When I was a teenager, I had a summer job at a small library in the Jewish community center in St. Louis. The librarian, Sabina Silbergeld, knew that I wanted to be a writer someday. So she drew up a list of what she considered great writing to inspire me.
Mrs. Silbergeld had grown up in Poland and moved to America before World War II. She had an Old World elegance about her, as well as a warmth and intelligence that were especially endearing.
Her list, I knew, was far more than a reader's guide to get me through the summer.
Most of the authors were long dead, and I'd never even heard of many of the books ("Pere Goriot"?). But I tucked the one-page sheet away for future reference, buoyed by her confidence in my literary future.
The list, as you may have guessed, disappeared long ago. Many times over the years, I tried to reconstruct it from memory, with little success.
I often fantasized about finding it again, especially this year, when retirement and the pandemic suddenly left me with a surplus of free time on my hands.
Then, this summer — while decluttering the basement — I came across a stack of old letters. And there, incredibly, was Mrs. Silbergeld's list.
In all, 40 novels or collections of short stories, poems and letters by nearly two dozen authors. "Don Quixote." "The Castle." "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man." "Innocents Abroad." "Madame Bovary." "Siddhartha." "Crime and Punishment." "Swann's Way."
