Books & Beans

Welcome!

We will meet at The Parfait Pastry Shop, downtown St. Augustine.

142 King St.
St. Augustine, FL 32084
Phone: (904) 217-3094 (Arlene & Melanie)
Parfait Pastry Shop | Home

PARKING: There are six parking spaces in the front of the building and on the side, but I spoke with the owner, Arlene, and she said she will allow us to park in employee parking behind the building. There is also a large lot at the St. Augustine Winery, a block away (catty-corner to Carmelo's).
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This month we are reading Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY - Please read the Prologue and Book 1 (about 250 pages) - We will continue Book II in December (about 250 pages).

When I was a junior at the University of Alabama, I took a class that kind of changed my perspective of the world in major ways. At the time, the class was known as The Modern Novel. Now, everything we read then is 30+ years older, like me. I remember my final exam in this class though (because it was important), and I'd love to share it with you if you'll let me.
The Secret History: Tartt, Donna: 9781400031702: Amazon.com: Books

I loved the book in 1994 when I first read it. Our professor assigned it and asked us if it would become a classic. Like Faulkner? Like Hemingway? Like Twain? Another Great American Novelist? Maybe a Judith Shakespeare (oh wait, Virginia Woolf helped us see she doesn't exist)? Sadly, my essay said it wouldn't become a classic, even though this novel has every single element it needed to become one. And here it is 30 years later, and I'm pretty sure none of you have heard of this book. I was right, but not because I wanted to be.

Tartt's The Goldfinch is more widely known and more widely read (and it is an amazing read). But the fact that she wrote The Secret History at 21 years of age is phenomenal. Let's read it and discuss more.

Side note: It do find it a little funny that the novel is now a "Read with Jenna" pick, since Jenna was maybe eight when it was written.

A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch.

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.

“A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times