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paddington_bear
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« on: August 30, 2011, 07:03:28 PM » |
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Can someone recommend good fiction about college students, ideally freshmen and sophomores? I'd also be interested in books about students at boarding schools. Thanks!
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glowdart
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« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2011, 07:18:38 PM » |
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Donna Tartt's The Secret History? I don't remember what age they were.
Harry Potter.
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malcha
Creepy Lit Critter, Undead Language Lover,
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posting live from her FCFU
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« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2011, 08:02:33 PM » |
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If fantasy is a possible genre, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. It goes into the characters' senior years, but as I remember the freshman year takes up the largest part of the book. It's set in the early seventies at a thinly disguised version of Carleton College.
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malcha
Creepy Lit Critter, Undead Language Lover,
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Posts: 7,475
posting live from her FCFU
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« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2011, 08:06:34 PM » |
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Oh, and while we're at it on school/college fantasy:
Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week (boarding school), also Year of the Griffin (Oxbridgesque university)
Caroline Stevermer, A College of Magics, which moves away from the eponymous college in the latter half of the book, but it's wonderful.
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yellowtractor
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« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2011, 08:47:41 PM » |
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Definitely Donna Tartt's The Secret History, set at a selective SLAC. Murder!
In contemporary adult fantasy, Lev Grossman's The Magicians (Hogwarts updated from secondary school to college, also an extended riff/satire on the Narnia books, FWIW).
Someone's likely to suggest Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, but it's just awful.
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i think is good for every one only the think is that we will always scares about that. |
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systeme_d_
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« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2011, 09:10:39 PM » |
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Classics:
Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution.
Marilyn French, The Women's Room.
More contemporary:
Tom Perrotta, Joe College.
A boarding school memoir, not novel:
Lorene Cary, Black Ice.
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« Last Edit: August 30, 2011, 09:11:13 PM by systeme_d_ »
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Systeme_D is right. <rah rah RESEARCH!> |
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brixton
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« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2011, 04:53:13 PM » |
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ZZ Packer has a great short story about Freshman Orientation at Yale in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.
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menotti
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« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2011, 04:55:16 PM » |
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Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld
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cj405
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« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2011, 05:14:06 PM » |
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Donna Tartt's The Secret History? I don't remember what age they were.
I LOVED this book. One night after staying up a little too late to finish a particularly compelling chapter, I actually woke up screaming in the middle of the night because I dreamed.... well, that something that happens in the book was happening to me (it is SO good I can't spoil even a single sentence of it for you, but for those that have read it, think of me as Bunny, but I caught on more quickly but was still powerless to stop it). They are mostly sophomores and the main narrator is a freshperson, if I'm recalling correctly. |
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« Last Edit: August 31, 2011, 05:17:48 PM by cj405 »
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"These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency." -Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
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paddington_bear
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« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2011, 05:47:09 PM » |
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Thanks for all of these interesting suggestions! My request goes along with another one I made awhile ago, asking for suggestions for fiction/short stories that have home (or house) as their theme. It's for a general education fiction course, and I wanted to include one or two novels or short stories about young adults at college, or boarding school, and away from home for the first time.
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bibliothecula
Academic ronin
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like Bunnicula, only with books
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« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2011, 01:52:19 PM » |
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Alice Hoffman, The River King Marisha Pessl, Special Topics in Calamity Physics Lev Grossman, The Magicians Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys Michael Gerber, Freshman Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night (maybe a little dated) Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake Jane Smiley, Moo (Some of the scenes with the incoming women sharing a dorm are hilarious and poignant) I also found this list at B&N, but don't know any of the books on it: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?category_id=941412,716218 |
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I came. I saw. I cited.
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cj405
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« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2011, 02:04:20 PM » |
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Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night (maybe a little dated)
Dated maybe but definitely wonderful! |
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"These things sneak up on him for no reason, these flashes of irrational happiness. It's probably a vitamin deficiency." -Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
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conjugate
Compulsive punster and insatiable reader, and
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Tends to have warped sense of humor
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« Reply #12 on: September 01, 2011, 02:15:18 PM » |
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Roger Zelazny's wonderful Doorways In The Sand is one of my favorites.
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Unfortunately, I think conjugate gives good advice.
∀ε>0∃δ>0∋|x–a|<δ⇒|ƒ(x)-ƒ(a)|<ε |
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theblondeassassin
Rootin' Tootin' Invigilatin'
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« Reply #13 on: September 01, 2011, 02:15:37 PM » |
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Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night (maybe a little dated)
Dated maybe but definitely wonderful! I lived "in" Shrewsbury College for five years, which I always thought was awesome. (Yes, I do know it's fictional.) |
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My hovercraft is full of eels, so I don't suppose snails in a fish tank is so very strange.
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irhack
Marshwiggle
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Posts: 478
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« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2011, 09:30:18 AM » |
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"Franny" from "Franny and Zooey."
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