swap_horiz Mating 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

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

3

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

4

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

5

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

6

A Prayer for Owen Meany

John Irving's 1989 novel set partly at a New Hampshire prep school and college, in which an extraordinary boy convinces...

Coming Of Age 1980S Literary Fiction Boarding School

8.7 Great

7

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai's 1948 semi-autobiographical Japanese novel tracing a young man's alienation, alcoholism, and moral collapse...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction 1940S Japanese University

8.7 Great

8

Villette

Charlotte Brontë's 1853 novel drawing on her years as a teacher in Brussels, following an Englishwoman who forges an ind...

Coming Of Age Victorian Literary Fiction Bronte

8.6 Great

9

Sanshiro

Natsume Soseki's 1908 novel following a naive provincial youth who arrives at Tokyo Imperial University and is gradually...

Coming Of Age Literary Fiction Meiji Era Japanese University

8.6 Great

10

The Glass Bead Game

Hermann Hesse's 1943 German novel set in a future intellectual utopia called Castalia, for which Hesse was awarded the N...

Intellectual Literary Fiction 1940S Hesse

8.5 Great

11

The Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath's 1963 semi-autobiographical novel follows a young woman's mental breakdown, first published under the pseu...

Coming Of Age 1960S Literary Fiction Us College

8.5 Great

12

Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse's 1927 novel following a middle-aged intellectual in crisis who perceives himself as divided between respe...

Philosophical Literary Fiction 1920S Hesse

8.5 Great

13

The Club Dumas

Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 1993 Spanish novel in which a mercenary rare-book dealer investigates a 17th-century manuscript r...

Mystery 1990S Rare Book Scholars Intellectual Thriller

8.5 Great

14

The House of Sleep

Jonathan Coe's 1997 British novel set partly at a seaside university, structured around sleep disorders, which won Franc...

Coming Of Age 1990S Literary Fiction UK University

7.7 Good

15

The Cunning Man

Robertson Davies's 1994 novel, his last completed work, unfolds through a Toronto doctor's memoirs and examines the inte...

Intellectual 1990S Literary Fiction Robertson Davies

7.6 Good

16

A Word Child

Iris Murdoch's 1975 novel follows an Oxford-educated man, expelled from academia after a fatal scandal, now working as a...

Intellectual 1970S Literary Fiction Oxford Graduate

7.5 Good

17

The Book and the Brotherhood

Iris Murdoch's 1987 novel following a group of Oxford graduates whose youthful pact to fund a radical colleague's book c...

Intellectual 1980S Literary Fiction Iris Murdoch

7.4 Good

18

For Kings and Planets

Ethan Canin's 1998 novel about a rural Midwestern student who befriends a charismatic, privileged New Yorker during thei...

Coming Of Age 1990S Literary Fiction Columbia University

7.1 Good

19

The Murther & Walking Spirits

The Murther & Walking Spirits is a 1991 novel by Canadian author Robertson Davies that uniquely combines a murder myster...

1990S Literary Fiction Ghost Story Robertson Davies

6.9 Fair

20

The Final Club

Geoffrey Wolff's 1990 novel set at Princeton University, exploring class anxiety and moral compromise within the univers...

Ivy League 1990S Literary Fiction Secret Society

5.8 Mediocre