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Czech’em Out Book Club

Czech’em Out Book Club meets on the third Monday of each month with NCSML volunteer Steve Pederson in the Skala Bartizal Library following the reading of each months selected book. You can purchase this month’s book from our museum store.

About this months book: Summer Meditations

In a book written while he was president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel combines the same powerful eloquence, moral passion, and abiding wisdom that informed his writing as a dissident and playwright, with a candor unprecedented from one with the broad perspective and infinite responsibility of governing a country.

Havel, now president of the Czech Republic, addresses the legacy of Communism as the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution gives way to a more problematic reality. Yet even as he grapples with the challenges of political change, he affirms his belief in a politics motivated by moral responsibility; in an economy tempered by compassion; and in the central roles of art and culture in the transformation of society. Summer Meditations is not only a timely and necessary testament of events in Eastern Europe but a profound reflection upon the nature and practice of politics and a stirring call for morality, civility, and openness in public life throughout the world.

About the Author:

Václav Havel was born in Czechoslovakia in 1936. Among his plays, those best known in the West are The Garden PartyThe MemorandumLargo Desolato, Temptation, and three one-act plays, AudiencePrivate View, and Protest. He is a founding spokesman of Charter 77 and the author of many influential essays on the nature of totalitarianism and dissent. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his involvement in the human rights movement. Out of this imprisonment came his book of letters to his wife, Letters to Olga (1981). In 1989 he helped to found the Civic Forum, the first legal opposition movement in Czechoslovakia in 40 years; in December 1989 he was elected president of Czechoslovakia; and in 1994 became the first president of the independent Czech Republic. His memoir, To the Castle and Back, was published in 2007. He died in 2011 at the age of 75.

About the moderator, Steve Pederson

Steve is an UW Eau Claire graduate with a history major and a Scandinavian studies minor. He taught U.S. history, economics, and advanced placement American history in two Wisconsin high schools.  Living in Iowa for the past 19 years, Steve is currently employed as a tour guide for the Walter’s Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home at Cedar Rock State Park in rural Buchanan County.

Cost: Free

Would you like to join from afar to take part in this book club? Please join us on Zoom at the following link!

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85795134158?pwd=7F3mh0daxQME2pzxbxpDUIzhL6L96P.1

Meeting ID: 857 9513 4158  Passcode: 2222

By Phone: One tap smart phone: +16469313860,,85795134158#,,,,*2222# US

Details

Date:
June 17
Time:
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Event Category:

Venue

Skala Bartizal Library
1400 Inspiration Pl SW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404 United States
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Phone
319-362-8500
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