swap_horiz Free Fall Alternatives

1

Stoner

John Williams’ *Stoner* chronicles the life of Edwin “Stoner” Grant, a Midwestern student at Midwestern State Teachers C...

1960S Literary Fiction Tragic Professorial

9.4 Excellent

2

Lucky Jim

Kingsley Amis’s *Lucky Jim* chronicles the chaotic life of James Baldwin, a young lecturer at Bretton Hall College in Yo...

Comedy 1950S Academic Satire UK University

9.2 Excellent

3

Kokoro

Kokoro is a significant literary work by Natsume Soseki set in Japan’s Meiji Era. The novel centers on the evolving rela...

Literary Fiction 1910S Meiji Era Japanese University

9.1 Excellent

4

Pnin

Vladimir Nabokov’s *Pnin* chronicles the life of Timofey Pnin, a disoriented and melancholic Russian professor teaching...

1950S Tragicomedy Nabokov Professorial

8.9 Great

5

Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is Thomas Mann’s sprawling 1947 novel exploring themes of ambition and morality through the story of Adri...

Intellectual Literary Fiction 1940S German Music School

8.9 Great

6

Possession: A Romance

Possession explores a complex romantic mystery set within the academic world of 1990s Britain. The novel centers on lite...

Romance 1990S Literary Fiction UK University

8.8 Great

7

Fifth Business

Fifth Business explores themes of memory and consequence through the recollections of Rearrangement Phillips, a retired...

1970S Literary Fiction Professorial Robertson Davies

8.8 Great

8

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving’s *A Prayer for Owen Meany* explores faith, friendship, and destiny through the story of John Wheelwright an...

Coming Of Age 1980S Literary Fiction Boarding School

8.7 Great

9

A Separate Peace

John Knowles's 1959 American novel set at a New England boys' boarding school during World War II, exploring friendship,...

Coming Of Age 1950S Literary Fiction Boarding School

8.3 Great

10

Pictures from an Institution

1954 satirical novel by poet Randall Jarrell set at a fictional progressive American women's college, skewering academic...

Comedy 1950S Literary Fiction Academic Satire

8.1 Great

11

The Masters

C.P. Snow's 1951 novel, part of the Strangers and Brothers sequence, dramatizes the political maneuvering surrounding a...

1950S Literary Fiction Cambridge Departmental Politics

8.0 Great

12

The Mandarins

Simone de Beauvoir's 1954 Prix Goncourt–winning novel depicting the postwar Parisian left-wing intellectual milieu, with...

Philosophical 1950S Literary Fiction French Intellectual Milieu

8.0 Great

13

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes

Angus Wilson's 1956 novel centers on a medieval historian who investigates a suspected fraud tied to a seventh-century A...

Historical 1950S Literary Fiction UK Academic Milieu

7.9 Good

14

Leaven of Malice

Robertson Davies's 1954 novel, second in the Salterton trilogy, won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and turns on a...

Comedy 1950S Literary Fiction Robertson Davies

7.8 Good

15

Tempest-Tost

Robertson Davies's 1951 debut novel, first in the Salterton trilogy, is set in a small Ontario city and revolves around...

Comedy 1950S Literary Fiction Robertson Davies

7.7 Good

16

The Groves of Academe

1952 novel by Mary McCarthy set at fictional progressive Jocelyn College, in which a professor falsely claims Communist...

1950S Literary Fiction Academic Satire Professorial

7.6 Good

17

The New Men

C.P. Snow's 1954 Strangers and Brothers novel follows British scientists drawn into the moral tensions of the wartime at...

Science 1950S Literary Fiction Cp Snow

7.3 Good

18

The Sandcastle

Iris Murdoch's 1957 novel in which a married schoolmaster at an English boys' school develops an infatuation with a youn...

1950S Literary Fiction Professorial UK School

7.2 Good

19

A Charmed Life

1955 novel by Mary McCarthy about a woman who returns to a New England intellectual colony where her manipulative former...

Satire 1950S Literary Fiction Us Academic Colony

7.1 Good

20

The Paper Men

William Golding's 1984 novel follows a dissolute English novelist tormented by an American academic determined to write...

Dark Comedy 1980S Literary Fiction William Golding

6.9 Fair