I have no idea how many books my father had. A thousand? Maybe more? I do know that our small Prague apartment had crammed bookshelves on every available wall, in addition to books piled on coffee tables and my father’s desk. If he liked a writer - his favorites were Chekhov, Maupassant and Balzac - he scoured used bookstores to make sure he had every book the author had written. The “Regime” was happy to print excellent translation of any foreign writer, as long as his/her work didn’t have anything unpleasant to say about Communism. Due to the prevailing political winds, all Russian authors were available, even such former antagonists as Isaac Babel, shot by the NKVD in 1940 but later rehabilitated by Khrushchev. My father considered Babel the best short story writer ever born. Having read many of his works, I would agree…but I digress.
My point is, I grew up surrounded by books. And not just belle-lettres : there were books about psychology, economy tractates, poetry and literary criticism. From the age of about seven, most of my Christmas presents were books. Not “a” book. Piles of books, sometimes six or seven. The range was wide: there were the indispensable works such as The Three Musketeers and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea but also books on history and geography (a subject I still excel at when playing Trivial Pursuit). One of the books I recall with joy was a beautifully illustrated Czech edition of Greek legends. Its full Czech title was “The Ancient Greek Myths and Legends”. How fascinated I was with all the gods and goddesses, the heroes, the villains! Fantastic stuff!
I don’t think there was a stronger value inculcated in me as a young boy than the importance of reading, the gathering of knowledge, the understanding of the world. It has stood me in good stead all my life. Sometime in my late twenties, I stopped reading fiction and became a voracious non-fiction reader. I was (and still am) mostly interested in psychology and read anything I can lay my hands on when the subject is the human mind. I have read the works of many of the cognitive psychologists from Skinner to Beck, as well as the more “old-fashioned” analysts such as Jung and Freud. I am constantly trying to understand the world, myself and my existence and function in the world.
The preceding paragraphs leads me to the “meat and potatoes” of my thesis which is simple: I believe the world would be in much less disarray if people just read more! As soon as it became clear that something major was developing in China in early 2020, I read a few basic virology articles. I then somehow stumbled on the writing of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who wrote an excellent article warning of an impending German-style “hygiene fascism”. Like many others (but not a large enough number, it seems), I read Professor John Ioannidis’ article in the Atlantic telling us to hold our horses and not panic; the virus seemed fairly innocuous to him based on his analysis of available data. Later, in 2021, I perused the websites of the Israeli Ministry of Health and some British government health agencies. It was clear early that year that the “jabs” were not of much help, even as our senile president trumpeted their utility and magical efficacy while mandating vaccinations, closing borders and destroying millions of lives. In the fall of 2021 I was reading reassuring South African research on the new variant called Omicron, while the CDC here was still in panic mode (they don’t seem to know any other mode)
Just read! Read anything you can lay your hands on. Read about virology but if that bores you, read about archeology. Read history - probably the most interesting and useful reading of all. Do NOT read the current press which will teach you nothing but will poison your mind with propaganda. If you want to read “journalism”, read archived copies of PRAVDA from the 1930’s and 40’s. It will give you a hint on why today’s journalism is so terrible: it’s nothing but a mouthpiece.
I was lucky as a kid. My father was a writer and a worshiper of the written word. I grew up surrounded by books and it gave me a huge advantage over kids today, many of whom barely know what a book looks like. Not many households today have their walls lined by bookshelves. Still, I believe there is salvation in reading, in accumulating knowledge. Knowledge is a shield against the river of propaganda we swim in. And the way things are going, we’d better learn to be excellent swimmers!
My dad used to joke I was so tall (6’) because as a child I read so much lying down that gravity lost it’s pull on me. He also joked that we all lived WITHIN a sphere because our shoes were curved. My dad was very funny and never without a history or poetry book in his hands. The love of reading truly is a gift a father can give a child.
My dad, too, was a voracious reader, but we had no books around the house. We did, however, go to the library once every two weeks, and were allowed to check out up to 14 books, my brother and I, and we always did. Much like the previous comment, my father nicknamed my brother "old horizontal" and said of him that the only calluses he had were on his back. But from history to mystery, science fiction to fantasy, we read everything, and without judgement from my father. Thanks Dad. I don't say it often enough. You were a quiet man, but actions speak louder...... And thank you, George.