PECKERWOOD BOOK CLUB: What Are Your Favorite Love Stories? Plus "The Art Of Hearing Heartbeats!"

Welcome, book hors, to another lively edition of The Peckerwood Book Club, because you can't always be prostituting about the manse looking for love in all the wrong places (give it a rest, trick!) (and wash it off!). Sometimes it's nice to look for love between the pages of a good book, don't you think? I'm not necessarily talking about frothy bodice rippers, though they have their place, too, but contemporary, historical, literary and classic romance, from "Pride and Prejudice" to "Tom Lake" and everything iteration in-between. 

What are your favorite love stories, or novels that truly made you swoon? For my part, a friend recently recommended "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" by Jan-Philipp Sendker, which was first published in Germany by the former Asian news correspondent-turned-novelist. Once it was translated for English readers, it became an instant best-seller in North America, and after only a few chapters, I understood why. 

In this fascinating and absorbing novel, we meet Julie, a cynical Burmese-American lawyer who's determined to find Tin Win, her long-missing, Wall Street businessman father whom police suspect was murdered, perhaps by Julie herself.  Continuing her search, and finding herself in a small Burmese village, she meets U Ba, an aging man who not only recognizes Julie on sight, which understandably spooks her, he knows everything about her life. He also tells her about Tin’s childhood and young adulthood in mid-20th century Burma, and the seemingly mystical course of events which changed his life forever. With its spellbinding flashbacks and urgent present-day drama, "The Art Of Hearing Heartbeats" is never less than compelling. And fair warning, you'll need plenty of hankies by the time its stunning conclusion arrives. 

The flashbacks, which comprise the bulk of this novel, unfold like a dream. As a youth, Tin is cruelly abandoned by his mother, who fears he's cursed, and shortly after, he inexplicably goes blind. Still, as the years wear on, he finds himself entranced by the sounds around him – and by Mi Mi, a handicapped young woman who's unable to walk, and whom he first comes to know by hearing her distinctive heartbeat. Their romance is both charming and heartbreaking; the mere sight of a blind youth happily dashing through a field with a handicapped young girl on his back is just one of many affecting images here. Though that might sound overly-sentimental or precious (and how), the author's grave, near-transcendent tone keeps you enthralled. It's a gorgeous love story, and one with more than a few pull-the-rug out-from-under-you surprises. 

Meanwhile, your Bibliophile Bendy Boy™ has his notebook ready, prepared to take all of your recommendations for good romances, as his heart was recently broken, poor thing. That doesn't mean your recommendations need to have happy endings, of course, but they must be positively unputdownable. For as we all know, a bad book is its own kind of mangy heartbreak, so don't you dare do that to him or he'll give you such a pinch.