Message from Dean - May 8th 2007
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Amazon.com's Price: $32.95 Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781585478927
Format: Large Print
ISBN: 158547892X
Label: Center Point Large Print
Manufacturer: Center Point Large Print
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 509
Publication Date: 2007-01
Publisher: Center Point Large Print
Studio: Center Point Large Print
Alternate Versions: Click to Display
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Settle down to enjoy a rousing good ghost story with Diane Setterfield's debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale. Setterfield has rejuvenated the genre with this closely plotted, clever foray into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths. She never cheats by pulling a rabbit out of a hat; this atmospheric story hangs together perfectly.
There are two heroines here: Vida Winter, a famous author, whose life story is coming to an end, and Margaret Lea, a young, unworldly, bookish girl who is a bookseller in her father's shop. Vida has been confounding her biographers and fans for years by giving everybody a different version of her life, each time swearing it's the truth. Because of a biography that Margaret has written about brothers, Vida chooses Margaret to tell her story, all of it, for the first time. At their initial meeting, the conversation begins:
"You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone."
She [Vida] shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller."
"I am a biographer, I work with facts."
The game is afoot and Margaret must spend some time sorting out whether or not Vida is actually ready to tell the whole truth. There is more here of Margaret discovering than of Vida cooperating wholeheartedly, but that is part of Vida's plan. The transformative power of truth informs the lives of both women by story's end, and The Thirteenth Tale is finally and convincingly told. --Valerie Ryan
Product Description:
When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny.
All children mythologize their birth...So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.
As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.
Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.
The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This truly is one of the finest novels I've ever read--well worth all the hoopla.
The main narrator has a smooth voice that is easy to get lost in, and I loved the theme of the importance of "story tellers" in our society. I loved the stories within stories within stories.
This is a clear and easy read, but the multiple levels of the novel and character development are brilliant.
I would highly, highly recommend this book for anyone to enjoy with a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy afternoon.
Rating:  -
The product was delivered quickly and not in boxy packaging however the cover was in a lamanate casing that was irritating to deal with while reading. I knew it would be hardcover but I would've liked to know that it had a plastic casing.
Rating: -
I read the book and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to sit back and let someone else tell it to me.
Rating:  -
The constant allusions to literary classics is irritating--it's almost as if the author thinks that mentioning these will elevate her work to the status of a classic as well. Not even half way through I felt like giving up. Her meandering, flowery prose becomes obnoxious at a certain point (Why should it take so long to get to some substance!). I gave this book two stars because I feel it's clear that the author can craft a sentence with some eloquence. However, the story is long-winded and over-the-top. The character of Margaret is so bogged down by self-pity that I started to find her annoyingly trite. As another reviewer noted, most of the characters in this book are one-dimensional. I suppose the grief each one of them feels is supposed to connect us to them, but in many ways it alienates the reader (it becomes such a ubiquitous theme that it suffocates the story). I found myself wishing someone would slap the characters out of their self-absorbed revelries so that I might discover ... Read More
Rating: -
This book is the real deal. A wonderful story, masterfully told; a book that will be as good in 30 years as it is today; a piece of literature that will stand the test of time. Much has been written about the plot in other reviews so I won't repeat that, but this is a book for all readers who love books and appreciate a complex story, elegantly told. Much like a fine bottle of wine, it is to be savored.
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