School Days: These adult novels take you back

Those of us who are finished with — but who keenly remember — pencils, books and teachers’ dirty looks, September always seems like the start of a new year.  We might not be buying back to school supplies this September, but we can reconnect with our past experiences —  good and bad — by delving into these back to school novels.

• The Chatham School Affair by Thomas Cook   
  A psychological thriller about a love affair gone awry in a New England private school.
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt 
  An absorbing and detailed novel set in a Vermont college about a group of classics students with questionable morals.
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles 
  A prize-winning coming of age novel that takes place in the 1950s in a New Hampshire private school.
• I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe   
  A contemporary look at freshmen college life by an old pro.
• Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan 
  A  current view of four dorm mates at Smith College and their subsequent experiences.
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark  
  A classic novel about a charismatic teacher at a private school for girls in Scotland in the 1930s.
• Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz   
  Inside the head of a Princeton admission officer,  the choices she makes and the cases she judges.
• Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge 
  The first of a trilogy of academic novels about two professors who participate in an academic exchange.
                                          ~ Susan F., Central Library, Fiction Department