A tender and compellling memoir of the author's grandparents, their literary salon, and a way of life that is no more. The House of Twenty Thousand Books  is the story of Chimen Abramsky, an extraordinary polymath and bibliophile who amassed a vast collection of socialist literature and Jewish history. For more than fifty years Chimen and his wife, Miriam, hosted epic gatherings in their house of books that brought together many of the age’s greatest thinkers. The atheist son of one of the century’s most important rabbis, Chimen was born in 1916 near Minsk, spent his early teenage years in Moscow while his father served time in a Siberian labor camp for religious proselytizing, and then immigrated to London, where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx and became involved in left-wing politics. He briefly attended the newly established Hebrew University in Jerusalem, until World War II interrupted his studies. Back in England, he married, and for many years he and Miriam ran a respected Jewish bookshop in London’s East End. When the Nazis invaded Russia in June 1941, Chimen joined the Communist Party, becoming a leading figure in the party’s National Jewish Committee. He remained a member until 1958, when, shockingly late in the day, he finally acknowledged the atrocities committed by Stalin. In middle age, Chimen reinvented himself once more, this time as a liberal thinker, humanist, professor, and manuscripts’ expert for Sotheby’s auction house.  Journalist Sasha Abramsky re-creates here a lost world, bringing to life the people, the books, and the ideas that filled his grandparents’ house, from gatherings that included Eric Hobsbawm and Isaiah Berlin to books with Marx’s handwritten notes, William Morris manuscripts and woodcuts, an early sixteenth-century Bomberg Bible, and a first edition of Descartes’s  Meditations .  The House of Twenty Thousand Books  is a wondrous journey through our times, from the vanished worlds of Eastern European Jewry to the cacophonous politics of modernity. The House of Twenty Thousand Books  includes 43 photos. "This is a fierce and beautiful book. It burns with a passion for ideas, the value of history, the need for argument. As a memoir of a grandfather it is sui generis. I loved it." —Edmund de Waal, author of  The Hare with Amber Eyes "Sasha Abramsky's account of his grandfather's devotion to books and reading is a moving testimonial to the persistance of human curiosity in a world that seems to drift farther and farther from the delight of intellectual pursuits. It is a moving, instructive, astonishing account of one man's love for the printed word that all readers will appreciate.  The House of Twenty Thousand Books  deserves twenty hundred thousand readers. — Alberto Manguel “ The House of Twenty Thousand Books  lovingly recreates an intellectual milieu that was built around old books, chess games, Russian dominoes, Eastern European food, hot tea, family and long evenings spent in spirited political debate." —Michael Dirda,  The Washington Post "[Sasha Abramsky] has a knack for swimming deep in the sea of ideas... [He] offers smart, concise pocket explanations of matters ranging from the effect of 18th-century French utopianism on leftist thinking to brief discourses on methodologies of Talmud study...Drawing on numerous interviews with Chimen’s contemporaries and an impressively deep dive into the archives, the book grapples sensitively and honestly with how many of the conversations at 5 Hillway were conducted...In his grandson’s loving, but intellectually responsible tribute, Chimen Abramsky has found his posterity.” —Jeremy Dauber,  The Wall Street Journal   “An evocative, often affecting and remarkably candid chronicle of Chimen [Abramsky’s] life...One of the strategies I most admired about this book is that Sasha chooses to offer succinct essays about the ideas, historical events and personalities that animated his grandfather. Sasha is so vivid a writer that scenes linger in the memory...For anyone who cannot throw away a book, even if it will never be read and even if it ends up crowding a home,  The House of Twenty Thousand Books  is an affirmation.” —Joseph Berger,  Haaretz "Vividly written and well-researched, Abramsky’s memoir is seldom less than absorbing.” —Jacob Heilbrunn,  The National Interest "A narrative that tells the tale of the 20th century: communists, zionists, fascists, fetishists, secularists and a great scene of academic intrigue. Chimen Abramsky is a worthy subject: his unorthodox intellectual approach and his awe-inspiring collection of books are both marvels to behold. While Abramsky’s grandson writes the story of his life with subtlety and affection, he also evokes the culture of the time in all its foolishness, grandeur, earnestness and ideological disappointment." —Jeff Deutsch, Seminary Co-op Bookstore “[A] warmhearted, frank memoir...Abramsky shares fascinating stories of British intellectual luminaries like Eric