Audiobooks by Harry Bernstein

The Invisible Wall

The narrow street on which Harry Bernstein grew up was seemingly unremarkable; there was nothing to distinguish it from the hundreds of other such working class streets in the industrial north of England - save for an invisible wall down the middle, dividing Jews on one side, from Christians on the other. The geographical distance may have been a couple of yards, but socially, it was miles. 'But there are few rules or unwritten laws that are not broken when circumstances demand, and few distances that are not too great to be travelled; and such was the case on our street. And I was to play an important part, unwittingly, in what happened...' THE INVISIBLE WALL is the enchanting, true story of Harry's childhood in the mill town of Stockport in the shadow of the First World War. It's a wonderfully charming - and powerfully moving - tale of working class life, of social divide and of forbidden love...

Harry Bernstein (Author), Sam Kelly (Narrator)

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The Golden Willow: The Story of a Lifetime of Love

“The golden willow was the first tree we had planted when we came here to live, and Ruby and I had good reason for doing that. Only it was a secret that we kept to ourselves.” Harry Bernstein started chronicling his life at the age of ninety-four, after the death of his beloved wife, Ruby. In his first book, The Invisible Wall, he told a haunting story of forbidden love in World War I–era England. Then Bernstein wrote The Dream, the touching tale of his family’s immigrant experience in Depression-era Chicago and New York. Now Bernstein completes the saga with The Golden Willow, a heart-lifting memoir of his life with Ruby, a romance that lasted nearly seventy years. They met at a dance at New York’s legendary Webster Hall, fell instantly and madly in love, and embarked on a rich and rewarding life together. From their first tiny rented room on the Upper West Side to their years in Greenwich Village, immersed in the art scene, surrounded by dancers, musicians, and writers, to their life in the newly burgeoning suburbs, Harry and Ruby pursued the American dream with gusto, much as Harry’s late mother would have wanted. Together, through a depression, a world war, and the McCarthy era, through job losses and race riots and the joyous births of their two children, Harry and Ruby weathered much and shared an incredible love. But then the inevitable happened. One of them had to go first. When Ruby was ninety-one, she contracted leukemia and died. Alone for the first time in his life, Harry felt the loss acutely and terribly, and for a long while, despite continued good health, he was uncertain about whether he could go on without Ruby. It was then that he turned to the past for solace—and ended up fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a published author. Delightful and hopeful, tender and moving, The Golden Willow is Harry’s tribute to his beloved Ruby, to their long, happy life together, to the impact her parting had on his heart and his soul, and to the surprises and unexpected pleasures that continue to await him.

Harry Bernstein (Author), Mike Kellogg (Narrator)

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The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers

This enchanting true story, written when the author was ninety-three, is a moving tale of working-class life, social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the first World War. The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods-except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other. The geographical distance may have been yards, but socially, it was miles. Families on either side did not speak or meet. But when Harry's older sister fell for the boy across the street, Harry became a go-between for the lovers, crossing the great divide to hide their secret. When the truth inevitably came out, Harry had to decide, at a very young age, what he believed was morally right. "Young Harry serves as a wide-eyed guide to a world since dismantled....True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that illuminate the tale....Yet when major world events touch the poverty-stricken block, the individual coming-of-age is intensified without being trivialized, and the conversational account takes on the heft of a historical novel with stirring success."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Harry Bernstein (Author), John Lee (Narrator)

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