How to get value of parent?

How to get the value of a parent field? I have a books database. The author is a parent field and i need this value to make a search link. what i have is

echo '<a class="button button-block button-3" target="_blank" href="/ https://www.google.de/search?q= '.urlencode($record->title).'"><i class="fa fa-fw fa-google"></i> Google</a>';

but i need something like

echo '<a class="button button-block button-3" target="_blank" href="/ https://www.google.de/search?q= '.urlencode($record->title).urlencode($record->author).'"><i class="fa fa-fw fa-google"></i> Google</a>';