The Secret History by
Richard Papen had never been to New England before his nineteenth year. Then he arrived at Hampden College and quickly became seduced by the sweet, dark rhythms of campus life -- in particular by an elite group of five students, Greek scholars, worldly, self-assured, and at first glance, highly unapproachable.
The list below are books that Donna Tartt said were important her to when she wrote The Secret History.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 Gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It follows Gabriel John Utterson, a London-based legal practitioner who investigates a series of strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and a murderous criminal named Edward Hyde
Le Grand Meaulnes by
Le Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier, who was killed in the first month of World War I. The novel, published in 1913, a year before the author's death, is somewhat autobiographical, especially the name of the heroine Yvonne, for whom he had a doomed infatuation in Paris
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by
The novel is written in the voice of eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, who lives with her agoraphobic sister and ailing uncle on an estate. Six years before the events of the novel, the Blackwood family experienced a tragedy that left the three survivors isolated from their small village. Merricat practices sympathetic magic that maintains borders around the house in order to keep her family out of harm's way. This Gothic mystery was written by Jackson while she lived in North Bennington.
The Talented Mr Ripley by
Tom Ripley, sent to Italy to coax American playboy Dickie Greenleaf to return home, decides instead that he wants to be exactly like Greenleaf and will stop at nothing to reach his goal.
Baccha by Euripedes, particularly the Lattimore edition
Greek Tragedies, Volume 3 by
The Grene and Lattimore editions offer a selection of the most important and characteristic plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides from the nine-volume anthology of The Complete Greek Tragedies
Phaedrus and Apology by Plato
Plato's Phaedrus: a translation with notes by 
Plato: Euthyphro ; Apology ; Crito ; Phaedo, the Death Scene by Also, the works of George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, the novels of Vladimir Nabokov and Cold Heaven by Brian Moore.
Real Life by
Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends -- some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with a young straight man, conspire to fracture his defenses, while revealing hidden currents of resentment and desire that threaten the equilibrium of their community.
What Moves the Dead by
This is a retelling of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” following Alex Easton, a retired soldier who goes to the ancestral home of the Ushers when they find out their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying. The dark academia horror branch of this story comes in the form of the British mycologist neighbor visiting an American doctor, both of whom are pulled into the investigation of Madeline’s and the Usher house’s affliction.
Bunny by
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation from the Bunnies which plunges her deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world. Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
Hangsaman by
Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite longs to escape home for college. Her father is a domineering and egotistical writer who keeps a tight rein on Natalie and her long-suffering mother. When Natalie finally does get away, however, college life doesn't bring the happiness she expected. Little by little, Natalie is no longer certain of anything--even where reality ends and her dark imaginings begin. Chilling and suspenseful, Hangsaman is loosely based on the real-life disappearance of a Bennington College sophomore in 1946.
If We Were Villains by
They were seven Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, rivals exchanging roles and lovers. Until opening night on their fourth year, when the competition turned ugly and violence entered the scene. Then they faced their greatest acting challenge: convincing the police they were innocent. On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, Detective Colborne is waiting at the door. After ten years, he wants to know the truth.
Tangerine by
It’s the 1950s, and a woman named Alice finds her fiancé has died unexpectedly. Alice quickly leaves behind her life at Bennington College in Vermont, including Lucy, her roommate and closest friend. When Lucy and Alice are reunited a year later in Morocco, Alice’s new husband suddenly goes missing–leaving her to wonder if Lucy is to blame.
I Have Some Questions for You by
A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past--the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death and the conviction of the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers--needs--to let sleeping dogs lie. But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws.
The Starless Sea by
Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a rare book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues -- a bee, a key, and a sword -- that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.
A Deadly Education by
In the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, we meet Galadriel “El” Higgins, who is a heroine unlike any other. At the Scholomance, a school of black magic, El learns to conceal the dark forces within her so that she can survive until graduation day.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by
After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge, and is quite the cinéaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the élite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide, or misguide, her.
The Incendiaries by
dark and intense literary fiction is both a love story and an exploration of religious extremism. The setting: Edwards University. The characters: Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall. The two meet during their first month of classes, and Will immediately falls for Phoebe. But she’s grief-stricken, blaming herself for her mother’s death — which draws her into a religious group that is tied to North Korea and Phoebe’s own family. Things take a turn when one of the university’s buildings is bombed and Phoebe disappears. This leads to Will becoming obsessed with finding her and answering the question: was Phoebe involved in such a violent act?
Disorientation by
A struggling PhD student makes a shocking discovery about a famous Chinese American poet that sets into motion a series of escalating events, both humorous and fraught, that culminates in an incendiary reckoning of her relationships, beliefs, and identity.
Babel by
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Never Let Me Go by
As a child, Kathy-now thirty-one years old-lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed-even comforted-by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham's nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood-and about their lives now. A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance-and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro's finest work.
Ninth House by
Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern series, which begins with Ninth House, is set at Yale University, one that seems familiar—except magic exists, and is controlled by secret societies. Alex, a high school dropout with secrets of her own, must navigate the power and privilege as she seeks to understand why she was brought to the Ivy League university.
A Discovery of Witches by
Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her.
Black Chalk by
One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you?
Sleepwalking by
Sleepwalking tells the story of the three notorious “death girls,” so called on the Swarthmore campus because they dress in black and are each absorbed in the work and suicide of a different poet: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Wolitzer’s creation Lucy Asher, a gifted writer who drowned herself at twenty-four. At night the death girls gather in a candlelit room to read their heroines’ work aloud.
But an affair with Julian, an upperclassman, pushes sensitive , struggling Claire Danziger—she of the Lucy Asher obsession-–to consider to what degree her “death girl” identity is really who she is. As she grapples with her feelings for Julian, her own understanding of herself and her past begins to shift uncomfortably and even disturbingly. Finally, Claire takes drastic measures to confront the facts about herself that she has been avoiding for years.
These Violent Delights by
When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it's with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate's effortless charm. Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal--an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship, because with Julian life is more invigorating than Paul could ever have imagined. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel, and Paul becomes increasingly afraid that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him. As their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go in order to stay together, their obsession ultimately hurtling them toward an act of irrevocable violence.
Nothing but Blackened Teeth by
A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundation resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of girls sacrificed to keep her company. It's the perfect venue for a group of old school friends brought back together to celebrate a wedding. A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested. But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.