The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is a beautiful new novel by Jan-Philipp Sendker.

After coming across an old love letter from her father to an unknown woman, Julia, a New York lawyer, sets off for Burma in search of her father, four years after his disappearance. There she meets a man named U Ba who claims to know her father and the story of the first twenty years of his life growing up in a remote village in Burma. The novel unfolds like a long poem as he tells this story to the Julia.

This is one of the most beautifully written novels I've read in a long time. Sendker's writing transports us to the other side of the world, into the heartbeat of the tiniest creatures, even an unborn bird about to hatch from it's egg. A heartbreakingly tender and magical love story, reminding us of the possibililty of unconditional love. Highly recommended.

The Master Quilter

The Master Quilter by JenniferChiaverini is part of the Elm Creek Quilts Series. I have enjoyed some of these in the past, particularly The Aloha Quilt. This one, however, is not one of my favorites.

All the regular quilters are here, but this time they are all keeping secrets from one another and the sense of a strong group of women, coming together with a love of handwork and supporting each other through all aspects of their lives is a little lost here, although it all comes together by the end.

Still enjoyable for readers who love this series, just not Chiaverini's best.

The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn

The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell is a story of ordinary people longing for the divine and finding it in the form of a 14 year old girl at a local cafe. It shows how faith can make even the impossible seem true, and that devotees come in all forms, from loving to violent.

The novel tells of the universal search for God, for miracles, for something extraordinary in even the most ordinary of places. The story is told from four points of view and most of the time this format works. It's not the best novel I have read, but it is certainly original and thought provoking.

The Forest Lover

I had read some of Susan Vreeland's other historical fiction, Girl in Hyacynth Blue, The Passion of Artemesia, and really enjoyed it, so I picked up a copy of The Forest Lover, Vreeland's historical fiction based on the life of Canadian painter Emily Carr.

I will admit that I hadn't heard of Carr before, much to my loss. She is Canada's most celebrated female painter, although she was hardly recognized in her lifetime.

Living and painting in Vancouver at the turn of the twentieth century, she became fascinated with the native culture that existed in the wild forested areas of western British Columbia. She made friends with many native people and set out to paint their totem poles before they had all but disappeared. This was totally discouraged by polite white society at the time, and even though Carr was an extremely talented painter who had studied in San Francisco, London, and Paris, she found very little recognition of her talent in her lifetime, yet her passion never died.

Vreeland brings her story to life in this wonderful novel, and Carr's fiercely independent spirit shines through these pages. A fascinating portrait of a truly remarkable woman.

The Cat's Table

The Cat's Table, the new novel by Michael Ondaatje, is the semi-autobiographical novel of an 11 year old boy's journey from Colombo to England aboard the ship Oronsay. Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka, took a similar voyage alone as a boy, later became a writer and now lives in Canada. All these things are true of the Michael in the novel. However, all the wonderful characters who the boy meets at the cat's table (the table farthest from the captain's) are entirely ficticious.

Michael Ondaatje is one of my favorite writers. I was so disappointed with his last novel, Divisadero, that I almost gave up reading him, but I am glad I didn't. The Cat's Table is a wonderful novel. Full of the adventure of journeying from East to West, the journey as experienced through the freedom that exists only in childhood.

The novel is eloquently written and full of wonderful characters and stories woven together as only a master storyteller can do. I loved this book. Highly recommended.

Grayson

Grayson, by Lynne Cox is the true story of Cox's encounter with a baby gray whale off the coast of Southern California when she was 17 years old.

Cox is a world famous American long-distance open-water swimmer, she was the first person to swim the Straits of Magellan in Chile, and the first to swim around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, just to name a couple of her many, many accomplishments.

Grayson is the wonderful story of Cox's encounter with a baby gray as he was seperated from his mother on their migration South to Mexico. She knew he would die if he wasn't reunited with his mother.

This is her true story of their amazing journey together. This is an inspiring little book that everyone should read, about our ability to connect with all life, if only we take the time to try.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Helen Simonson's debut novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, is an unlikely love story between a retired British Major and a Pakistani shopkeeper in the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside.

The Major's quiet  life of tea, golf, and literature is disturbed when he finds himself longing for the company of Mrs. Ali, the shopkeeper who he knows very little about, but can't stop thinking of. As their friendship develops, gossip spreads, and their new relationship is frowned upon by the local village people as well as their families.

Simonson is a wonderful writer, and this novel is  full of wit and charm. The perfect read with an afternoon cuppa tea. Highly recommended.

The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid

The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid, Travels Through My Childhood by Bill Bryson, is a memoir of a very ordinary boy growing up in Des Moines in the 50's. Nothing drastic ever happens here, yet all the little details are captured in a laugh out loud journey back in time, when life was simple.

No one's parents seemed to worry about things like drinking too much, smoking too much, kids running through DDT or nuclear fallout from test sights.

Bryson makes us remember all the simple joys of childhood and long for it's simple pleasures while pointing out in equal measure the beauty and the absurdity of a time and place that will never exist again.

My guess is you might enjoy it even more if you used to be a little boy, but either way it's hilarious and worth reading.

How It All Began

How It All Began by Penelope Lively is a novel of chance meetings and experiences that create more chance meetings and experiences that alter the courses of many lives like a domino effect.

This is all based on chaos theory, or more specifically, the butterfly effect. The idea that the flapping of a single butterfly's wing in the Amazon produces a tiny change in the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done, causing a tornado on the other side of the world.

Lively's novel takes one incident, the mugging of Charlotte Rainsford, and follows the chain of events this accident causes, tracing the effect on the lives of several people that Charlotte knows nothing of. It is an interesting premise and for the most part an interesting book. 

Nothing too extraordinary here, but still an enjoyable read. This is the first of Lively's books that I've read and I would like to read others, as she is quite prolific.

The Piano Teacher

I really enjoyed Janice Lee's debut novel The Piano Teacher until the end. It tells the story of Claire, a young piano teacher from England who has just moved to Hong Kong with her husband in 1953. The Other part of the story is told from voices of expats living there ten years earlier, through the war years.

One in particular, Will Truesdale, ties the story together. In 1942 he is in love with a beautiful Eurasian socialite, Trudy Liang. Ten years later, broken by events during the war, he is having an affair with Claire.

I was transported to Hong Kong during the 40's and 50's, and the city itself became one of the main characters of the story. Lee had me hooked for most of the novel, but I felt truly disappointed by the end when so many of the characters were just left hanging, or quickly tied up.

Although it is titled The Piano Teacher, it doesn't really seem to be Claire's story, although whose it is is unclear. It's a pity, it really could have been a very good book.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

I've read several of Jeanette Winterson's novels, and was excited when her new memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, came out. I don't usually buy books in harcover, but I did this time, and I wasn't disappointed. Winterson's memior is brilliant.

She was born in Manchester, England in 1959 and adopted at 6 weeks old. She never new who her birth mother was, and always believed she was dead. Her adopted mother was a depressed, religious fanatic and Winterson suffered greatly in her new home.

She tells her story with such wit and humor, that I found myself laughing out loud several times. But this is much more than just another humorous, anecdotal memoir. Winterson plunges into the depths of her own soul in her journey of self discovery with unflinching bravery and honesty.

This is a book that will stay with me for some time. Highly recommended.