Sigh. I really, really wanted to like this book. I heard good things about it, and it has many elements I usually love in a novel: a Victorian sensibility, questions of identity and sisterhood (as well as siblinghood generally), meta-commentary on writing, and a plain, quiet, somewhat chilly protagonist who prefers books to people. The protagonist, Margaret, grew up in a bookstore and learned to read using 19th century novels, and there are clear parallels in the story to Jane Eyre, Wuthering He More...

The ghost is the least substantial of the monsters. The vampire is fully flesh, an oversexed Lord Byron falling in love with an unspecial Midwestern girl, and dreaming about tearing her throat out. The zombie is all hunger and rot, his second death achieved by the expedient, non-magical method of beating in his skull. The werewolf is a Cold War cautionary tale about menstruation. These monsters all want something, all are something.

The ghost owes its existence to the story, because the experienc More...

I know that most people like to work out to Gnarls Barkley or Metallica or what-have-you, but I find gym-based exercise so exceedingly boring that I require narrative to keep me going. Since my motor-coordination isn't sufficient enough to allow me to turn the pages of a magazine/book AND pump the pedals on an elliptical trainer, sometime last summer I turned to Audible to solve my problems. Now, what one requires from printed matter may not at all do for the recorded book, and in my case, it tu More...

"Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes–characters even–caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you"


This quote from The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield sums up my experience with the book. It’s been a while since I’ve felt truly drawn in to a novel. Likely this is the result of my recent tendency toward s More...

This has finally come out in paperback. This is that one that got an £800,000 advance and is meant to be the best book since sliced bread. To be honest I don't hold out a lot of hope....

On P. 138
I take it back. I have been sucked in straight away. Can barely put it down! Whiich is apt seeing as amonst other things it is the tale of books and their words sucking you in. It is also the tale of a dying writer and her reluctant biography, lost twins and the ghosts of the past. Like The House at Rive More...

Oh to be lost in a book. That's really the reason I read, the reason I read more often than I write and so on. I have a favorite memory: it is me, at thirteen or fourteen, lying on a bedsheet I carried from the laundry room and spread out in the field across the street from my childhood home. It was spring, nearly too cool to be comfortable, but the grass was dry and very green and filled with tiny little pastel flowers, which are decidedly not "real" snow drops, but that's what I'd called them More...

I wasn't really sure what to expect from "The Thirteenth Tale". I had been drawn to it for a few months by the cover and finally purchased a copy. I put off reading it for a while. I thought it might be good, but it also might be total crap. I was scared. Fortunately, it turned out to be very good. If I could give it 4-1/2 stars, I would.

Lately, a lot of authors have been writing books with a very old-fashioned tone and feel to them. This isn't a very effective approach for many writers. Howeve More...

Everyone has a story.

Some must be told, there are few which is better to be kept as a secret. You might oh well some of you then might already know my story. It's such a big deal when I let my other half, Ophelia, to tell you our stories. But the thing is, she's my other personality. She exists mentally but not physically. I can talk to her all the time, yes yes people think I'm crazy when I'm muttering by myself though I've tried so hard not to say it outloud, but she's not physically there bec More...

On re-read I awarded one more star. It's a marvelous book and the plot twist, though it did still strike me as unlikely, didn't seem as preposterous as on the first reading. Maybe it took a few years to get used to the idea, maybe I decided I just didn't care how absurd it was.

I loved this book.

Dear Diary, today I heard the most wonderful story. We were at Diane Setterfield's place having tea, when she started telling us of this strange tale she had heard from her friend, Margaret Lea. Ms Lea had recently interviewed that celebrated authoress, Vida Winter. What a shiver of excitement we felt when we heard that! We've all read Ms Winter's books and to hear her story... we couldn't contain our excitement.

Well, my dearest and most private friend, you'll be pleased to know that Ms Lea's t More...

2 1/2

What to say? This is one of those books which is hard for me to rate.

In a way it reminded me of The Monsters of Templeton in that I generally enjoyed the writing - the style and the atmosphere of it - but I never connected with the characters in a way which would make it all that much more enjoyable, or engaging, or tragic, or whatever.

In another way it reminded me of The Historian in that that book was a vampire book which was more about library research, and this was a purported "ghost st More...

Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

This is a fascinating and rich Gothic mystery about a young Englishwoman who is hired to write the biography of a famous, dying author. The author has always kept her past a secret from her millions of fans, and the biographer is about to find out why. The young woman moves into the old author's home in the remote English countryside, and spends the ensuing weeks compiling details of the author's bizarre and disturbing early years. As the dying More...

Kisah yang luar biasa. extraordinaire. superb.

Awalnya membaca buku ini membuat saya teringat pada kisah Perpustakaan Ajaib Bibbi Bokken. Bukan, bukan ceritanya yang mirip (ada sih kemiripan, tapi dikiiiiii…t banget), tapi kecintaan tokoh2nya terhadap literature yang luar biasa. Adalah Margaret Lea, seorang penulis biografi amatir, yang sangat menyukai buku2 tua, terutama dari penulis-penulis yang telah tiada. Kalaulah dia tinggal di Indonesia, bisa dipastikan dia akan sangat cocok bergabung deng More...

