I was supposed to be having the time of my life. When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer.

But as Stephen Walsh - author of the highly praised Debussy: A Painter in Sound - points out in this intensely absorbing study, there is infinitely more to romantic music than meets the eye.

Composed towards the end of the first millennium of our era, the Anglo-Saxon poem "Beowulf" is a Northern epic and a classic of European literature. In this new translation, Seamus Heaney has produced a work that is true, line by line, to the original poem.

'She [Bessie Smith] showed me the air and taught me how to fill it ... she's the reason I started singing, really' - Janis Joplin '[Jackie Kay] offers the most vivid evocation of Bessie Smith I have ever read' - Ian Carr, BBC Music Bessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894.

Nicole got married to a promising young attorney named Graham McIntosh and became a mother to a baby boy named Ian. Now, more than fifteen years later, it is Hannah who is married to Graham.

Vincent is an erudite and perceptive guide, who with energy and skill weaves history, science and reportage into an enthralling tale.' ALEX BELLOS 'Telling the story of metrology is not easy [but] Vincent is equal to the task .

An enchanting celebration of bike riding and of the rewards of seeing the world at bike level, this book gives the reader an incredible insight into what Byrne is seeing and thinking as he pedals around these cities.

Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage murder of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written.