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The Heartbeat Library is a tender, contemplative, and uplifting novel about grief, friendship, and the many ways we heal, by the internationally bestselling author of The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World.
On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, a place where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of people who are still alive or have already passed away continue to echo.
Several miles away, in the ancient city of Kamakura, two lonely souls meet: Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, who returns to his hometown to fix up the house of his recently deceased mother, and eight-year-old Kenta, a child who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi's house.
Day by day, the trust between Shuichi and Kenta grows, until they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. Their journey will lead them to Teshima and to the library of heartbeats ...
Enchanting, touching, and emotionally riveting, The Heartbeat Library is a story about loss and hope, pain and joy, reality and imagination, and the promise of healing and overcoming the odds thanks to the relationships we build and rediscover. Inspired by Les Archives du Cœur, an art installation in Japan that permanently houses recordings of the heartbeats of people throughout the world, Laura Imai Messina returns in this novel to the themes and atmospheres of her internationally bestselling novel The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, combining a real-life pilgrimage site of healing with an unforgettable and heartwarming story.
"A powerful, unforgettable tale of love that is made more poignant by the loss that preceded it." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The story is a bit simplistic, but Messina's light touch allows for genuine moments of connection between the characters. This brims with feeling." —Publishers Weekly
This information about The Heartbeat Library was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Laura Imai Messina has made her home in Japan for the last 15 years and works between Tokyo and Kamakura, where she lives with her Japanese husband and two children.
She took a Masters in Literature at the International Christian University of Tokyo and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is Laura Imai Messina's English-language debut.
If you liked The Heartbeat Library, try these:
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World
by Laura Imai Messina
Published 2022
The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected "wind" phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami.
by Sigrid Nunez
Published 2021
The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship.
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Published 2020
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