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E-Books
Available for Free Download
Our hope is obviously that those who take advantage of this page will feel
incited by the magnanimity of the offers below to make a small, fully tax-exempt
contribution. The word "free" is used in entirely good
faith--yet if it stirs a mild "guilt trip", relief is as close as the make
a donation button in the menu. On the other hand, we are quite aware
that some who might be sympathetic to our cause but know rather little of if--or
who simply have very limited resources--would avail themselves of our
publications only if no expense were involved. We are primarily devoted to
the literary life of open, mature, informed inquiry and tasteful
creativity. Insofar as we can spend our pennies making our reflections and
creations accessible to the world, we have accomplished our mission.
Eventually, we plan to offer works on this page which have essentially
assembled contributions to our journal Praesidium
on a certain theme or issue. The labor of assembly is not as forthright as
it may seem, however: the necessary editing and programming will consume several
months. In the meantime, The Center's president has volunteered two works
that advance our ends of promoting thoughtful creativity (in this case, the
psychological novel) and impartial socio-cultural commentary (in this case, the
role of racial prejudice in American sports). It is our fervent hope that
many more publications will come available by summer of 2009.
Each
title below is linked to a PDF file. A dialog box will ask if you
wish
to open the file or save it. Unless
you wish merely to read parts
of
the book online, click SAVE and designate the location on your
personal
computer to which you would like the book downloaded.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema,
The Favourite Poet. Courtesy of the Art Renewal Center at www.artrenewal.org.
Key to a Cold City
is a very large file (about 30 MB) due to the number of photos contained
therein, and may require several minutes to download.
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Footprints in the Snow of the Moon PDF
John R. Harris
Third Edition
ISBN 0-9676054-6-6
This
novel was first published in 2004 and again in 2005, through an "on
demand" publisher both times. Funds were lacking to promote it,
and gross mismanagement crippled its distribution despite a distinctly
positive response from reviewers. The
theme of Footprints has seldom been addressed, either in fiction or
in social commentary. The novel
ponders the anguish of a middle-American youth of traditional values and
"stodgy" upbringing as he searches for honor and higher purpose in
a generation dedicated to pleasures of the moment. The "new
church" of guitars and ballad-singing and the Old Guard of money and
social status do NOT light the way to virtue through the wilds of free sex
and cutthroat careerism. A love story vaguely reminiscent of Manon
Lescaut involves the young man in well-intended but sometimes
fantastical commitments to a lovely but "damaged" girl who divides
him insurmountably from his mother. In the end, salvation requires a
level of "manly" sacrifice that partakes of lunacy, its doctrine
preached neither by the footloose hedonism of the Seventies nor by the
low-risk respectability of the Fifties.
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Key
to a Cold City
How
the Generation of Black Ballplayers After Jackie Robinson Was Restrained
in the Big Leagues PDF
John R. Harris
ISBN 0-9676054-8-2
Several
years in the writing, this study begins in the author's casual review of
some baseball cards he collected as a boy. That some players catch
fire while others fizzle out is a baseball truism; but a number of
spectacularly successful black players, especially, from the early 1960s
would subsequently nosedive into obscurity. His curiosity over the fate of
such players led the author to devise several statistical measurements by
way of determining if racial prejudice seemed to hold part of the
answer. The results were mixed, but certainly suggested unequal
treatment in some cases. Yet another section of the book supplements
these findings with anecdotal evidence, much of it from the players' own
testimony Key
to a Cold City is not a facile, predictable indictment of racism.
Indeed, the reader will probably be shocked at the subtle conclusion that
the white establishment closed ranks against a Negro League style of play
that it regarded as too "wild" by placing a premium on the home
run--a strategy which elevated a few black players to national celebrity
but stifled far more.
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