A World Full of Strangers

I'm just coming to the end of my current 'good read', and what a good read it has been. A World Full of Strangers by Cynthia Freeman ia a book that you can get your teeth into, all 631 pages of it, and it tells the story of David and Katie Rezinetsky, following their lives from the Hester Street in the New York ghettos to top-drawer life in a blossoming San Fransisco of the mid to late 1940's.

Cynthia Freeman was an American novelist, born in New York City, where, as a young girl, she began writing books but abandoned writing to pursue a career running an interior decoration business. When poor health forced her to give up her business, she decided to dust off an old manuscript from childhood but discovered the cleaning lady had thrown it out. From memory, she rewrote the story.

Ms Freeman, who died in 1988, specialized in multi-generational stories of Jewish families, centering on a female protagonist. Her novel, "No Time For Tears," was No.10 on the list of bestselling novels in the United States for 1981 as determined by the New York Times. Her books were translated into thirty-three languages, selling more than twenty million copies worldwide.

This is a book which, though published in 1975, is as much a good read today as it ever was, and I can thoroughly recommend it as a book that you'll be reluctant to put down once you get into it. You'll probably have to hunt on Amazon or similar for a copy, and I have seen them advertised for as little as 54p in the UK or $1.00 in the USA. Have a look via this link.