The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590514645
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains.

A Well-tempered Heart

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590516400
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Book Description
The sequel to the international best-selling novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats. Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend has recently left her and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted. One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger’s voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens. Not only does the female voice refuse to disappear, but it starts to ask questions Julia has been trying to avoid. Why do you live alone? To whom do you feel close? What do you want in life? Interwoven with Julia’s story is that of a Burmese woman named Nu Nu who finds her world turned upside down when Burma goes to war and calls on her two young sons to be child soldiers. This spirited sequel, like The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, explores the most inspiring and passionate terrain: the human heart.

The Long Path to Wisdom

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590519655
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
From the author of the internationally bestselling The Art of Hearing Heartbeats comes this charming collection of folktales that offer a window into Burma’s fascinating history and culture. Since 1995 Jan-Philipp Sendker has visited Myanmar (Burma) dozens of times, and while doing research for his novels The Art of Hearing Heartbeats and A Well-Tempered Heart, he encountered numerous folktales and fables. These moving stories speak to the rich mythology of the diverse peoples of Burma, the spirituality of humankind, and the profound social impact of Buddhist thought. Some are so strange he couldn’t classify them or identify a familiar moral, while others reminded him of the fairy tales of his childhood, except that here monkeys, tigers, elephants, and crocodiles inhabited the fantastic lands instead of hedgehogs, donkeys, or geese. Their morals resemble those of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, illustrating how all cultures draw on a universal wisdom to create their myths. The Long Path to Wisdom’s evocative stories run the gamut of human emotions, from the familiar to the shocking, and are sure to delight fans of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats as well as those newly discovering the magic of Sendker’s incandescent writing.

The Heart Remembers

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 159051842X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
The highly anticipated final book in the internationally bestselling The Art of Hearing Heartbeats trilogy, a moving story about love’s power to transcend distances and heal seemingly irreparable wounds. Twelve-year-old Ko Bo Bo lives with his uncle U Ba in Kalaw, a town in Burma. An unusually perceptive child, Bo Bo can read people’s emotions in their eyes. This acute sensitivity only makes his unconventional home life more difficult: His father comes to visit him once a year, and he can hardly remember his mother, who, for unclear reasons, keeps herself away from her son. Everything changes when Bo Bo discovers the story of his parents’ great love, which threatens to break down in the whirlwind of political events, and of his mother’s mysterious sickness. Convinced that he can heal her and reunite their family, Bo Bo decides to set out in search of his parents. A gripping, heartwarming tale that takes the reader from Burma to New York and back, The Heart Remembers is a worthy conclusion to Jan-Philipp Sendker’s beloved series.

The Language of Solitude

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476793670
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
This translation first published in 2016 by Polygon under the title Dragon games.

Whispering Shadows

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476793654
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
American expat Paul Leibovitz is living as a recluse on an outlying island of Hong Kong when the murder of a distressed American woman's son brings him out of his shell.

The Rebel and the Thief

Author: Jan-Philipp Sendker
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 163542304X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
From the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, a moving tale of forbidden love and extraordinary courage in the face of disaster. Eighteen-year-old Niri and his family live a modest but secure life working in the villa of the wealthy Benzes. But when the pandemic comes, they are all let go, and left staring into the abyss of abject poverty. As their situation grows increasingly desperate, the once rule-abiding monastery student decides he won’t wait at the mercy of a corrupt, indifferent government, and rebels against his father’s resigned acceptance. Sneaking through the locked-down city at night, past the military patrols, Niri returns to the villa to take what his family needs to survive. Waiting for him there is his childhood friend—and the Benzes’ daughter—Mary, who has a bigger plan that will change their lives forever. A universal story of love across social classes, The Rebel and the Thief poignantly shows how adversity can teach us what matters most: courage to resist, will to change, and unconditional trust in each other.

How to Be an American Housewife

Author: Margaret Dilloway
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110118924X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
A mother-daughter story about the strong pull of tradition, and the lure and cost of breaking free of it. When Shoko decided to marry an American GI and leave Japan, she had her parents' blessing, her brother's scorn, and a gift from her husband-a book on how to be a proper American housewife. As she crossed the ocean to America, Shoko also brought with her a secret she would need to keep her entire life... Half a century later, Shoko's plans to finally return to Japan and reconcile with her brother are derailed by illness. In her place, she sends her grown American daughter, Sue, a divorced single mother whose own life isn't what she hoped for. As Sue takes in Japan, with all its beauty and contradictions, she discovers another side to her mother and returns to America unexpectedly changed and irrevocably touched.

Where the Heart Beats

Author: Kay Larson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143123475
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
A “heroic” biography of John Cage and his “awakening through Zen Buddhism”—“a kind of love story” about a brilliant American pioneer of the creative arts who transformed himself and his culture (The New York Times) Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself—and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. “Remarkably researched, exquisitely written,” Where the Heart Beats weaves together “a great many threads of cultural history” (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow, Morton Feldman, and Leo Castelli were among those influenced by his ‘teaching’ and ‘preaching.’ Where the Heart Beats shows the blossoming of Zen in the very heart of American culture.

The Tell-Tale Heart

Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Publisher: SAMPI Books
ISBN: 656133115X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 22

Book Description
In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator tries to prove his sanity after murdering an elderly man because of his "vulture eye". His growing guilt leads him to hear the old man's heart beating under the floorboards, which drives him to confess the crime to the police.