Telling Secrets and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Kindle Edition
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Telling Secrets
 
 
Start reading Telling Secrets on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Telling Secrets [Paperback]

Frederick Buechner (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

List Price: $13.99
Price: $11.07 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $2.92 (21%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Monday, January 30? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover --  
Paperback $11.07  
Unknown Binding --  

Book Description

April 10, 1992
With eloquence, candor, and simplicity, a celebrated author tells the story of his father's alcohol abuse and suicide and traces the influence of this secret on his life as a son, father, husband, minister, and writer.

Frequently Bought Together

Telling Secrets + The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days + Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation
Price For All Three: $31.03

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together
  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days $9.67

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation $10.29

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the third volume of his autobiography ( The Sacred Journey ; Now and Then ) Buechner speaks in a sensitive and quietly humorous voice as he describes crises in his life: the suicide of his father when the author was 10; the anorexia of his teenaged daughter. Details of other demanding situations, less critical, provoke merriment as well as thought. As a lecturer at a Unitarian Universalist divinity school, Buechner encountered atheistic students preparing for the ministry, along with a feminist who opposed studying King Lear because the drama features women in subservient roles. In a book that stands out as uncommonly rewarding and inspirational, the author convinces us that secrets kept buried can cause harm.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A father's suicide and a daughter's anorexia exemplify the sort of secret that radically modifies an individual and, in turn, can be modified by being told. The fiction of noted theologian/novelist Buechner ( A Long Day's Dying, LJ 1/1/50) has been called "psychological." His nonfiction, too (including Whistling in the Dark, LJ 7/88) explores his comprehension of the soul rather than exhorting. This slim memoir does well what Buechner has become noted for doing: showing with subtlety the stark nature of being one thinking being among many. His prescription for the church to look at Alcoholics Anonymous for a modern model is compelling. This minister is not preaching to the converted but can attract the ears--and hearts--of any reader interested in acknowledging the spiritual aspect of human nature. For most collections.
-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: HarperOne (April 10, 1992)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0060609362
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060609368
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frederick Buechner is the popular author of such nonfiction titles as Telling the Truth, Wishful Thinking, and Peculiar Treasures. The New York Times Book Review described his recently published memoir, The Sacred Journey, as a "beautifully successful experiment." In addition to The Final Beast, which was originally published in 1965, Mr. Buechner is the author of ten other novels, including the bestselling A Long Day's Dying and, most recently, Godric. He makes his home in Rupert, Vermont.

 

Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Act of Love, September 20, 2003
By 
John (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Telling Secrets (Paperback)
"I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are your secrets. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it is to be human."

In Telling Secrets, Buechner does just that. He tells the details of his most intimate life. He tells of his struggles and his tortuous search for answers to life. And Buechner finds some answers. He finds that so much of the secret of live is to love and to love means being able to lay bare that core of our being, that soul with the "print of God's thumb still intact." And this book is just that. In an tremendous act of love, Buechner is baring his most essential soul and allowing the reader to connect and learn.

It's difficult for me to express how much I love this book. It is short, but each page holds enough wisdom to fill volumes. Telling Secrets is a book that has earned a prestigious spot on my bedstand where I can reach it easily the times I need it most.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars powerful, December 9, 2000
This review is from: Telling Secrets (Paperback)
In this little reflective book, Buechner shows us the importance of recollection... the redeeming quality of memory. As in all of his autobiographical work, Buechner is remarkably transparent and honest. Whether or not you have enjoyed his fiction, (and I have) I believe there is something here for us all to relate to and identify with. Two passages in the book are very TELLING as they apply to the SECRETS that we all have: Firstly, "We cannot undo our old mistakes or their consequences any more than we can erase old wounds that we have both suffered and inflicted, but through the power that memory gives us of thinking, feeling, imagining our way back through time we can at long last finally finish with the past in the sense of removing its power to hurt us and other people and to stunt our growth as human beings." Secondly, "It is through memory that we are able to reclaim much of our lives that we have long since written off by finding that in everything that has happened to us over the years God was offering us possibilities of new life and healing which, though we may have missed them at the time, we can still choose and be brought to life by and healed by all these years later."

Reading the first two books in the memoir series (The Sacred Journey and Now And Then) are not prerequisites to enjoying this one, for its message is self-contained. But if you start here, you'll want to look into the others.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars In his classic form, Buechner delivers challenge!, June 12, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Telling Secrets (Paperback)
I first read this book in 1994, and have re-read it numerous times since. Buechner leads the way in challenging us all to share the secrets of our lives only known to self and God, knowing that "maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally." (p. 30). We all have secrets. Buechner picks up the gauntlet of boldness in breaking the prison of silence, only to find freedom and forgiveness waiting on the other side of the prison doors. My margin note summarizes the message of this book best: "telling secrets + forgiveness = peace!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
One November morning in 1936 when I was ten years old, my father got up early, put on a pair of gray slacks and a maroon sweater, opened the door to look in briefly on my younger brother and me, who were playing a game in our room, and then went down into the garage where he turned on the engine of the family Chevy and sat down on the running board to wait for the exhaust to kill him. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Little Ease, New York, Saint Barnabas, White Tower, Cowardly Lion
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:


What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject