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Where My Heart Used to Beat

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Where My Heart Used to Beat

By: Sebastian Faulks
Narrated by: David Sibley
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks, an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer, is forced to confront the events that made up his life.

His host, and antagonist, is Alexander Pereira, a man whose time is running out, but who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.

The search for sanity takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally – unforgettably – back into the trenches of the Western Front.

The recurring themes of Sebastian Faulks’s fiction are brought together with a new stylistic brilliance as the novel casts a long, baleful light over the century we have left behind but may never fully understand. Daring, ambitious and in the end profoundly moving, this is Faulks’s most remarkable book yet.

©2015 Sebastian Faulks (P)2015 Penguin Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction War & Military War Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Military

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Critic reviews

A masterpiece…a terrific novel, humming with ideas, knowing asides, shafts of sunlight, shouts of laughter and moments of almost unbearable tragedy (Toby Clements)
Compelling...profoundly moving (Leyla Sanai)
A pleasure from start to finish…WHERE MY HEART USED TO BEAT is that rare book, a page-turning read that also has a significant intellectual and emotional charge. (Alexander Larman)
This is not a wartime tragic romance, or a simple story of trauma. It is much more affecting than that. (Rosemary Goring)
Faulks gets better and better with every book. This is surely one of the year’s best novels. (John Harding)
All stars
Most relevant  

Would you consider the audio edition of Where My Heart Used to Beat to be better than the print version?

Faulks is a brilliant writer and I'm sure that the print version would be just as enjoyable to read as the audio version was to listen to. I have read a few of Faulks' novels and enjoyed them nearly as much as the audio version.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Where My Heart Used to Beat?

I enjoyed the whole fascinating story. It was a pleasure to try and guess where the twists and turns of the plot were leading.

What about David Sibley’s performance did you like?

It was well read and easy to follow. I would guess that David Sibley enjoyed reading it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, I found it difficult to stop listening, but life goes on back in the big bad world.

A beautifully written novel.

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Any additional comments?

I very much enjoyed listening to this book as Sebastian Faulks never fails to deliver. But can you really believe that two intelligent, strong individuals, (spoiler following) who are madly, deeply in love could lose each other so easily, and not put in a supreme effort to seek and search each other out, when the time was appropriate? I found it hard to believe, and a great deal of the book centers around this affair de l'amour.

Engaging Story

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This is an original and profoundly moving novel that moved me emotionally in ways I had not thought possible. I urge everyone to experience this book which is everything a great novel should be. The reading is flawless.

Heartbreaking and Beautiful

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this is a very moving and intriguing story could not stop listening highly recommended ..

1

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Empathetic reading, an attaching voice and the writing too is very moving at times. How we identify with the character's puzzled, searching but detached view of people and the world! Character interests me more than the artifice of plot. This more of a striking and touching life story.
Faulks - through his first person character offers some interesting philosophical and psychological insights too including for example the tendency in 20th and 21st century psychiatry to overlook so many individual differences behind an all too convenient schizophrenic diagnosis. It makes me wonder how much Faulks researched this or if he has had some experience of psychiatric practice himself.

Touching read

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A book that includes the sad tales of both world wars, exposes the shameful psychiatric services of the early twentieth century, but has romance and depth is a great achievement.
Descriptively astonishing and complex.
Some of the medical references were not perfect IMHO

Great read. Marvellous story.

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What an engrossing novel beautifully written and well-read, I had not foreseen some of the revelations at the end and, after I'd finished listening, sat for a long time reflecting on it. I felt incredibly moved by it.
I have only one complaint - why do the producers, editors, or whoever, not listen to the recordings right through? Near the end of Chapter 15 is an interruption, where the narrator stops and speaks out of character, to re-records something - it completely broke the spell! This seems to occur quite often in audiobooks and it's irritating and unprofessional. I'm just glad it wasn't in the final chapter or it might have completely ruined the experience.
Other than that, a fabulous listen.

Enthralling and moving

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This book speaks of the angst of the two world wars, of love and friendship and sadness and loss
It is an affecting story and one of Sebastian Faulks best. I did not want it to finish

A magnificent and heart rending story

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I loved the way this story, brilliantly read btw, slowly revealed its many layers. Touching, exciting and at times glamorous, I really loved this book.

Simply exquisite

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As with the author’s other fine novels, Birdsong and Charlotte Grey, this is a book about love and war, but even more about memories. Set in the 1980s the narrative switches back and forth recounting the experiences of the two main characters. One lived through the horrors of the first World War and the other survived the second. Both are psychiatrists with approaches to treating the mentally ill that were out of step with the accepted dogma prevailing in their time. Psychosis is a thread through the book and is extrapolated into 20th century history scared by devastating wars that shook the world. Inevitably there is a veil of melancholy over the novel as thoughts of lost comrades, friends and lovers are recalled, but more I was moved by the veracity of people's feelings and how they coped with life.

The book is rich in allusions to classical and more modern literature as well as medical and psychiatric theories, all seamlessly incorporated into the narrative without seeming contrived.

It was a pleasure to listen to fine writing performed by a narrator who took care to give authentic voices to a range of characters.

A memorable and moving novel

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