English Renaissance

In an age where technology advances rapidly, specialization has become the norm. Yet, amidst these marvels, the spirit of the Renaissance man—excelling across multiple disciplines—seems to be fading. Despite our vast knowledge, society suffers from imbalance, polarization, and closed-mindedness. This book argues that the Renaissance spirit is more vital than ever. It introduces the Renaissance Attitude: a bold, boundless approach to life that goes beyond specialization. It’s about lifelong growth, stepping out of your comfort zone, and serving a greater purpose.

1547: Pedro Gonsalvus, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the shiny layer of hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. There “Monsieur Sauvage,” as he is known, learns French, literature, and sword fighting, becoming an attendant to the French King Henri II and a particular favorite of his queen.

Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith. Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess became...

Merton Clivette once dominated the 1920s and 1930s art world. He ruled the Orpheum Circuit as a magician, shadowgraphist, mindreader, and acrobat. He performed in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. Clivette worked with Houdini and PT Barnum, and he inspired Mark Twain. He taught Sir Arthur Conan Doyle how to be a medium. He went by names such as Clivette the Great, The Man in Black, The Mysterious Stranger, and many others. Clivette led a remarkable life then, like the magician he was, he disappeared from the history books after his death in 1931.

Truth spoken plainly and powerfully is difficult to dismiss and impossible to ignore. Edited with purpose by A. Gregory Frankson, AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets brings together some of Canada's most influential dub, page, and spoken word poetic voices and gives them space to speak freely about their personal journeys in piercing verse and unapologetic prose. Just as individual experiences of Blackness are diverse across Canada, each contributor recounts aspects of navigating their unique personal, professional, and artistic paths in Black skin.

Defiant, eloquent, and thoroughly modern, Claude McKay’s early collection of celebrated poems is widely recognized as having helped to spark the Harlem Renaissance. In Harlem Shadows, McKay gives precise and poignant expression to the injustices of white oppression in many forms. He also paints a vivid picture of Harlem at the dawn of its rebirth and shows the tremendous vitality of the neighborhood as well as the many threats it faced.

Florence, 1500. Fresco painter Jacopo Torni longs to make his mark in the world. But while his peers enjoy prestigious commissions, his meager painting jobs are all earmarked to pay down gambling debts. When Jacopo hears of a competition to create Florence's greatest sculpture, he pins all his hopes on a collaboration with his boyhood companion, Michelangelo Buonarroti. But will the frustrated artist ever emerge from the shadow of his singularly gifted friend?

TBC

Rivalry and battle abound in this action-packed historical adventure of the English Civil War. 1643: Sir William Wallers army has been defeated on Roundway Down, his infantry left stranded on the bleak slopes at the mercy of the Royalist cavalry. Sir Ralph Hopton is now free to turn his attention to Parliaments bastion in the West Bristol. The city walls are strong enough, but Bristol has precious few men and even fewer guns with which to defend them.

When stylish young bibliophile Julia Kydd returns to 1920s New York, she’s determined to launch her own private press. Julia’s aspirations take her into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance, a literary movement unlike any she’s known - where notions of race, sexuality, and power are slippery, and identities can be deceptively fluid.

In the best-selling Warriors of God and Dogs of God, James Reston Jr. limned two epochal conflicts between Islam and Christendom. Here he examines the ultimate battle in that centuries-long war, which found Europe at its most vulnerable and Islam on the attack. This drama was propelled by two astonishing young sovereigns: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Turkish sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Though they represented two colliding worlds, they were remarkably similar.

Ramie Targoff's Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist's best friend - the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy - but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d'Este, among others.

They never knew how he did it. Few composers write more than one or two symphonies in their lifetimes. Beethoven spent a year on his shorter symphonies but more than six years on his 9th Symphony. The prodigy Mozart finished his last three symphonies (39, 40, and 41) in the span of a few weeks. His 25th Symphony took only two days.

After her husband of 15 years comes out of the closet, a blindsided, 40-year-old Amanda Lewis is forced to salvage what remains of her shattered heart and navigate a new life for herself and her teenage daughter. But will a sizzling secret romance with a famous young NFL quarterback lead her to winning the life she deserves or set her up for her biggest loss yet?

Eric Walrond was a singular voice of the Harlem Renaissance, and Tropic Death is his most famous work - a collection that highlights his particular strength as a writer of short fiction. Over the course of these ten stories, Walrond vividly details the punishing realities of life and labor across the Caribbean, and yet the overall effect is far from grim. These are unsentimental yet startlingly beautiful portraits of the migrant experience, full of distinctive voices striving for an audience in a seemingly implacable world.

Susanna Shakespeare finds the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon much too quiet and provincial. She yearns to travel to London to see her father's world of players and poets, and to follow a secret dream of her own. Once Susanna arrives in London, nothing is quite as she expected it to be - least of all her relationship with her famous father. But propelled by her love for Thomas Cole, a Catholic chorister, and her desire to sing, Susanna discovers that it is only with the support of those who love her that she has the strength to succeed.

A bold new history of Europe, from ancient Greece to the Russian invasion of Ukraine What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never...

In the fall of 1985, five freshmen from the Cleveland area - two young men from Cleveland's Woodhill Park neighborhood and three from Warrensville Heights - began their high school experience at Hawken School, a private school on the outskirts of Cleveland in Gates Mills. In the three years that they attended, the “Juice Crew” changed the way that people looked at the school as a whole - athletically and socially.

The principles of Zen can be applied both on and off the court to foster a deeper sense of focus, resilience, and inner peace. Through engaging insights, practical exercises, and meditative practices, this book provides you with the tools to cultivate mindfulness and presence during intense matches.

Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit.