My father’s library has always been a magical place for me. As a kid, I was amazed at his ability to answer my endless questions, fix my broken toys, and tell stories of people long since dead and buried. Where did he come by this knowledge? Now I see his library for what it is, a whole life experiences and knowledge that has collected in a single room of the house. There a etchings he bought while a student in in Vienna, artifacts from his days in the military, treasures from auctions he attended in rural Pennsylvania, and endless rows of books that reflect his varied interests. Behind each book was a world of information, mythology, history, or key just waiting to be bestowed on the next one to open it. As a child and as an adult, the pull of his library would shape my views on education, learning, and what it means to be a man.

I have come to appreciate my father’s library as a window into his life and times. There are books on the American Civil War, Cold War politics, and many books from his days writing his Master’s thesis on the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of the Yugolsav Republic – which would be extremely relevant after the fall of the Communism in Europe. He is a man that surrounded himself with the heroes of the ages, great speeches, monumental events, and fantastic tales of intrigue, bravery, and treachery. From his library I have read many books. Some I’ve borrowed for an evening, some I have borrowed for years, and some have merged into my own library. Below is a selection that just might intrigue you:

Berlin Game By Len Deighton

Len Deighton novels have always been on the top shelf of my father’s library while I was a child. As an adult he told me he kept them out of reach, and out of sight of his potentially grabby and destructive sons because the Bernard Samson novels were his favorite.

When I did get around to pulling this from my father’s shelf I found some of the best writing I’ve read in years. Deighton’s characters are developed and believable without superfluous descriptions. His plots are intricate and realistic without relying on extravagance. And, most importantly to me, I feel the tone of the conversation, the tension in the room, and uncertainty of the characters commitments.

Some examples of his subtle romanticism and humor:

“Did you ever say hello to a girl you almost married long ago? Did she smile the same captivating smile, and give your arm a hug in a gesture you’d almost forgotten? Did the wrinkles as she smiled make you wonder what marvelous times you’d missed? That’s how I felt about Berlin every time I came back here.”

“Before pouring the wine, Silas lectured us about it, Chateau Palmer 1961, he said, was the finest claret he’d ever tasted, the finest perhaps of this century. He still hovered, looking at the wine in the antique decanter as if now wondering whether it would be wasted on the present company.”

“He liked skiing, golfing and sailing, and generally having a good time. Frank Harrington was waiting for retirement, something for which he’d been strenuously practicing all his life.”

“”For a month I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She occupied my every thought. I got no work done.’
“When was that?’ Dicky getting no work done was not enough to give me a reference to the date.”

It also gave me a window into how my dad was as a young man. To read books he thought were humorous, well written, and spoke to his own sense of adventure.

Out of This Furnace By Thomas Bell

This was the book my father gave to me as a teenager when he wanted me to know about my family history. As a child I heard stories of relatives I would never meet from the old country, so old that they no longer existed on the map. Although a fictional depiction of Slovak immigrants to the United States, the writing of Thomas Bell and the struggle of his characters resonated so strongly in my life that I still think about this book. It’s the story of a family, but also the story of an Old Europe and a New World.

The immigrants’ story is never a simple one. Packed with obstacles, language barriers, naivety, repeated disappointments, and hardship the immigrants gradually carved out a place in America through ambition, encouragement, and the belief in small successes. Bell’s character make such a journey as succeeding generations stand on the shoulders of their fore-bearers. This story inspired my father to know our own history better, it also motivated him in his own life – that a seemingly minor success in his own life could provide the opening for his sons or grandchildren to step through into greater prosperity and security.

The writing is eloquent and captures the uncertainty of those living in an precarious world. It held my attention and continues to hold my imagination. If anything, it can help each of us view our own stories while looking back across the wave tops of generations.

With Snow On Their Boots By Jamie H. Cockfield

My father was a student of history, which made him a student of war, struggle, and violence. The milestones of human achievement are often marked with the beginning or endings of war. As my interest in military service grew and developed from adolescence into adulthood, my father had one key and all-encompassing lesson. He strove to de-glorify war, to shine a light onto the darker aspects, and remind me that all wars destroy, disrupt lives, and kill the innocent. Jamie Cockfield’s telling of the Imperial Russian soldiers on World War I’s Western Front was part of my education.

It’s a nonfiction work, so you can imagine the arc as World War I progresses. However, the joy and horror of the book comes from the reader placing themselves in the shoes of the Russian soldiers, far from home, facing the horrors of the trenches, and learning of the fall of the Russian Empire. World War I saw the collapse of three empires and political and social movements that would churn into the storm of World War II.

This book sticks with me because it encapsulates the lessons of my father. The stories of those Russian soldiers did not end cleanly. They did’t go home to a reception of flowers and praise. They fought amongst themselves, were betrayed, forgotten, and had to forge new lives out of the clay of uncertainty. Some didn’t survive and oftentimes their individual stories had grisly and unfortunate endings. This was war and what war brought to mankind. My father never wanted me to forget that rippling effects of conflict touch places we could never conceive beforehand.

In Cockfield’s own words: “Home before the leaves fall’ the soldiers all shouted to their families in August 1914 as they marched toward an enemy who felt the same way. Both sides prayed to the same god for victory, with the equal assurance that that god was on their side. Like helpless actors in a play the script of which they seemed to have no role in writing, the leaders of the nations in 1914 helplessly played their parts as hourly Europe lurched toward war until all the major countries on the continent were sucked into a gigantic maelstrom that lasted for a horrendous 1,561 days, toppled four monarchies, destroyed a centuries-old social structure, decimated thousands of towns and villages, and left a number of dead that God alone could count. As for the misery the war caused, it cannot begin to be calculated. The dead can be buried and forgotten and the villages rebuilt, but for the survivors the mental scars could not be erased except by death.” 

Andrew Zapf is a co-founder of Pushing Horizons.
Disclaimer: All views expressed are that of the author.