New York Times Bestseller
The project that captured a nation’s imagination.
The instructions were simple, but the results were extraordinary.
You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything — as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative.
It all began with an idea Frank Warren had for a community art project. He began handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places — asking people to write down a secret they had never told anyone and mail it to him, anonymously.
The response was overwhelming. The secrets were both provocative and profound, and the cards themselves were works of art — carefully and creatively constructed by hand. Addictively compelling, the cards reveal our deepest fears, desires, regrets, and obsessions. Frank calls them “graphic haiku,” beautiful, elegant, and small in structure but powerfully emotional.
As Frank began posting the cards on his website, PostSecret took on a life of its own, becoming much more than a simple art project. It has grown into a global phenomenon, exposing our individual aspirations, fantasies, and frailties — our common humanity.
Every day dozens of postcards still make their way to Frank, with postmarks from around the world, touching on every aspect of human experience. This extraordinary collection brings together the most powerful, personal, and beautifully intimate secrets Frank Warren has received — and brilliantly illuminates that human emotions can be unique and universal at the same time.
MY BOOK REVIEW:
I must confess, that I picked up this book solely on its cover. I had no idea what I was getting into until I sat down and started to read.
The experience is both intense and at times, horrifying. I did laugh at some of the entries and thought OMG at others. The whole concept of this book is brilliant and unique, imaginative and very eye-opening. The idea that so many different people from around the world sent anonymous postcards revealing their deepest and sometimes darkest secrets is amazing and unbelievable.
When reading the postcards, you begin to realize that we live in a complicated and vast world filled with so much regret and pain, that you wonder the current priorities of our race. Somewhere along the way, society got lost in discovering the value of life. This book’s postcards show a lot of pain in many, some were silly and fun but the reality of others hits hard to home.
The book format is hardcover, with an extraordinary book jacket. It’s stamped and addressed like a post card. There’s 276 pages of art, humor and an interesting insight into so many lives. Warren is still receiving more postcards, and I imagine he always will. There’s a sequel to this book, I believe, filled with an equal number of postcard secrets.
This is an excellent coffee table book that would provide a lot of discussion. It’s full of reality and quality. I highly recommend it.
I give this book:
for the concept alone and wish I had thought of it!
