Robert Ranke Graves (7/24/1895–12/7/1985) was an English poet, translator & novelist. This edition contains a linked table of contents

Martin Simmonds’ father tells him, “Never trust a musician when he speaks about love.” The advice comes too late. Martin already loves Dovidl Rapoport, an eerily gifted Polish violin prodigy whose parents left him in the Simmonds’s care before they perished in the Holocaust. For a time the two boys are closer than brothers. But on the day he is to make his official debut, Dovidl disappears. Only 40 years later does Martin get his first clue about what happened to him. In this ravishing novel of music and suspense, Norman Lebrecht unravels the strands of love, envy and exploitation that knot geniuses to their admirers. In doing so he also evokes the fragile bubble of Jewish life in prewar London; the fearful carnival of the Blitz, and the gray new world that emerged from its ashes. Bristling with ideas, lambent with feeling, The Song of Names is a masterful work of the imagination.

In these five stories Julia Blackburn recalls the significant animals in her life and in so doing gives us a sidelong glance at the human members of her family, her painter mother and poet father. First comes Congo the bush baby, from the jungles of Madagascar via Harrods pet department. He slept in an old cap on the back of the door, and could leap about the room via the picture rails. Then there are tropical fish, tortoises, chickens, guinea pigs, foxes (the last three a combustible combination), pigs, and two very distinctive dogs, Julia's own dog, Jason, a cocker spaniel whose habits of servility and loyalty Julia's father, Thomas, was determined to undo ('He's worse than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, fawning at my heels!') and Henry, a Parson Jack Russell terrier that Thomas got after his divorce, a dog of great independence, dignity and forbearance, whom his master used to take mountaineering.This is a delightful book, wry, funny and wise, and unmistakably the work of...

The wind has always dictated Vianne Rocher's every move, buffeting her from the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie on a small Montmartre street, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Anouk and baby Rosette, safe. But the weather vane soon turns, and Zozie de l'Alba blows into their lives. Charming and enigmatic, Zozie provides the brightness that Yanne's life needs--as her vivacity and bold lollipop shoes dazzle rebellious and impressionable preadolescent Anouk. But beneath their new friend's benevolent facade lies a ruthless treachery--for devious, seductive Zozie has plans that will shake their world to pieces.

Acclaimed army scout Wink Jefford finds himself put on trial for helping a captured Apache brave to escape from Fort Defiance in New Mexico. Forced to leave in disgrace, Wink is hired to guide some settlers to the town of Tularosa, but they are attacked by Apaches led by Mangus Voya who is intent on driving the hated invaders from his lands. Wink tries parleying with the Indians but is staked out. The wife of Mangus helps him to escape for saving her son, Shinto. On reaching Tularosa he is accused of cowardice for abandoning his duty allowing the Indians to massacre the settlers. Wink is jailed by Sheriff Troy Vickery for his own safety. Shinto helps him to escape a lynching and reveals that the settlers were betrayed by a white man. Tracking down the culprit enables Wink to uncover the startling reason behind the treachery.

Bri's uncertain of whether she finds it more unnerving or thrilling that Kole, a warrior well over six feet in height and built like the hulk, watches her with hungry, covetous eyes, until the slavers who captured her toss her into his habitat with him for breeding. Then she knows it's both, but it's even more unsettling to find herself the object of desire of two six and a half foot males-particularly since Kole and Dansk seem perfectly willing fight to the death to settle which of them gets to breed her.

Winner, Lambda Literary Award!Clients and coworkers know Carmen Delallo, owner and CEO of a Chicago consulting firm for the travel industry, as a smart, engaging woman driven to succeed in business by a genuine love of her work.Judith O'Shea is focused on her work too. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she makes do in a small studio apartment in Chelsea, wondering how she will salvage a livelihood from a shrinking career as a travel agent. But career motives take a back seat when she finds herself falling hard for the enigmatic Carmen.For Carmen and Judith, falling in love proves to be the easy part. Separated from Carmen by miles, economic class, and a duty to care for her family, Judith won't allow herself to imagine her life fulfilled.Carmen's challenge is no easier. She must learn to break the addiction of her work, and also let go of the secret, unrequited love she's felt for her married best friend for as long as she can remember.

In the tradition of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and The Secret Life of Bees, this luminous, heartfelt novel explores the tragedies and triumphs, the pleasures and sorrows of two women, Tee Wee and Icey, their families, and the white family that employs them as cook and housekeeper on a tenant farm in rural Mississippi.Though the women are as different as water and wine—Icey is feisty, hot-tempered, and impulsive, while Tee Wee is more submissive and disciplined—both are driven by a passionate determination to give their children a better life. Through trying times, they are the pillars, fierce and resilient; yet they celebrate life with a love of food, music, and family that makes even the most traumatic moments endurable. The illicit love between Tee Wee’s daughter Crow and the white landowner’s son Browder; the heartbreaking death of one of Icey’s children, for which she will blame herself; the murder trial of Tee...

The paperbacks of the exciting new six-book series by the bestselling author, Kate Forsyth Book 3 – 15th-19th August, 1658: Luka and Emilia must travel to the New Forest to find the Wood tribe, whose charm is a rue flower, the herb of grace. Its power is that of plants and herbs – which can both heal and poison. On the way, the two children tangle with an impoverished widow, the thief-taker Coldham, a highwayman and a witch, and find themselves caught up in a Royalist plot to restore King Charles II to his throne.

What do you do when you’ve got a hillbilly tiger by the tail? Or maybe the question should be: what wouldn’t you do… Nikolai Vorislav likes his single life just as it is. Simple, relaxing and quiet. What he doesn’t need is some foul-mouthed Texan hellcat living in his house, eating his food, flirting with his idiot brothers and shooting holes in his home with his granddaddy’s gun. But those long legs, dark eyes and lethal tongue are making Nik insane and he fears he may be caught in the sexiest animal trap ever. Angelina Santiago doesn’t know how she got from Texas to North Carolina in a night or how she ended up in some hillbilly tiger’s house wearing only a sheet. What she does know is that she doesn’t like good ol’ boys with slow, sexy drawls who can’t seem to stop rubbing up against her. Yet in order to protect her friends, Angie has to stay with a cat who seems hellbent on finding all sorts of delicious ways to make her purr.

The first three books set in Zamonia. The mythical land created by Walter Moers, whose work has been compared to J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams, and Shel Silverstein have achieved raucous critical acclaim and created hundreds of thousands of die-hard fans here and all over the world. Now Moers returns with a fourth "relentlessly whimsical" fantasy (Library Journal).

"You have the right to remain silent." However... The fifth-grade girls and the fifth-grade boys at Laketon Elementary don't get along very well. But the real problem is that these kids are loud and disorderly. That's why the principal uses her red plastic bullhorn. A lot. Then one day Dave Packer, a certified loudmouth, bumps into an idea -- a big one that makes him try to keep quiet for a whole day. But what does Dave hear during lunch? A girl, Lynsey Burgess, jabbering away. So Dave breaks his silence and lobs an insult. And those words spark a contest: Which team can say the fewest words during two whole days? And it's the boys against the girls. How do the teachers react to the silence? What happens when the principal feels she's losing control? And will Dave and Lynsey plunge the whole school into chaos? This funny and surprising book is about language and thought, about words unspoken, words spoken in anger, and especially about the power of words spoken in kindness...with or without a bullhorn. It's Andrew Clements at his best -- thought-provoking, true-to-life, and very entertaining.

The world lies devastated after the massive oil crisis that was described in LAST LIGHT. Human society has more or less entirely broken down and millions lie dead of starvation and disease. There are only one or two beacon communities that have managed to fashion a new way of living. Jenny Sutherland runs one of these groups. Based on a series of decaying offshore oil-rigs - for safety - a few hundred people have rebuilt a semblance of normality in this otherwise dead world. But as her and her people start to explore their surroundings once again, they start to realise not every survivor has the same vision of a better future than their catastrophic past. There are people out there who would take everything they have. War is coming, and the stakes are truly massive...

The Men's Guide to the Women's Bathroom strives to answer life's most imponderable question: What Do Women Really Do in the Bathroom? When the witty and urbane Claire St. John leaves New York City and returns to Austin, Texas, she realizes that all of the good advice she has ever received has been from strangers in the women's bathroom. If only she'd listened before she'd married the wrong man and wound up on the losing end of a divorce. Swearing off men, Claire decides to take a big chance—she will quit her life as a lawyer and write the ultimate self-help book—a book detailing exactly what goes on in that most sacred feminine temple: the women's bathroom.But will the new how-to guru ever learn to take her own advice? While she's discovering the truth behind the bathroom door, re-assimilating to Texas culture by eating "nuclear" jalapeño carrots, speeding down highways through the famed Texas hill country, and even joining an ill-fated...