Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 21 September.
The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.
We have an exclusive extract available for you to read as well as some discussion questions for your reading group.
Where My Heart Used to Beat
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.
About the author
Sebastian Faulks’s books include A Possible Life, Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby, Birdsong and the number one bestseller A Week in December.
A word from Sebastian
“It is always fun to be on the radio and Simon Mayo is a very good host. I look forward to talking to him about Where My Heart Used to Beat and to hearing what he thinks of it. Book clubs and book groups are a very welcome development in recent years. I like the way that people tend to choose books they think might be just outside their comfort zone, then find they were easier to deal with and more enjoyable than they’d imagined.
Libraries have an important role to play here, too, as the amount of choice is so overwhelming. I have a vague but exciting idea that people are beginning to value books more and more as a source of ‘content’. It’s good to be a small part of that."
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 21 September to hear a live interview with Sebastian Faulks talking about his book.
Have you read Where My Heart Used to Beat? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter, or post a review. You can also follow author Sebastian Faulks on Twitter.
Want to find out more? Take a look at the Radio 2 Book Club Twitter feed or find out more on the Radio 2 Book Club website.
