Top Ten Tuesday: School Freebie–Books Set in Colleges or Universities

This week’s topic is “School Freebie” so make up your own topic around schools of any sort. I decided on colleges. I’ve done other posts on favorite school books in the past and will link them at the bottom of this post.

The Staff and Faculty Books

The Groves of Academe: A Novel by Mary McCarthy

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Groundskeeping by Lee Cole. This novel has a character who is faculty (writer in residence) and character who is a student who also works on the college staff.

Changing Places by David Lodge

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

The Professor’s House by Willa Cather

Vera [Mrs Vladimir Nabokov] by Stacy Schiff, is a biography but includes so much about Cornell that I’m counting it. The Wife is a novel that pairs perfectly with Vera. As in The Netanyahus, faculty wives (today husbands or partners) are the unpaid half of a pair. Both are necessary for one career to flourish.

The Student Books

Each group counts as “one”

Harvard Law School

The Paper Chase: A Novel by John Osborne spawned a movie and a t.v. show.

One L by Scott Turow, a nonfiction book on the first year of Harvard Law School is the nonfiction counterpart to The Paper Chase and started his career.

Pinstripes and Pearls by Judith Richards Hope tells the (nonfiction) story of Elizabeth Dole and others who turned Harvard Law coed in 1964.

The Military Academies

Note to readers from outside the USA: The Military Academies in the USA are degree-granting, 4-year undergraduate colleges–not simply officer training schools. At the US Military Academy (West Point), Naval Academy (Annapolis), US Air Force Academy, US Coast Guard Academy and US Merchant Marine Academy, engineering is the focus, with only a small percent of students allowed to major in other subjects. The private or state military colleges: The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Norwich University, Texas A & M, and a few others other majors are more easily had.

Dress Gray by Lucian K. Truscott IV is set at West Point.

The Lords of Discipline: A Novel by Pat Conroy tells the story of life at the Citadel (aka The Military College of South Carolina)

The Classic Harvard Undergrad

Books

Class Reunion by Rona Jaffe (Radcliffe  and Harvard)

The Last Convertible: A Novel by Anton Myrer

Love Story by Erich Segal

Have you read any of these? Leave me a comment or a link to your own post on college books.

Check out the rules at That Artsy Reader Girl and join in next week!