5/24/2023 0 Comments The secret history similar books![]() ![]() ![]() “The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”īack in 1992, it left me stunned with its elegant, darkly twisted brilliance. It’s not specifically a book about Christmas, unless your family gathering involves drugs, booze, incest and murder (I’m not judging), though it opens with the description of a snowy scene: Dickens really set the standard with A Christmas Carol, but you can also turn to Little Women, The Greatest Gift, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Night Before Christmas… Even the Bible, though I warn you that the plotting is ropey.įor me, it’s been Donna Tartt’s The Secret History since I first devoured it on publication 30 years ago. ![]() It’s a universal (well, universal Christian) theme, and it contains every scrap of human drama you could want. Literature has recaptured and recreated the festive period again and again. That is why I return to the same book every year. Christmas is about routine: comfortable, familiar, well-loved routine. However, it is not, I think, a time for novelties. It’s a time of celebration-probably the most widely marked we have as a country-and if you manage it properly it can be a month of cheer, parties, goodwill and overindulgence. I am not a religious man, but I still love Christmas. ![]()
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