29. Campus novels to read in the fall and why we love books about school

Today Chelsey and Sara are  toppling your TBRs with campus novels. We know this back to school season is weird for students, teachers, parents, and the rest of us as we navigate new seasons during a pandemic. So let’s go back to school safely with books that take place at school, that revolve around learning or academia, and that give us the new school supplies, crisp fall leaves, sharpened pencils feeling. 

We have so many books on this list…all sorts of tones and types! Don’t worry about writing everything down; we have links to all of the books mentioned in our show notes. It’s very possible we won’t get through all of the books we want to on this episode, but we’ll have an even more complete list of campus novels on our new blog: novelpairings.com.

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/novelpairingspod/

Shop our Campus Novels list on Bookshop:  https://bookshop.org/lists/campus-novels-83ca9b6c-710c-436f-a0cb-af159a5ac6b7

Use our referral code to get TWO  audiobooks for the price of one through Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings

Classics

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Possession by AS Byatt

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Mysteries

If We Were Villains by M.L Rio

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Likeness by Tana French

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

Young Adult

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart (@allisonreadsdc)

We Are Okay by Nina Lacour

Bloomability by Sharon Creech (@anniebjones05, The Bookshelf)

Dear Martin & Dear Justyce by Nic Stone 

Magic Campuses

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Campus Romances

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Normal People by Sally Rooney

My Education by Susan Choi

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Miscellaneous

On Beauty by Zadie SmithNever Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro