English Horses

Listen to these books to treat yourself to some of the cutest shots of baby animals around. It doesn't matter if they are eating, sleeping, or playing, the babies in this series are absolutely adorable. Expect to smile and laugh as you listen.

He’s racing cross-country, looking for a safe place to land. She’s dreading a future that was never her choice. They both want the same thing: to leave the past behind.

When it comes to men, Nealy is very content with her new husband, lawyer Hatch Littletree. When it comes to horses, she is never satisfied. Nobody can measure up to her standards as a trainer, not even her daughter, Emmie, who now runs the family's famous stables, Blue Diamond Farms. But returning to Blue Diamond Farms for a family reunion sends Nealy reeling. Emmie has let the farm slide, and she has picked a small, gutsy colt to send to the Derby - a nice horse but clearly the wrong one.

Abby St. Clair can’t wait to start another season with her elite riding team at her boarding school. She has something to prove after literally falling on her face during the biggest competition of the year the previous season. And she could really use a win after her mom left her family, her dad remarried, and Abby’s new stepsister, Emery, proved to be a strong rider and stiff competition. Abby wants to return to some semblance of normal but is hiding a secret: she accidentally cost her biggest rival, Selly, a chance at team captain.

Did you know that in medieval times dogs were known to have accompanied their masters into battle wearing suits of armour? Or that cows from different regions moo in different accents? Were you aware that the courtship dance of some seahorses can last eight hours? Or that an albatross flies much further in a lifetime than the Apollo astronauts did on their moon missions? In this collection, narrators Jason Zenobia, Charles King and Lawrence Keefe talk us through over 1,000 facts about birds, cats, dogs, fish, horses, insects, lizards, sharks, snakes and spiders.

An early morning adventure out stealing horses leaves Trond bruised and puzzled by his friend Jon's sudden breakdown. The tragedy which lies behind this scene becomes the catalyst for the two boys' families gradually to fall apart. As a 67-year-old man, and following the death of his wife, Trond has moved to an isolated part of Norway to live in solitude. But a chance encounter with a character from the fateful summer of 1948 brings the painful memories of that year flooding back, and will leave Trond even more convinced of his decision to end his days alone.

Carleton Brooks and Traci Brooks share their decades of knowledge, expertise, and winning ways in their first book, With Purpose: The Balmoral Standard. Carleton is a widely respected horseman, a large 'R' judge, and member of the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame, and Traci has spent more than 30 years developing horses and riders, guiding them to victory at the biggest shows in the country.

"The Rocking Horse Winner" is one of Lawrence's more popular short stories with its mixture of the supernatural and its moral lesson of the corrupting nature of the love of money. But it has nothing new to say on the subject, and without the central core of Lawrence's passion for what he is writing, it seems somewhat trite.

In the grandfathers' time, when few yet living had been born, the People worshipped the horse, and served him, and took the gifts that he gave them: his meat, his hide, the milk of his mares. But he had not yet granted to men the greatest gift of all: the gift of riding on his back, and racing the wind. Sparrow is a shaman's daughter in a tribe that forbids women to be kings, to be shamans, to be anything but silent and tractable servants to the all-powerful men.

It seems Ken can't do anything right. He loses saddle blankets and breaks reins...but then comes the worst news yet: a report card so bad that he has to repeat a grade. How can you tame the dreamy mind of a boy who stares out of the window instead of taking an exam? Enter Flicka, the chestnut filly with a wild spirit. Over the course of one magical summer, both will learn the meaning of responsibility, courage, and, ultimately, friendship.

Cowgirl Kate and her horse, Cocoa, love getting up early and herding cattle on the range. They are the closest pals, even though they don't always see eye to eye.

One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was...just beauty, you know?" John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really - but he spent two years finding out, journeying from prehistoric caves to the Kentucky Derby in pursuit of what Edwin Muir called "our long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse.

The first novel from the brilliant, protean Gary Indiana, Horse Crazy tells the story of a 35-year-old writer for a New York arts and culture magazine whose life melts into a fever dream when he falls in love with the handsome, charming, possibly heroin-addicted, and almost certainly insane Gregory Burgess. In the derelict brownstones of the Lower East Side in the late 80s, among the coked-out restauranteurs and art world impresarios of the supposed "downtown scene", the narrator wanders through the fog of passion. Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic is spreading through the city....

AD 664: Sister Fidelma finds herself in the seaport of Genua, en route from Rome back to her native Cashel. Her old teacher, Brother Ruadán, lies dying in the abbey of Bobium - an isolated abbey in a disturbed country where even the Christians are in bloody conflict with one another and the worship of the pagan gods often prevails. Fidelma is determined to see Brother Ruadán before he dies. But from the moment she enters the beautiful valley of the Trebbia, there is danger on every side.

He was named "Sham" for the sun, this golden red stallion born in the Sultan of Morocco's stone stables. Upon his heel was a small white spot, the symbol of speed. But on his chest was the symbol of misfortune. Although he was as swift as the desert winds, Sham's proud pedigree would be scorned all his life by cruel masters and owners.

Each year along the Eastern seacoast, the wild ponies of Assateague Island are driven across a narrow strip of ocean to Chincoteague. There the shaggy, untamed ponies are sold. When young Paul and Maureen Beebe rescue a drowning newborn foal, they take her home to nearby Pony Farm. Now the foal has grown into their free-spirited pony, Misty, and has been the subject of a popular children's book.

High on the slopes of mighty Mount Olympus, among the sun-splashed meadows and sparkling waters, glide the winged horses of the ancient gods. Here up high is normally no place for a lost, parentless girl like Pippa. But once every hundred years, the gods and goddesses descend to the mortal realm to choose jockeys for their winged horse race - and Pippa is one of the lucky children chosen to ride.

To a jockey, losing his license is the equivalent of being struck off, or disbarred, or cashiered. When steeplechase rider Kelly Hughes lost his license his first feelings were of bewilderment and disbelief, for he was not guilty of the charges. Nor, to the best of his knowledge, was the trainer he had ridden for, who lost his livelihood as well. When his first stunned state of shock subsided, Kelly began to wonder why he had been framed, who had done it, and how it had been achieved.

Brighty, a shaggy young burro, lives wild and free in the Grand Canyon of Arizona. He roams the steep cliffs with the squirrels and rabbits. But his favorite friend is Old Timer, the prospector who shares hot biscuits and calls him Bright Angel. One day Old Timer doesn't answer Brighty's loud "Eeeee-aw!" Instead, the friendly animal encounters a ruthless claim jumper. Will Brighty be able to bring the killer to justice and make the wilderness safe again?

Spenser is back and embroiled in a dangerous and multi-layered case. Someone has been killing racehorses at stables across the south, and Walter Clive, president of Three Fillies Stables, hires him to find out who. Spenser goes to Georgia to protect Hugger Mugger, a two-year-old destined to become the next Secretariat. Disregarding the resentment of the local Georgia law enforcement, he takes the case. Despite the veneer of civility, Spenser encounters tensions beneath the surface old boy bonhomie.