A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms & S.J. Simon, for the #1937Club

Title: A Bullet in the Ballet
Author: Caryl Brahms & S.J. Simon
Publication: Library of Crime Classics, paperback, originally published in 1937
Genre: Mystery/series

Description: It is opening night of the London season for the Stroganoff Ballet, a less than first-rate company that is putting on Petroushka, when the male lead, Anton Palook, collapses with a bullet in his head, just as he should be taking his curtain calls.

Pas de Don't by Chloe Angyal

Title: Pas de Don’t
Author: Chloe Angyal
Publication: Chicago Review Press, paperback, 2023
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Setting: Present-day New York City and Australia

Description: Heather Hays has worked for years to become the principal dancer at the New York Ballet and when her boyfriend, Jack Andersen, already established as the biggest star in American ballet, proposes, she thinks she has everything she’s always dreamed about, even if Jack is sometimes condescending about her talent.

Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (aka Wintle's Wonders)

Title: Dancing Shoes
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Richard Floethe
Publication: Yearling paperback, 1980 (originally published in 1957)
Genre: Juvenile fiction
Setting: 20th century London

Description: As Rachel and Hilary’s mother is dying, she urges Rachel to make sure talented Hilary continues with her ballet. Once orphaned, the ten-year-olds are given a home by Rachel’s father’s brother Tom and his wife, Cora. Cora runs a theatrical school, Wintle’s Wonders, and does not initially plan to give a home to Hilary, "only" an adopted niece, until she sees Hilary dance and recognizes she has potential – although she does not think Hilary is as gifted as her own daughter, Dulcie, destined for stardom.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild - who is your favorite Fossil?

Title: Ballet Shoes
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Richard Floethe
Publication: Random House, hardcover, 1937 (originally published in 1936)
Genre: Children’s fiction

The 1936 Club is hosted by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.

Plot: Great Uncle Matthew (known as Gum) was a noted collector of fossils and lived in a large house on London’s Cromwell Road with his niece Sylvia, and her childhood nurse, Nana. One day he brings home an orphaned baby who Sylvia and Nana name Pauline. Soon there are two more, Petrova and Posy.  

Bookshelf Traveling - June 5, 2020

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves, and this week I have been visiting my Lorna Hill collection, which usually means traveling to the north of England or London.   I realized last weekend there are several of her books I never got around to reading, and I have been rectifying that omission.  I like her determined heroines, usually obsessed with career aspirations, who are charming but imperfect and lose their tempers regularly.

Hollywood Star (Book Review)

Title: Hollywood Star (Gloria Whitcomb, #3)
Author: Gladys Malvern
Publication: Julian Messner, Hardcover, 1953
Genre: Young Adult

this blurry cover was all I could find

Plot: Gloria Whitcomb, a talented but unknown ballerina from New York, has been cast to play Anna Pavlova in a movie, and heads to Los Angeles for the filming, chaperoned by her mother and young brother. It is hard for Gloria to leave her handsome fiancé behind in Manhattan, and she doesn’t realize the studio will want to promote her as glamorous and single. The stresses of acting for the first time before people who doubt her and being thrown into the company of handsome actors (with dubious motives) strain her performance and her relationship with Doug. Can Gloria triumph over Hollywood’s petty jealousies and stay true to the man she has loved for so long?

Audience: Young adult readers, fans of ballet fiction and of career novels

My Impressions: As a pre-teen I loved all of Gladys Malvern’s books, at least those found in the Newton and Brighton libraries. Most of her books were historical fiction, ranging from surprisingly compelling biblical fiction (Behold Your Queen, The Foreigner) to books set in colonial America. The Boys and Girls Library in Newton Corner had copies of the first two books in this series, Gloria Ballet Dancer and Prima Ballerina, and I read them many times, without knowing this third book existed until I was grown up. It is the weakest of the three but Gladys was clearly trying to convey as much as she could about the movie business for eager teens. She does a good job conveying the spite and backbiting that go on when an outsider is cast for a big part (luckily, Gloria has retained her girl next door personality and usually wins people over sooner or later), and she depicts two gossip columnists who must be based on Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, rivals who together had an audience of 75 million in their heyday.

On the movie set, Gloria is upstaged and belittled by her co-star, an actor who thinks he can take advantage of her lack of experience. She is assisted in standing up for herself by his rival, Jules Fletcher, not because he cares about Gloria but because Jules doesn’t want a rival male actor to gain in popularity. It is a sign of Gloria’s cluelessness that she never figures this out, and disappointing that her mother is too intimidated by Hollywood and Gloria’s success to provide the sensible mothering needed.

Those of us who suffered with Gloria during years of wondering if Doug Gardiner cared for her will not enjoy seeing her squabble with him or flirt with another man. It’s a little like when you think Betsy Ray and Joe Willard have finally worked out their differences and then you learn that in a book which doesn’t even exist, Betsy was flirting with Bob Baryhdt at the U*!

Anna Pavlova

Source: I obtained a copy of this book via Interlibrary Loan. Thank you to Rowan University in New Jersey for preserving and sharing it. This is one of what were called a Career Romance for Young Moderns. My library had only a handful because they were already dated in the 70s but I read them and so did @sadiestein.

* Maud Hart Lovelace always referred to the University of Minnesota as the U, so I did too. When I was about ten, some friend of my parents asked where I wanted to go to college, and when I said, importantly, “The U,” she asked, puzzled, “Which U?”