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Q&A | May 20, 2013

Michael Marder: IMG Powell’s Q&A: Michael Marder

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Describe your latest work. When I started working on Plant-Thinking in 2008, I had no idea that the project would turn out to be as broad as it did.... Continue »
  1. $26.95 Sale Trade Paper add to wish list

    Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life

    Michael Marder 9780231161251
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The Secret History

by

The Secret History Cover

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt's novel is a remarkable achievement — both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.

Review:

"Enthralling....A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment....Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"Her writing bewitches us....The Secret History is a wonderfully beguiling book, a journey backward to the fierce and heady friendships of our school days, when all of us believed in our power to conjure up divinity and to be forgiven any sin." The Philadephia Inquirer

Review:

"A huge, mesmerizing, galloping read, pleasurably devoured.....Gorgeously written, relentlessly erudite." Vanity Fair

Review:

"A smart, craftsman-like, viscerally compelling novel." Time

Review:

"The Secret History implicates the reader in a conspiracy which begins in bucolic enchantment and ends exactly where it must — though a less gifted or fearless writer would never have been able to imagine such a rich skein of consequence. Donna Tartt has written a mesmerizing and powerful novel." Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City

Review:

"Donna Tartt has a real shot at becoming her generation's Edgar Allan Poe....The Secret History pulses like a telltale heart on steroids." Glamour

Review:

"[W]ell-written....The book's many allusions, both literary and classical...fail to provide the deeper resonance of such works as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Ultimately, it works best as a psychological thriller." Library Journal

Review:

"Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish." Vogue

Review:

"One of the best American college novels to come along since John Knowles's A Seperate Peace....Immensely entertaining." Houston Chronicle

Review:

"Entertaining, evocative first novel." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"[A]n elaborately conceived and artistically ambitious thriller....Tartt records the aftereffects of unpunished crime with great skill. But her efforts to transform a chronicle of suspense into a study in sensibility are less successful....Tartt offers the aroma of decadence, not its anatomy; stylish intimations of misbehavior, not visions of hell." The New Republic

Review:

"Donna Tartt is clearly a gifted writer....She has the ability to leave her literary contemporaries standing in the road." The Miami Herald

Review:

"A great, dense, disturbing story, wonderfully told." Cosmopolitan

Review:

"[P]recious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful....By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids — while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking...is very 80's — and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"An accomplished psychological thriller....Absolutely chilling....Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical." The Village Voice

Review:

"A thinking-person's thriller....Think Lord of the Flies, then The Rules of Attraction....The Secret History combines a bit of both — the unmistakable whiff of evil from William Golding's classic and the mad recklessness of priviledged youth from Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the '80s....As stony and chilling as any Greek tragedian ever plumbed." New York Newsday
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About the Author

Donna Tartt is a novelist, essayist, and critic. The Secret History has been translated into twenty-four languages.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781400031702
Author:
Tartt, Donna
Publisher:
Vintage Books
Author:
Tartt, Donna
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Suspense
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
2004
Edition Description:
Trade paper
Series:
Vintage Contemporaries
Publication Date:
20040431
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
576
Dimensions:
8.03x5.26x.98 in. .89 lbs.
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Related Subjects


Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Fiction and Poetry » Mystery » A to Z

The Secret History Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.95 In Stock
Product details 576 pages Vintage Books USA - English 9781400031702 Reviews:
"Review" by , "Enthralling....A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment....Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled."
"Review" by , "Her writing bewitches us....The Secret History is a wonderfully beguiling book, a journey backward to the fierce and heady friendships of our school days, when all of us believed in our power to conjure up divinity and to be forgiven any sin."
"Review" by , "A huge, mesmerizing, galloping read, pleasurably devoured.....Gorgeously written, relentlessly erudite."
"Review" by , "A smart, craftsman-like, viscerally compelling novel."
"Review" by , "The Secret History implicates the reader in a conspiracy which begins in bucolic enchantment and ends exactly where it must — though a less gifted or fearless writer would never have been able to imagine such a rich skein of consequence. Donna Tartt has written a mesmerizing and powerful novel."
"Review" by , "Donna Tartt has a real shot at becoming her generation's Edgar Allan Poe....The Secret History pulses like a telltale heart on steroids."
"Review" by , "[W]ell-written....The book's many allusions, both literary and classical...fail to provide the deeper resonance of such works as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Ultimately, it works best as a psychological thriller."
"Review" by , "Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish."
"Review" by , "One of the best American college novels to come along since John Knowles's A Seperate Peace....Immensely entertaining."
"Review" by , "Entertaining, evocative first novel."
"Review" by , "[A]n elaborately conceived and artistically ambitious thriller....Tartt records the aftereffects of unpunished crime with great skill. But her efforts to transform a chronicle of suspense into a study in sensibility are less successful....Tartt offers the aroma of decadence, not its anatomy; stylish intimations of misbehavior, not visions of hell."
"Review" by , "Donna Tartt is clearly a gifted writer....She has the ability to leave her literary contemporaries standing in the road."
"Review" by , "A great, dense, disturbing story, wonderfully told."
"Review" by , "[P]recious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful....By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids — while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking...is very 80's — and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic."
"Review" by , "An accomplished psychological thriller....Absolutely chilling....Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical."
"Review" by , "A thinking-person's thriller....Think Lord of the Flies, then The Rules of Attraction....The Secret History combines a bit of both — the unmistakable whiff of evil from William Golding's classic and the mad recklessness of priviledged youth from Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the '80s....As stony and chilling as any Greek tragedian ever plumbed."
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