.


THURSDAY | The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas de Quincey, by Robert Morrison.


FRIDAY | Life in Miniature, by Linda Schlossberg, is a coming-of-age novel set in 1980s-era California.


SATURDAY | The Horror! The Horror!, edited by Jim Trombetta, and Four Color Fear, edited by Greg Sadowski, bring the horror comic books of the 1950s back from the grave.


voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm


Read our blog, Political Bookworm, which focuses on books that stir the national conversation.


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