English Renaissance

Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist, arrives in Prague in the bitter winter of 1599, intent on making his fortune at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, the eccentric Rudolf II. The night of his arrival, drunk and lost, Christian stumbles upon the body of a young woman in Golden Lane, an alley hard by Rudolf’s great castle. Dressed in a velvet gown, wearing a large gold medallion around her neck, the woman is clearly well-born—or was, for her throat has been slashed.

A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture.

Mary Boleyn, ‘the infamous other Boleyn girl’, began her court career as the mistress of the king of France. François I of France would later call her ‘The Great Prostitute’ and the slur stuck. Mary would emerge the sole survivor of a family torn apart by lust and ambition, and it is in Mary and her progeny that the Boleyn legacy rests.

It's safe to say there have been countless prophets and seers throughout history, but only one Nostradamus (1503-1566). Nostradamus has become a pop-culture fixture even among those who find nothing of note in his work. He is a cult figure among those who pore through his prophecies to look for proof that he foresaw major world events centuries ahead of time.

As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain", assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "Out There...where random and organized evil erupted when and where it chose."

When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather's painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That's great news for Theo, who's struggling to hang on to her family's 200-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather's legacy of $463. There's just one problem: Theo's grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.

A shocking ancient secret. The origins of western civilization discovered. The Renaissance - our most fundamental age of technological and artistic advance, was built upon a secret passed down to a banking family in Florence - the Medici. 500 years ago that secret was buried. Florence, Italy, present day. A trove of letters belonging to the Medici family is discovered underground. Archaeologist Kat Cullen comes across a map that leads her to the Swiss Alps where her partner is murdered and she is left for dead.

A great artist of the 17th century meets his superfan from another century in a tale of passion transforming into true love and sacrifice....

In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and best-selling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites listeners on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace. He leads us through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life.

Claudie Wells wants more than anything to be a person whose imagination can fly, instead of a person whose feet are stuck on the ground. She believes everyone has a talent except for her. She’s growing up in the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City during the 1920s, surrounded by writers and poets, painters and sculptors, actors and dancers, singers and musicians. When an eviction notice threatens her family, friends, and the beloved boardinghouse they share, Claudie has an idea that just might save the day.

Following a traumatic event, a young woman with undiscovered extrasensory perception finds herself battling sinister forces determined to stop her from uncovering a long-buried and mysterious family secret. Barbara Roselia Vance excelled in high school, earned a BS degree in math, and a master's in computer science from the University of Chicago. She turned down scholarship offers to Ivy League schools to stay in Chicago to look after her cancer-stricken mother. She worked for a successful company.

In Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis and Capitalism Will Solve It: The Market Forces Catalyzing a Climate Technology Renaissance, distinguished author Kentaro Kawamori delivers a fascinating and timely exploration of the interplay between capitalism and climate change. He explains how the capitalist system helped to contribute to the current crisis of global warming and how that same system will help to end it.

In every nation, in every era of history, there are inevitably one or two places that become the symbol of the times. Mention Valley Forge to an American and it will immediately conjure up visions of a hard won fight for freedom. Likewise, the word Dunkirk said to a Briton will elicit a sense of both pride and horror at the lives lost and saved at that desperate point in World War II. For the French, and those who study their history, Versailles is a symbol of, as Charles Dickens once put it, "the best of times...the worst of times."

Angelic Essie Belle Johnson and devilish Laura Reed both agree that they need to do something to spice up their lives and earn more money. So, they start their own church on the street in front of their Harlem apartment. With Laura's gift for performing and Essie's melodious voice, the two quickly become a hit and must move their services into a renovated theater. But as their congregation grows, a host of misfits enter the scene - some honest, but others who just want a piece of the pie.

Giulia Tofana never wanted to be a nun, but she is determined to atone for her past misdeeds by making her new monastery a success. When an unexpected disaster closes the convent, Giulia is forced to turn to her old friend, Fabio Pasello, for help. Giulia still has intense feelings for Fabio, and Fabio’s passion for her has never diminished. But they are not the same people they were before. Giulia has taken her vows, and Fabio is apprenticed to Gianlorenzo Bernini, the famous sculptor, and has become one of Bernini’s rakish libertines.

Dubbed the “joy goddess of Harlem’s 1920s” by poet Langston Hughes, A’Lelia Walker, daughter of millionaire entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and the author’s great-grandmother and namesake, is a fascinating figure whose legendary parties and Dark Tower salon helped define the Harlem Renaissance. After inheriting her mother’s hair care enterprise, A’Lelia would become America’s first high profile black heiress and a prominent patron of the arts.

Hassan Clarke is a self-proclaimed ladies' man with his eyes set on the prize. With his jovial ways and gift for gab, he has managed to weasel his way into the lives of two women - his wife, Destiny, and his mistress, Imani. His mistress is a gold-digging, self-serving side chick determined to be with her married lover even if it means losing everything, including her soul, to get to him. However, after putting years of hard work and her hard-earned money into building her husband's firm, Destiny doesn't plan to forgo all the benefits without a fight.

The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, after he was forced to leave Florence as a political exile. Dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the work is Machiavelli’s advice to the ruler of Florence on how to stay in power.

Theodore’s Plate, the initial volume (the “Book”), is set during Christmas. The Book introduces us to eight-year-old Theodore, the precocious child of a peasant family that lives deep in a dense forest during the Renaissance. The Animated Christmas Special provides a deeper and broader look at the world of Theodore.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Henry David Thoreau, Walden. This is a new audiobook of Thoreau's masterpiece, expertly read by Daniel Adam Day.