It began as a simple concept: write down your secret. Send it in.

And people did. In one year, 20,000 individuals poured their souls out onto postcards and shipped them off, anonymously, to be read by a man they’d never met before.

That man was Frank Warren, a small-business owner who began the project as a form of community art. Within a month, however, his idea went from community art to a weekly-updated website. Within a year, he published a book of secrets, and within three years, he was the brain behind the social phenomenon, PostSecret.

PostSecret’s simple write-and-send method has stayed the same since Warren began it in November 2004, yet its audience has increased enormously. The website (PostSecret.com) attracts 3 million unique visitors a month; overall, it’s attracted almost 100 million. Warren’s catalogue of secrets currently includes 175,000 postcards from countries all over the world – and it’s still growing.

It’s really no surprise then that Warren’s latest book, “A Lifetime of Secrets,” is both his best selling (it’s the 50th best seller on Amazon.com), and his most accomplished. “A Lifetime of Secrets” includes hundreds of never-before-seen secrets from “people as young as 8 and as old as 80,” according to the book’s description.
The secrets in this book are more raw and compelling than in any other collection. The confessions are stated without apology, straightforward and stripped of any attempt at covering anything up. Warren picks the cards to include himself, and he seems to have taken more care in what he chose this time.

A new form of organization also gives this collection an edge up on the previous ones. The postcards are displayed chronologically, from ones concerning childhood all the way up to old age. The secrets now have a sense of a story to them, as they take us on a journey through hundreds of lives.

Flipping through the book, it’s impossible not to get sucked in. The postcards are intriguing, emotional, humorous, upsetting, heart wrenching, and every emotion in between. That range is present in each book, but “A Lifetime of Secrets” is somehow even more balanced and thorough in this than ever before.

It’s not only this range that makes the book, and the project in general, so engaging. There’s also the anonymity of the secrets, which makes them appealing for both reader and sender. The lack of identity on a card means it can speak to anyone – it automatically becomes more personal.

But there’s something beyond any of that that attracts people to the website, the books, and the concept in general. PostSecret offers its fans a chance to feel a sense of community that is often lost in our busy, fast-paced existence. The book offers countless secrets to relate to. Some affirm what you already knew, some cause you to realize something new, and some seem as though you could’ve written them yourself.

It’s this amazing sense of connection that ultimately gives the project such enormous appeal. Even the book itself feels like a little community, peppered with people of all ages and backgrounds, brought together by a common need to say something. No matter who you are, you have a secret, and you can share it there.

Though the postcards in the book cover topics of all varieties, there is an overarching message that is consistent throughout the pages: you are not alone. Whatever pain you are feeling or joy you experience, there is a card that expresses it and a person who has felt the exact same thing.

Pick up a copy of “A Lifetime of Secrets” and thumb through it. You’ll find that your secret is already there, waiting for you – and even if it isn’t, all you have to do is send it in.