While still a teenager, Patrick Leigh Fermor made his way across Europe, as recounted in his classic memoirs, <i>A Time of Gifts</i> and <i>Between the Woods and the Water</i>. During World War II, he fought with local partisans against the Nazi occupiers of Crete. But in <i>A Time to Keep Silence</i>, Leigh Fermor writes about a more inward journey, describing his several sojourns in some of Europe&#8217;s oldest and most venerable monasteries. He stays at the Abbey of St. Wandrille, a great repository of art and learning; at Solesmes, famous for its revival of Gregorian chant; and at the deeply ascetic Trappist monastery of La Grande Trappe, where monks take a vow of silence. Finally, he visits the rock monasteries of Cappadocia, hewn from the stony spires of a moonlike landscape, where he seeks some trace of the life of the earliest Christian anchorites.<br><br>More than a history or travel journal, however, this beautiful short book is a meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude for modern life. Leigh Fermor writes, &#8220;In the seclusion of a cell&#8212;an existence whose quietness is only varied by the silent meals, the solemnity of ritual, and long solitary walks in the woods&#8212;the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear, and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away; and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world.&#8221;