The Secret History

The Secret History
Author: Donna Tartt
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 578
Release: 2004-04-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1400031702

A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • 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

Daemons are Forever

Daemons are Forever
Author: Simon R. Green
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2008
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780451462084

In the sequel to The Man with the Golden Torc, Eddie Drood is forced to take on some nasty daemons from another dimension, who arrived in this world at the behest of the Drood family to help battle the Nazis during World War II and who have decided that they have no intention of leaving.

The Man With the Golden Torc

The Man With the Golden Torc
Author: Simon R. Green
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2007-06-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 110121287X

New York Times bestselling author Simon Green introduces a new kind of hero, one who fights the good fight against some very old foes in the first novel in the Secret Histories series. The name’s Bond. Shaman Bond. Actually, that's just his cover. His real name is Eddie Drood, but when your job includes a license to kick supernatural arse on a regular basis, you find your laughs where you can. For centuries, his family has been the secret guardian of Humanity, all that stands between all of you and all of the really nasty things that go bump in the night. As a Drood field agent he wore the golden torc, he killed monsters, and he protected the world. He loved his job. Right up to the point where his own family declared him rogue for no reason. Now, the only people who can help Eddie prove his innocence are the people he used to consider his enemies...

Secret Histories

Secret Histories
Author: David Wyatt
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0801899230

Secret Histories claims that the history of the nation is hidden—in plain sight—within the pages of twentieth-century American literature. David Wyatt argues that the nation's fiction and nonfiction expose a "secret history" that cuts beneath the "straight histories" of our official accounts. And it does so by revealing personal stories of love, work, family, war, and interracial romance as they were lived out across the decades of the twentieth century. Wyatt reads authors both familiar and neglected, examining "double consciousness" in the post–Civil War era through works by Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Booker T. Washington. He reveals aspects of the Depression in the fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Anzia Yezierska, and John Steinbeck. Period by period, Wyatt's nuanced readings recover the felt sense of life as it was lived, opening surprising dimensions of the critical issues of a given time. The rise of the women's movement, for example, is revivified in new appraisals of works by Eudora Welty, Ann Petry, and Mary McCarthy. Running through the examination of individual works and times is Wyatt's argument about reading itself. Reading is not a passive activity but an empathetic act of cocreation, what Faulkner calls "overpassing to love." Empathetic reading recognizes and relives the emotional, cultural, and political dimensions of an individual and collective past. And discovering a usable American past, as Wyatt shows, enables us to confront the urgencies of our present moment.

Mistborn: Secret History

Mistborn: Secret History
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Dragonsteel, LLC
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 193857012X

Note: This novella is included in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection, now available in print, ebook, and audiobook from Tor (US/Canada) and Gollancz (UK/Commonwealth). Mistborn: Secret History is a companion story to the original Mistborn Trilogy. As such, it contains huge spoilers for the books Mistborn (The Final Empire), The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. It also contains very minor spoilers for the book The Bands of Mourning. Mistborn: Secret History builds upon the characterization, events, and worldbuilding of the original trilogy. Reading it without that background will be a confusing process at best. In short, this isn’t the place to start your journey into Mistborn. (Though if you have read the trilogy—but it has been a while—you should be just fine, so long as you remember the characters and the general plot of the books.) Saying anything more here risks revealing too much. Even knowledge of this story’s existence is, in a way, a spoiler. There’s always another secret.

The Secret History of the Jesuits

The Secret History of the Jesuits
Author: Edmond Paris
Publisher: Chick Publications
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2011
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0758908253

Secrets the Jesuits don't want Christians to know Out of Europe, a voice is heard from the secular world that documents historically the same information told by ex-priests. The author exposes the Vatican's involvement in world politics, intrigues, and the fomenting of wars throughout history. It appears, beyond any doubt, that the Roman Catholic institution is not a Christian church and never was. The poor Roman Catholic people have been betrayed by her and are facing spiritual disaster. Paris shows that Rome is responsible for the two great world wars. Author Edmond Paris explains why he wrote this book... "The public is practically unaware of the overwhelming responsibility carried by the Vatican and its Jesuits in the start of the two world wars -- a situation which may be explained in part by the gigantic finances at the disposition of the Vatican and its Jesuits, giving them power in so many spheres, especially since the last conflict." "In fact, the part they took in those tragic events has hardly been mentioned until the present time, except by apologists eager to disguise it. It is with the aim of rectifying this and establishing the true facts that we present in this and other books the political activity of the Vatican during the contemporary -- activity which mutually concerns the Jesuits." "This study is based on irrefutable archive documents, publications from well-known political personalities, diplomats, ambassadors and eminent writers, most of whom are Catholics, even attested by the imprimatur."

