A World Full Of Strangers

A multigenerational saga of an immigrant Jewish family in America—from Hester Street to San Francisco—by a New York Times–bestselling author. Katie Kovitz is seventeen years old when her mother dies. Leaving London for New York Harbor during the bitter winter of 1932, the anxious and uncertain young girl relies on the kindness of strangers for refuge. Welcomed into the home of her Polish mother’s closest childhood friend, Katie is embraced by her new family in a country warm with hope and opportunity. There, on Hester Street in the Jewish ghetto of the city’s Lower East Side, Katie finally establishes the roots that will come to define her. In New York, Katie also finds her future in three people who will change her life in ways she never anticipated: David, the man she marries, a ruthless achiever willing to abandon his heritage to secure power and prosperity under a new name; Mark, their resolute and devout son, and the embodiment of everything his father hates and rejects; and Maggie, a San Francisco beauty who helps to mold David into the man he’s always wanted to be, whatever the cost. As dreams and desires collide, and as Katie strives to reclaim her own lost identity, a series of events will forever affect the ambitions, promises, and legacies of an American family. From the prewar ghettos of Manhattan to the glittering hills of postwar San Francisco, author Cynthia Freeman follows the destinies of three generations of a resilient family, their intimate struggles, and personal triumphs, and brings to vivid life the soul and spirit of the extraordinary Jewish immigrant experience in America.

David Reid, born Rezinetsky, advances from New York's Lower East Side to San Francisco, where his success and power are countered by his wife's memoirs of ancient faith and modern suffering and his son's need for his true legacy

In traditional human societies, the stranger was a threat, to be disarmed at once by an act of force or by a ritual of hospitality. Under no conditions could a stranger be ignored or taken for granted. Yet in all great cities today, human beings seem to live out their entire lives in a world of strangers. How did it become possible for millions of people to do this? How is city life possible? The unique value of A World of Strangers lies in Loflands expert use of rich historical and anthropological sources to answer these questions. She demonstrates that a potentially chaotic and meaningless world of strangers was transformed into a knowable and predictable world of strangers by the same mechanism humans always use to make their world livable: it was ordered. Lofland offers a brilliant analysis of the various devices used at different times in history to create social and psychological order in cities, concluding with an analysis of the contemporary city, in which the location of the encounter between strangers has come to replace personal appearance as a means of evaluating others. Lofland also describes how city people initially learn and then act upon the ordering principles dominant in their society. A World of Strangers is a wonderfully wise and readable account of how we have come to live as we do.

From Governor General’s Award-winning author David A. Robertson comes the first book in a compelling new trilogy. A talking coyote, mysterious illnesses, and girl trouble. Coming home can be murder... When Cole Harper gets a mysterious message from an old friend begging him to come home, he has no idea what he's getting into. Compelled to return to Wounded Sky First Nation, Cole finds his community in chaos: a series of shocking murders, a mysterious illness ravaging the residents, and reemerging questions about Cole’s role in the tragedy that drove him away 10 years ago. With the aid of an unhelpful spirit, a disfigured ghost, and his two oldest friends, Cole tries to figure out his purpose, and unravel the mysteries he left behind a decade ago. Will he find the answers in time to save his community?

A “meticulously researched and buoyantly written” (Esquire) look at what happens when we talk to strangers, and why it affects everything from our own health and well-being to the rise and fall of nations in the tradition of Susan Cain’s Quiet and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens “This lively, searching work makes the case that welcoming ‘others’ isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it’s the surest path to the best of what life has to offer.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies In our cities, we stand in silence at the pharmacy and in check-out lines at the grocery store, distracted by our phones, barely acknowledging one another, even as rates of loneliness skyrocket. Online, we retreat into ideological silos reinforced by algorithms designed to serve us only familiar ideas and like-minded users. In our politics, we are increasingly consumed by a fear of people we’ve never met. But what if strangers—so often blamed for our most pressing political, social, and personal problems—are actually the solution? In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely. Digging into a growing body of cutting-edge research on the surprising social and psychological benefits that come from talking to strangers, Keohane finds that even passing interactions can enhance empathy, happiness, and cognitive development, ease loneliness and isolation, and root us in the world, deepening our sense of belonging. And all the while, Keohane gathers practical tips from experts on how to talk to strangers, and tries them out himself in the wild, to awkward, entertaining, and frequently poignant effect. Warm, witty, erudite, and profound, equal parts sweeping history and self-help journey, this deeply researched book will inspire readers to see everything—from major geopolitical shifts to trips to the corner store—in an entirely new light, showing them that talking to strangers isn’t just a way to live; it’s a way to survive.

Om venskabet mellem en ung hvid mand og en neger.