• The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

    March 2014 Book of the Month As a child, I was a big fan of fairy tales. My grandparents bought me two hard backed collections for Christmas one year. Both books had raised colored illustration plates. I remember tracing the outline of the images while I read. I savored those books. It seemed they melted more than finished. I would only allow myself one story a night. Of course, I read and reread them with child-like zeal. They transported me to a different time and space where magic thrived and evil lurked and love eventually conquered all. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker, is a contemporary novel with strong underpinnings of fairy tale romanticism. Set in Burma, it tells the poignant story of a young couple doomed to spend their life apart yet connected by the…