The Spy Who Haunted Me

The Spy Who Haunted Me
Author: Simon R. Green
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Total Pages: 575
Release: 2022-03-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1625675798

New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green continues his Secret Histories series with debonair-yet-deadly paranormal agent Eddie Drood pulled into a hunt for a treasure worth far more than mere money... As part of a family legacy representing courage, determination, and the occasional dirty trick, Eddie Drood rather enjoys making his own rules—and breaking them. When it comes to facing down the darkest entities in creation and putting real boots to ethereal ass, he’s the best in the biz. Or at least one of the best. He thinks. That’s why he’s been summoned to the deathbed of the one and only Alexander King—a living (for now) legend in the realm of otherworldly cloak-and-dagger operations. As an independent agent, King has managed to collect quite a cache of secrets, conspiracies, and evidence worth killing for and then some. And he’s putting the whole lot up for grabs in a twisted game of intelligence, skill, and survival. Pitted against a selection of prime recruits from all over the supernatural spy game, Eddie is going to have to call on all his skills and dirty tricks, to come out ahead in the great spy game where only the quick and the cool survive. Because one of King’s prized secrets is going to help Eddie uncover a hidden threat within his own family... “Bright, fast-paced...Eddie makes a likable hero, and fans will enjoy following him through this surprisingly complex mystery.”—Publishers Weekly “Eddie gets to the bottom of things with style and a particularly cynical sense of humor. Series-spinner Green’s Drood books are fun, funny, and action-packed, and Eddie is one of his most entertaining creations.”—Booklist

Astral Weeks

Astral Weeks
Author: Ryan H. Walsh
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735221367

A mind-expanding dive into a lost chapter of 1968, featuring the famous and forgotten: Van Morrison, folkie-turned-cult-leader Mel Lyman, Timothy Leary, James Brown, and many more Van Morrison's Astral Weeks is an iconic rock album shrouded in legend, a masterpiece that has touched generations of listeners and influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Martin Scorsese. In his first book, acclaimed musician and journalist Ryan H. Walsh unearths the album's fascinating backstory--along with the untold secrets of the time and place that birthed it: Boston 1968. On the 50th anniversary of that tumultuous year, Walsh's book follows a criss-crossing cast of musicians and visionaries, artists and hippie entrepreneurs, from a young Tufts English professor who walks into a job as a host for TV's wildest show (one episode required two sets, each tuned to a different channel) to the mystically inclined owner of radio station WBCN, who believed he was the reincarnation of a scientist from Atlantis. Most penetratingly powerful of all is Mel Lyman, the folk-music star who decided he was God, then controlled the lives of his many followers via acid, astrology, and an underground newspaper called Avatar. A mesmerizing group of boldface names pops to life in Astral Weeks: James Brown quells tensions the night after Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated; the real-life crimes of the Boston Strangler come to the movie screen via Tony Curtis; Howard Zinn testifies for Avatar in the courtroom. From life-changing concerts and chilling crimes, to acid experiments and film shoots, Astral Weeks is the secret, wild history of a unique time and place. One of LitHub's 15 Books You Should Read This March

Moonbreaker

Moonbreaker
Author: Simon R. Green
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698407431

Ride shotgun with a “James Bond–of-the-supernatural”* as the Secret Histories Novels take you careening through an alternate London where around every corner a new kind of danger awaits.... My name is Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, the very secret agent. And I am a dead man walking. I’ve been poisoned by Dr. DOA. There is no cure, no treatment, no chance of a last-minute miracle. So all that is left to me and my love, Molly Metcalf, is to track down my killer and stop him before he can murder anyone else. So whether that means fighting a secret army on another world; or searching for a forgotten weapon in the Museum of Unattached Oddities; or facing off against Grendel Rex, the Unforgiven God, in the hidden heart of the Moon, for the terrible secret that is Moonbreaker...I will do whatever it takes, while I still can. Because the game isn’t over till I say it’s over—and I still have one last card to play. *SFRevu

The Little Friend

The Little Friend
Author: Donna Tartt
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2011-10-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030787348X

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. • “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and “a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens” (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.