I had a pretty good 2024 in terms of reading more for fun, especially fiction. So, I’m re-upping for 2025. Here’s what I’m reading/have read, some brief thoughts, and Bookshop.org (or Amazon) affiliate links. Also what’s in my queue.
Campus novel meets the manosphere. The protagonist is a literature professor at a liberal arts college and also a devotee of weight lifting. Harold hates the former and lives for the latter. He sees his colleagues and students as both physically and intellectually weak, but he is in reality neurotic and paranoid. So, this is both a critique of academia and of internet masculinity. Profoundly interior and uncomfortable, the entire story takes place in just half a day and two locations.
An (at times) fun and funny take on a “mixed marriage”: Keru is the child of immigrant Chinese parents and Nate’s family are Appalachian Americans. How will they negotiate their differences while on vacation on Cape Cod and the Catskills? To add to the complexity, Keru is a highly paid management consultant and Nate is a underpaid biology professor. I found myself rooting for their relationship to survive.
A true campus satire about husband and wife faculty members, their student, infidelity, and obsession. This novel is set in a creative writing program and ostensibly is a MFA thesis with the title “Seduction Theory” submitted to that same program. The lines between “reality” and fiction are therefore blurred by an unreliable narrator. The effect is captivating. There’s also a funny swerve toward the end that I appreciated.
Protagonist Sarah is a religious studies PhD student on the academic job market. While important, that’s not what’s driving this story.Rape and, more specifically, campus rape culture is front and center. There are some very disturbing scenes and themes in this novel, therefore, because sexual assault is disturbing. As Sarah says, “I think men think that rape is unwanted sex. And sex is great. So how bad can unwanted sex be?” In the end, this is a detective mystery as much as a campus novel – and I don’t mind that.
I should have liked this book more than I did — a campus satire centered on a divinity school professor at a thinly disguised University of Chicago. The “nimbus” in question is the protagonist’s toddler, who mysteriously begins to glow, bringing the professor’s expertise and faith into play — and into question. It also highlights tensions with his wife, who doesn’t see the nimbus. The various elements of interest just didn’t come together in a compelling way for me.
Unlike Millennial-centered “Banal Nightmare,” this novel centers on things that hit me right in my Gen X feels. Like Donkey Kong. I am no “gamer” but the story compelled my interest, particularly in the relationship between the protagonists Sam and Sadie and Marx. (Not a campus novel but there is also a bad actor professor in it.) They don’t “come-of-age” quite as quickly as I was hoping, but that, too, compelled interest. Great read.
Had to find out what all they hype is about and found the hype is well-deserved. A compelling story of sexuality, aging, and relationships. Hard to summarize briefly, but two passages toward the end of the book do well: “It’s hard to be knocked down when you’re on all fours.” And “There was plenty of time. I decided to walk. The sun was beginning to set. Golden light everywhere.”
A wise bookseller at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, North Carolina put this book in my hands, and I’m grateful he did. It’s a great read.* One of the best novels I have read. In the era of Percival Everett’s JAMES, it was interesting to read another novel that retells a familiar story (albeit a true story in this case, of abolitionist John Brown) from an alternative perspective (that of an enslaved boy). The book is both satirical and darkly comedic, which clearly resonated with my disposition.
Turns out this is not a novel but a memoir composed of stories Ruark originally wrote for Field & Stream magazine. Set around Southport, NC during prohibition, he nostalgically recalls how his grandfather guided him through various rites of passage into manhood. If you can get past the casual racism and the not-so-casual misogyny, there are some lessons here about the value of “free-range” childhoods of times gone by.
I enjoyed The Plot so I had to read The Sequel. You probably don’t need to have read the first book to enjoy this, but it definitely helps. The Sequel to The Plot continues the story of Anna Williams-Bonner, wife of Jacob, who has become a novelist herself. This provides some opportunities to satirize the publishing industry, which I enjoyed. If you read The Plot, you know that AWB is an anti-hero like her husband, but even more so. Again, can’t give away the plot without spoiling the suspense.
Again, not a campus novel, though it begins in the writing program at “Ripley College” in Vermont and centers on a writer/writing professor, Jacob Finch Bonner, and his student Evan Parker. I can’t really review the plot of The Plot without spoiling it, but I found this to be a fun and engaging read. It’s a novel about the plot of a novel that’s based on reality. More perceptive readers will probably see what is coming but I enjoyed the suspense and big reveal.
I’ve dealt with a couple of fact checkers before and always wondered about them. Not that this Fact Checker is representative, but the New Yorker-inspired cover caught my eye and his quirkiness kept my interest despite an uncompelling plot. I listened to the audiobook and was not expecting it to end when it did. It just ended, no real conclusion.
This starts as a sort of campus novel set in a poetry writing workshop at a “prestigious Midwestern university” (Chang directs the Iowa Writers’ Workshop), with the expected relationship between professor and student, but becomes a movingly quiet study of the tensions between artistic creation, professional success, and human relationships as they unfold over time and in the characters’ memories.
If nothing else, this novel lived up to its title: It was a banal nightmare to read. I didn’t like the protagonist, Moddie, but maybe that is just me being a Gen X survivor as opposed to her Millennial angst and malaise. I just wanted to yell at her to pull herself together and get on with life. And maybe the fact that I had such an emotional response proves Halle Butler to be a great author. She wrote this banal nightmare into existence.
This is not a campus novel, alas, though it does start with a community college professor impregnating his student, Margo. She keeps the baby. Comedy and drama ensue as she tries to figure out how to support him. Enter OnlyFans and her troubled but earnest father Jinx. That he is a former professional wrestler adds some fun insider humor if you’re a recovering fan like myself. Easy reading but not at all breezy.
One of the first-ever “campus novels,” exquisitely written by Nabokov in his second language. A humorous and sad tale of Professor Timofey Pnin that does not end well for him. A bit like Stoner, but Pnin at least has the virtue of being principled about his vocation. Some humorous and timeless references to faculty views of students in here, too. Knowledge of Russian history helpful but not necessary.
Intertwined short stories around the theme of relationships and rejection. Warning: Lots of NC-17 sexual content. By and about a digital native, social media plays a significant role in most of the stories. Identity politics also lurk around, both toxically masculine and liberal. Not for everyone, but you’ll know if it is for you from the opening story, “The Feminist.”
A novel with my hometown in the title? Can’t skip it, though by the author of Virgin River. I discovered something big here: light fiction. Reading this book was like being carried along on a soft pillow of nothingness. It was like watching a Netflix miniseries in word form. Total escapism from reality, which was most welcome these past couple of weeks.
On the heels of Society of Lies, set at Princeton, another novel set at Princeton, though centering on an admissions officer. Interesting commentary on elite college admissions and social class, but also a love and human interest story. As befits the genre, everything gets tied up in a neat bow at the end. And in today’s upside down world, I’m good with that.
Dark academia set in secret societies at Princeton University, with nefarious faculty, admissions officers, alumni, and students. Chapters alternate between two sisters telling their dovetailing stories, staggered in time, that end in tragedy and a modicum of redemption. Thematically light but enjoyable.