C ampus novels are often vehicles of social satireācreating a closed social circle within which academic status and career success are the focus of close rivalryābut equally they can serve as microcosms of society as a whole, where simulacra of contemporary crises and conflicts play out within the confines of a small institution.
āOne thing I was really torn on was that I initially wanted to include an American novel from a writer born outside the country, because some of the clearest-eyed books about America come from these writers. Right up until late I had Pnin (1957) on the list, because I donāt think anyone else describes America like Nabokov does. Iāve always perceived the American landscape in Nabokov as having the qualities of a diorama: a faƧade of buildings, roads and cars that is scrupulously presented, and where the relations between every visible object are very clear and well-defined. And then threaded through that you have this seam of psychological chaos that is never fully absorbed into the materials of that landscape; and the tension that is produced, which I suppose could also be one definition of the immigrant writerās experience, is where the work comes from.ā ReadĀ more...
The Best 20th-Century American Novels
David Hering ,
Possession,Ā a beloved literary novel which won the Booker Prize in 1990, is a two-stranded historical romance in which two 20th-century literary scholars enter a complicated relationship after the discovery of love letters in an archived text. The book features long sections of poetryāpastiches in the Victorian style, as well as letters and fictional diary entries. "I was terrified of the poems," she explained years later. "I knew I was a prose person." Ultimately, however, she found that she managed. "It really was a sort of experience of being possessed. It was an experience of all the Victorian poems that didnāt exist and should have existed suddenly crowding up like ghosts in Homer and trying to get out. There was no problem to writing any of it. I didnāt have to think about it."
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āA lot of people think, āThis is a novel about drugs.ā It is not at all! It is about a young man, William Stoner, who goes off to university at great financial cost and deprivation to his father, who is a pioneer farmer. The boy goes off to agricultural college and this is seen as a great triumph. But while he is there he encounters literature for the first time, specifically a Shakespearian sonnet, and is transformed by reading it. He decides he doesnāt want to study agriculture at all, and we see him become a professor of literatureā¦It is a story of intellectual determination and the ability of a man to find love simply in what he does. It is a book about love of learningā¦To me, Stoner is almost the perfect novel. It is very little known but anyone who reads it is completely captivated by it.ā ReadĀ more...
The Best American Stories
Simon Winchester ,
Journalist
Elif Batumanās debut novel follows Selin during her first year at Harvard and is based on Batumanās own time at Harvard. The Idiot was published in 2017, but Batuman started writing it in 2000-1 during her year off from graduate school. The Idiot has benefitted from this, having both the immediacy and energy from having been written during that period of her life, as well as maturity and confidence. The Idiot is a captivating read with an exciting cast of characters, from the charismatic and outspoken Svetlana, Selinās best friend, to the mysterious Ivan, a looming and enigmatic presence in the novel.
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N+1Ā editor Chad Harbach's 2011 campus novel follows a baseball savant at the fictional Westish Collegeāon the shores of Lake Michigan, Wisconsin. Shortstop Henry Skrimshander is socially awkward but extremely gifted; student sports star Mike Schwartz secures Skrimshander a scholarship and offers him 1:1 coaching, revolutionising their college team's fortunesāuntil Skrimshander suffers a psychological collapse. Though gently comic, the book is a love letter to the community found in small liberal arts colleges, and the transcendence that might be found in repetitive practice.
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Eugenide's eagerly awaited follow-up toĀ The Virgin Suicides Middlesex
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āIt follows the story of a young man who is brought to Oxford from China. He is brought there to learn this magic, along with several other people from various backgrounds from around the British Empire, all brought in to use their powers to further the Empire. Over time, he begins to turn against this. It turns into this beautifully written anti-colonial narrative thatās also imbued heavily with magic, as well as peopleās interpersonal relationships, and then the history of the time. Itās really well done.ā ReadĀ more...
The Best Historical Fantasy Books
P. DjĆØlĆ Clark ,
Novelist
āPlease donāt be put off by the cover! This doesnāt look like an adult fiction book, but Curtis Sittenfeld is a very serious and accomplished writer. Itās a coming of age novel set at a fancy school in Massachusetts called Ault, and its entirely inside the head of this young girl called Lee, who is a very unlikeable, passive, whiny and kind of standoffish young woman, whoās convinced that sheās the consummate victim. Thatās what makes the book such a great read; itās a microscopically accurate, vivid portrayal of adolescent awkwardness and interiority.ā ReadĀ more...
The Best Boarding School Novels
Anbara Salam ,
Novelist
Donna Tartt's global blockbuster The Secret History follows six Classics students at Hampden College, an eliteāsomewhat loucheāinstitution loosely based on Vermont's Bennington College, where Tartt herself was a student. As our narrator Richard Papen reflects on the events leading up to the death of his friend Edmund āBunnyā Corcoran, The Secret History explores the limits of morality and the devastating consequences of secrets. Credited with inspiring the 'dark academia' trend , Tartt draws us into the lives of a socially isolated cohort and their eccentric professor at an elite liberal arts college as their lives are forever altered. Since publication in 1992, The Secret History has been translated into 24 languages and sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
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āReal Life is about the racism, homophobia and alienation faced by a young man from Alabama, going to a Midwestern university to do a biochemistry degree ā the micro-aggressions he faces on a daily basis, and how he maintains his own identity. Itās deeply affecting and emotional, examining desire and pain and grief, memory and fantasy, things from the protagonistās childhood, as well as the present ā while asking the question: āWhat is real life, anyway?āā ReadĀ more...
The Best Fiction of 2020: The Booker Prize Shortlist
Margaret Busby ,
Publisher
āItās a difficult book to talk about because one almost doesnāt want to give away the premise, which drops on you like a ton of bricks around page eighty or soā¦ Itās set at a very unusual boarding school where the students are being raised and educated for the absolute darkest of purposes, which they initially have no knowledge of or control over, and prove ultimately unable to escape from.ā ReadĀ more...
Dark Academia Books
Lev Grossman ,
Novelist
āGaudy Night is a beautiful love story. I love the relationship between Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. I just think itās magnificent. I love the fact that heās this damaged man who some people dismiss as a posh twit. He suffered during the First World War, he has post-traumatic stress syndrome, and is in love with this woman who he once saved from being hanged for murder in an earlier book. Itās part of a series and thatās important. The setting in Oxford is brilliantly done. Itās charming. Itās very restful in parts. Nothing that bad happens for large chunks of it, so itās quite soothing in that regard. All these things together epitomize what I love in the crime genre.ā ReadĀ more...
The Best Classic Crime
Stig Abell ,
Journalist
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