Itaewon Book Club

Itaewon Book Club is back in business! Everyone who enjoys great world literature is welcom

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Debauched, divorced and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father - comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: what happens when the opportunity doesn’t come - or worse - it comes and goes?

"Brilliant writing. Astounding. One of the best books i have read. Ever. The best fictional representation of comedy in any medium ever."
-Doug Stanhope, "Iconoclast"

"A hell of a novel. Too fucked up to miss"
-Ron White, "American Institution"

"Chaotic bliss. Vivid...electric...read like cinema"
-The Denver Post

We will discuss the entire book

special note- . . This book can be ordered and bought at Gyobo Bookstore. If you have problems finding the book, let me know.

If you have any questions or need help trying find the place please give me a call. 010- 7224-7803. Call or text. I will be available. My email is chrisjteacher@gmail.com

Itaewon Book Club is back in business! Everyone who enjoys great world literature is welcome!

What is fascism? Many authors have proposed definitions, but most fail to move beyond the abstract. The esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question for the first time by focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up “enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, to Germany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged.

The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

"So fair, so thorough, and in the end, so convincing , it may well become the most authoritative (study of the subject)...A splendid book"
-New York Times Book Review

"Timely and useful...Mussolini and ...Hitler were the prototypical fascist leaders, and Paxton chronicles their rise to power-and their global influence and ultimate fall-with brilliant economy"
-San Francisco Chronicle

"Until now there has been no satisfying account of fascism that includes a convncing diagnostic kit for identifying its symptoms...Robert Paxton steps in to restore sanity, with his view that fascism is not what was believed but what was done."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review

We will discuss the entire book

special note- . . This book can be ordered and bought at Gyobo Bookstore. If you have problems finding the book, let me know.

If you have any questions or need help trying find the place please give me a call. 010- 7224-7803. Call or text. I will be available. My email is chrisjteacher@gmail.com

Itaewon Book Club is back in business! Everyone who enjoys great world literature is welcome!

A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human Condition is a in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then--diminishing human agency and political freedom; the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions—continue to confront us today.

"The combination of tremoundous intellectual power with great common sense makes her insights into history and politics seem both amazing and obvious"
-New Yorker

"Her most important philosophical work"
-New Republic

"A great work of the mind and the imagination...She has done even more to prise open our oyester minds than she did in the 'The Origin of Totalitarianism'."
-The Guardian

We will discuss the entire book

special note- . . This book can be ordered and bought at Gyobo Bookstore. If you have problems finding the book, let me know.

If you have any questions or need help trying find the place please give me a call. 010- 7224-7803. Call or text. I will be available. My email is chrisjteacher@gmail.com

Itaewon Book Club is back in business! Everyone who enjoys great world literature is welcome!
In his final book before his death, Primo Levi returns once more to his time at Auschwitz in a moving meditation on memory, resiliency, and the struggle to comprehend unimaginable tragedy.

Drawing on history, philosophy, and his own personal experiences, Levi asks if we have already begun to forget about the Holocaust. His last book before his death, Levi returns to the subject that would define his reputation as a writer and a witness.

Levi breaks his book into eight essays, ranging from topics like the unreliability of memory to how violence twists both the victim and the victimizer. He shares how difficult it is for him to tell his experiences with his children and friends. He also debunks the myth that most of the Germans were in the dark about the Final Solution or that Jews never attempted to escape the camps. As the Holocaust recedes into the past and fewer and fewer survivors are left to tell their stories, The Drowned and the Saved is a vital first-person testament.

Along with Elie Wiesel and Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi is remembered as one of the most powerful and perceptive writers on the Holocaust and the Jewish experience during World War II. This is an essential book both for students and literary readers. Reading Primo Levi is a lesson in the resiliency of the human spirit.

""One of the most important and gifted writers of our time"
-Italo Calvino

"His magnficent last book...the condensed, poised summation of all his written work"
-The New Yorker

We will discuss the entire book

special note- . . This book can be ordered and bought at Gyobo Bookstore. If you have problems finding the book, let me know.

If you have any questions or need help trying find the place please give me a call. 010- 7224-7803. Call or text. I will be available. My email is chrisjteacher@gmail.com