8. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, Published 1960 by Simon & Schuster.

 You didn’t think the list would be all fiction, did you? We’re moving in to my high school years here. Of course, in my generation, all our dads and uncles fought in, or at least were part of, World War II. Our moms and aunts were almost all “Rosie the Riveters”. It’s hard to overstate how omnipresent the war was to someone born and raised in the 50’s. One could start on page 1 of this massive history knowing nothing about Nazi Germany and finish 1000 pages later and have a pretty passable understanding. Shirer was there and saw first hand how a supposedly civilized nation could descend into barbarity. Lesson learned? One can only hope so, although recent events give pause for concern.

5. Voyage, by Sterling Hayden, Published 1976 by Putnam.

Yes, Sterling Hayden, the New York Police Officer shot in the head, by Michael Corleone while eating a spaghetti dinner. Sterling Hayden was an author as well as an actor. I recently reread this book after 40 years plus. And I’m still not sure why this book affected me so profoundly. It just did. I got completely immersed in it when I read it at 25 and again when I reread it at 65. A good story is a good story. Enough said!

2. The Gormenghast Trilogy, by Mervyn Peake, published 1946, 1950 and 1959 by Eyre & Spottiswoode.

One final multivolume cheat on my list. As an undergrad, I came across volume one (Titus Groan, later followed by Gormenghast, and Titus Alone) in the college book store at the University of Illinois. I was drawn to and intrigued by the artwork on the cover so I bought it. (In those days I’m guessing a paperback was about $1.95). Not nearly as well known as the much more famous trilogy by Tolkien, in my opinion it’s even more engrossing. (And if this list was stretched to 20, I’d certainly include The Lord of the Rings series). I remember a review quoted in my paperback copy described “… shimmering nets of language…”. Certainly an apt description of Peake’s skill as a writer. Again, one cannot help but become completely immersed in Peake’s gothic, bizarre, and fantastic world, all set in a crumbling castle called Gormenghast.

1. A Soldier of the Great War, by Mark Helprin, Published 1991 by Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.

So here’s my No. 1 all time favorite book. Before the internet and Amazon, there was a thing called “Book of the Month Club”. Every month you’d get a little booklet in the mail that included the editor’s selection of a “book of the month”. If you didn’t mail back a little card rejecting it, you’d automatically get that book a few weeks later. Well, sometime in 1991, I failed to mail back the rejection card… and, in retrospect, thank God I forgot. A few weeks later, “A Soldier of the Great War” arrived. 800 plus pages. I wasn’t up to the effort to mail it back and it looked half way interesting so I started reading. And I’ve reread it three times since.

Helprin is an author absolutely drunk on the English language. Not only is it a first class, rousing adventure novel, but it is also an amazing philosophy text with a heaping dose of absolute poetry for good measure. A book that will likely make you laugh, cry, and certainly ponder the meaning of life, love and beauty.

I could have included several other Helprin books… Winter’s Tale, or Refiner’s Fire for example, but A Soldier of the Great War stands out. If my sons had not already been born, at least one would have been named “Alessandro”.

I still can’t believe someone hasn’t made a movie out of it. (By the way, I wouldn’t waste my time on the movie version of Winter’s Tale. Unfortunately it’s one of the lesser adaptations of a great, great novel.)