The Secret History cover art

The Secret History

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options
Buy Now for £13.33

Buy Now for £13.33

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE BESTSELLER THAT DEFINED AN AGE
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch

'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

'Haunting, compelling and brilliant' The Times

'Irresistible and seductive' Guardian

'Enthralling... Forceful, cerebral and impeccably controlled' New York Times

©1992 Donna Tartt (P)2010 Penguin Audio

 Crime Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Crime Exciting Scary
All stars
Most relevant
This is a very fine and enjoyable book. The author shows great skill in creating a tense, claustrophobic and paranoid atmosphere and in hooking to reader into wanting to know what happens to the fairly unlikeable, self-obsessed group of dysfunctional students.

Unlike some other reviewers, I was pleasantly surprised at how good Donna Tartt was at reading her own book. I too am way about authors reading their own books: writing and narrating are different skills not often found in the same person. Donna Tartt is however an exception. I too have listened to the Adam Sims version, and whilst it is undoubtedly better, I think the author in an odd sort of way better gets under the skin of the main characters - not surprisingly perhaps as she wrote the book! She doesn't maintain the tension and the narrative flow in the same way, possibly because the recording is a bit disjonted - breaks are fairly obvious - but I wouldn't let that put you off. but have a listen to the sample first to make sure you're happy as it is quite a long book.

fine book & fine narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I listened to this book while I couldn't read after surgery. I have enjoyed reading it before but I felt I got a different perspective on the characters by listening to it rather than reading it. I liked that it was the author reading it, I liked that the speech inflections, tone, etc of the characters was how she meant them to be. A wonderful book in a good format

A deeper understanding of this great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Had it out on tape from my local library. Enjoyed it so much I had to have it. I like the author reading too.

Excellent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really engaging story, and well read by the author, but I found myself disliking all the characters and not really caring what happened to them, other than hoping that something did happened. Don't get me wrong, it's a really good book, but compared with the goldfinch, where I really liked the protagonist, this was a bit lacking. still, Ms Tartt set the bar bloomin' high with that book, so to compare is unfair.

Good story, but didn't warm to the characters

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Loved the constant intrigue of the plot line. Never a dull moment!
I was initially concerned that the book would alienate me (having no knowledge of classics) but infrequent references were explained, and added an interesting theme to the novel.
Dark and complex characters and juicy drama made many hours commuting in the car enjoyable!

Twists and turns to keep you hooked!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews