Hey, Veeky Forums, I'm looking for some "campus novels". Novels set around universities and/or have professors or university students as characters.
Bonus if it gives me certain kinds of feels--basically like a comfy, nostalgic kind of September going-back-to-school bittersweet melancholy. I don't think it necessary has to be university, I'm pretty sure high school would work as well.
"Goodbye, Columbus" is a really good example of a novel that gave me these kinds of feels.
Stoner - john williams
Don DeLillo White Noise - though I'm not sure it will give the desired feelz
I should have put a note about Stoner in the OP. I intend to read it, is it really good? Or just a meme?
It's actually good.
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis.
Stoner is the absolute perfect book for what OP wants.
Most of This Side of Paradise is about Fitzgerald's alter-ego's experiences at Princeton.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is actually set in a campus! (ok, academy, same diff ;^)) i'm sure you will love it
OP here, I've read IJ unlike most of the people who bash it.
Moo- Jane Smiley
Really good.
stoner must be taught in every single UNI cause it went from being relatively unknown to one of the most popular books.
The Secret History, Donna Tarty. Paxton Quigley 's had the Course by
I Am Charlotte Simmons
Glory by Nabokov.
Five Legs by Graeme Gibson.
Norwegian Wood by Murakami fits your criteria perfectly OP.
brideshead revisited
Fucking this, Lucky Jim is timeless. Don't be a faggot, read it.
An American Romance by John Casey
Spring Snow
Rules of Attraction by BEE is the ultimate one
Good choice
This too is pretty good, kind of melodramatic at times though.
The Masters by C. P. Snow (1951)
The Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy (1952)
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1954)
Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell (1954)
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson (1956)
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (1957)
Purely Academic by Stringfellow Barr (1958)
Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury (1959)
A New Life by Bernard Malamud (1961)
Stoner by John Williams (1965)
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Farina (1966)
Giles Goat-Boy, Or, The Revised New Syllabus by John Barth (1966)
Getting Straight by Ken Kolb (1967)
The War Between the Tates by Alison Lurie (1974)
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe (1974)
Changing Places by David Lodge (1975)
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (1975)
The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (The Morse Series) by Colin Dexter (1977)
Border Crossings by Daniel Peters (1978)
Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux (1981)[1]
Coming From Behind by Howard Jacobson (1983)
The Big U by Neal Stephenson (1984)
Small World by David Lodge (1984)
White Noise by Don DeLillo (1985)
Redback by Howard Jacobson (1986)
Class Reunion by Rona Jaffee (1986)
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (1987)
The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis (1987)
Nice Work by David Lodge (1988)
Todas las almas by Javier Marías (1989)
Recalcitrance, Faulkner, and the professors: a critical fiction by Austin Wright (1990)
Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt (1990)
The Crown of Columbus by Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris (1991)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Tam Lin by Pamela Dean (1992)
Japanese by Spring by Ishmael Reed (1993)
Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers (1995)
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (1995)
Moo by Jane Smiley (1995)
Death is Now My Neighbour (The Morse Series) by Colin Dexter (1996)
Making History by Stephen Fry (1996)
Straight Man by Richard Russo (1997)
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999)
The Human Stain by Philip Roth (2000)
Thinks ... by David Lodge (2001)
The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes (2001)
Starter for Ten by David Nicholls (2003)
I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe (2004)
Final Exam by P.F. Kluge (2005)
On Beauty by Zadie Smith (2005)
Blue Angel by Francine Prose (2006)
Beet: A Novel (P.S.) by Roger Rosenblatt (2008)
Indignation by Philip Roth (2008)
Invisible by Paul Auster (2009)
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides (2011)
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach (2011)
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher (2014)
The University by C.K. Houck (2014)
Cow Country by Adrian Jones Pearson (2015)
Always there by John Van der Kiste (2015)
>he ordered them by publication date and not by author's last name then title
That's your critique? How someone orders things? Are you stupid?
It has been mentioned, but Norwegian Wood is excellent for this. I read it on my first year of uni and reading it later, I think it more shaped my experience rather than described it. In a positive way. I feel like I started giving less of a fuck and being less insecure thanks to that.
I don't know. YMMV. It's a fantastic book.