To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Using the written word to successfully capture the essence of dance in all its countless forms and intricacies is no easy feat. Bringing dance to life in a book entails connecting the reader with the movement so intimately that they can almost hear the music and clearly envision the steps in their mind’s eye.
To that end, we’ve gathered a selection of books whose authors succeed at the task, with books about dance for dance lovers interested in romance, comedy, education, history, ballet, and square dance, to name a few.
Dancing can be physical and spiritual, personal or connecting, structured and regimented or flexible and free, and we love the way these books honor the many roles dance plays for different people in vastly varied times and places. Our books about dance rise to the challenge, whether dance is on the periphery of each work, or at its core.
We at AuthorPods certainly won’t judge if the following titles induce a need to close the book and hit the dance floor.
Books About Dance
Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon
This whimsical, lyrical, and bittersweet YA novel begins with the premise that its protagonist, a young woman named Evie who is disillusioned with love, can see through a couple’s kiss how their relationship started and how it will end. Evie is made to consider the cost of taking chances on love by her bold, brash, live life to the fullest dance partner, X, who she enters a ballroom dance competition with when they’ve only just met. This is a truly charming read that veers away from saccharine happily-ever-after stereotypes to deliver a heartfelt and intelligent story about love.
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Best selling author Zadie Smith lets us into the lives of her two heroines through her signature relaxed yet poignant style, her story exploring the girls’ relationship with dance, blackness, and each other from childhood to adulthood, London to West Africa. After their lives diverge from their shared childhood dance aspirations, the women are brought back together again in a nuanced narrative that Constance Grady aptly calls “as intricate and beautiful as a ballet”.
Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina by Michaela DePrince
Michaela DePrince’s road to ballet stardom began at an orphanage in West Africa, where a picture of a ballerina brought hope and inspiration to a place where Michaela was known only as “girl no 27”. This is a truly gripping portrait of familial love, gritty determination, and the intense physical and psychological stresses of professional dance. The fact that this intimate autobiography is being made into a movie (directed by Madonna, no less) reinforces the wide-ranging appeal of the story and the inspiring grace and resilient strength of its protagonist and author.
Just Another Square Dance Caller: An Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo by Larada Horner-Miller
Just Another Square Dance Caller pays homage to famed caller Marshall “Flip” Flippo, mixing Flip’s own engaging and humorous perspective on his life’s work with a hugely entertaining retelling from author Larada Horner-Miller. Horner-Miller deftly blends humor and heart to get across Flip’s humble passion for square dancing, the offbeat charm of the people and places in this book making it a wonderful read regardless of any experience with or love for square dancing.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Any Austen novel could have fit into this list, really, given the centrality of the ball to so many of her works. During the regency era, the ball served as “the ultimate occasion for a heady kind of courtship”. Indeed, much of the relationship development between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy happens at (and in some cases during) dances, those rare times when physical contact—albeit through gloves—was permitted. How and when and why characters dance in the novel hold layers of meaning, and Elizabeth and Darcy’s entire romance plays out like an intricate dance, filled as it is with emotional tension, communication missteps, social expectation, numerous other participants, roles to be filled, and appearances to be kept.