Margaret Lea, a bookshop owner and amateur biographer, is summoned by the reclusive Vida Winter - Englands most famous author of that time. Miss Winter wants Margaret to write her biography - which is a miracle in itself, as journalists have attempted to document Miss Winter's life a number of times, but have been fed made up tales each time. Now Miss Winter is ready to tell the truth... and what a truth it is...

The writing in this book is wonderful. Even towards the beginning, when I was findi More...

first impressions:
so far i'm LOVING this book...
which is a fitting emotion for what seems to be a symbolic love letter to both books and the bookish...
this text is a sublime combination of fluid prose, wonderful imagery, and finely directed character development...the character of vida winter hasn't even been introduced yet and i know enough about her already to be hopelessly intrigued...
the passage that deals with the notion of story will always be with me; stories abhor silence and need words More...

Vida Winter is a bestselling author—a modern day Charles Dickens—but her past is entirely unknown; she gives one interview per year and always lies. Then, out of the blue, she hires bookstore clerk and amateur biographer Margaret Lea to take down her life story. The majority of the novel comprises Winter's history as transcribed by Margaret, and Margaret's own life and investigations. The mood of the piece intentionally harkens back to various gothic novels, particularly Jane Eyre; the plot in More...

Dear god. I listened to this abortion of a story in the car last weekend. It was so awful that words cannot describe how mind-bendingly idiotic it was. Contrived doesn't begin to describe it. Melodrama on top of melodrama. Secret family members. Ghosts. The main character fainting at the drop of a hate. Ugh, I wanted every last character to die screaming. If this is what women read (and apparently there are people who actually enjoyed this catastrophe, in fact it has a higher rating than some Co More...

I ended up speed-reading this one, skimming some, reading some. Overall it's a cool mystery that I wanted to know the real deal, and stayed up far too late to find out! But the writing itself, altho many would like it, was a bit too ponderant for the mood I was in. Very 19th century Bronte style, which does work for the book since it is a Jane Eyre type of story.

Apparently ponderant isn't a real word. Well it should be, so I'm going to use it!

Instantly, I was transported. By story as well as by its telling. Any book lover will know within the first sentence or two, more times than not, and so I knew: treasure. In Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale," the reader does not have to choose between intruiging storyline and strong writing. The book is built on both. It has the flavor of old classics, and the comparisons with the Bronte sisters and Daphne du Maurier fit well. Yet Setterfield also manages to achieve her own signature.

Ma More...

EDIT: 2/6/2007:
I finished The Thirteenth Tale last night. A fantastic ending that is complete. There are several wonderful lines from this book, but the on that sticks out to me this morning is a line about how when a reader finishes a book she often thinks of the other characters and what happened to them. We usually find out what happens to the main characters but the side characters, the secondaries - what happens to them? And the author does not fail to fill in all the gaps.

Throughout the bo More...

My main issue with this book has to do with the author's eccentric picture on the jacket. I know. Judging a book by a picture isn't fair, but once I knew how quirky she is, I couldn't take the voice seriously.

I had heard that this is a great novel for people who are word connoisseurs. It is not. Yes, I love when language is poetic and vivid. When words capture exactly the right image it is magic. And she is a very good (both image and grammar) writer. But she is not precise. She loves her writin More...

I knew from the very first page that I was going to like this book. Her style of writing is what makes me a reader. I had a hard time believeing that this was a recently published book. The writing felt old to me and recalled a lot of my favorite books, most of which are 18th or 19th century. Her imagery and descriptions were wonderful and I loved how she could set such an overall sense of eerieness. I loved the story, although I wasn't sure I was going to at first. I loved the twist and turns, More...

Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone.

Como toda a gente sabe, os livros têm vida própria; alguns, quando passamos por eles numa livraria, falam baixinho e pedem que os levemos connosco – quase conseguimos ouvir o seu suspiro de desalento quando continuamos a nossa caminhada e os deixamos na prateleira. Este O Décimo Terceiro Conto, da escritora inglesa Diane Setterfield, foi dos que mais vezes me chamou, mas como nem sempre a vida é como queremos, acabei por deixá-lo, invariavelmente, nas prateleiras ou expositores. Até que, como se More...

What a quotable book:
"Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes–characters even–caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you."

I really enjoyed this book. It has a very Gothic feel to it, without the romance. I am sometimes suspicious of books that get such a buzz by word of mouth (Hello..."Water for Elephants" a More...

The Thirteenth Tale has a nicely Gothic feel to it (but with no romance). For my money, I found this book fairly creepy, in a quiet, sneak-up-you kind of way, but then, I tend to find people creepier than any sort of monsters.

Margaret Lea, the young woman chosen to be Vida Winter's biographer, is shy, but not meek, and Ms. Winter is a grande dame type, intimidating enough that you’ll notice I’m referring to her constantly as “Ms. Winter”, though she's really not on stage that much.

The character More...

Occasionally, I peruse the New York Times and Amazon.com’s bestsellers lists to see what the kids are reading. Diane Setterfield’s novel The Thirteenth Tale popped out from the rest. Words like “ghost story” and “haunted” intrigued me. It is now October—the perfect time to read a haunted ghost story.

I kept waiting for the book to be spooky, scary, frightening—anything Halloween-like. I was disappointed. In fact, I almost abandoned the book after the first 100 pages. The story is about masochism, More...

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 More...