#geoff cebula

[oldshrewsburyian]

Apologies if I already asked this, but recs for campus detective novels? I will be buried with my copies of Gaudy Night, but I want to try some other authors over the summer in between researching for my prospectus.

I do! Also set in Oxford is Robert Robertson's Landscape with Dead Dons, and it is uproariously funny.

Obviously the premise of the campus novel relies on an American setting, but if we do take Oxford (bless it) as providing an insulated setting suitable to the requirements of the genre, Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen novels would count. And Swan Song contains so many Wagner jokes... which I realize will only be a recommendation if you like that sort of thing (I do.)

Guillermo Martínez, The Oxford Murders, is (obviously) still in Oxford. It might be a shade over-clever for my taste, which I astonish myself by saying. Perhaps the problem is that it's written by a mathematician and I will take any amount of excessive cleverness dished out by my fellow humanists.

Sebastian Faulks, Engleby, is a dark and extremely intelligent mystery that starts at a university, and arguably would not have developed in the way that it did without the university setting.

Nayana Currimbhoy, Miss Timmins' School for Girls, is a satisfying classic mystery plot with a richly atmospheric evocation of the place and time (and monsoon season!) in which it is set.

Geoff Cebula, Adjunct, is brilliant, inventive, and will make you laugh-cry about the realism of its academic setting, I suspect, if you've ever been precariously employed at a university.

Carol Goodman, The Lake of Dead Languages, would count, I think, but I remember its prose (favorably!) better than its plot.

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation, is an academic mystery rather than the murderous kind, but no less satisfying as a classic detective puzzle for that, in my view.

I'll also add this list of campus mysteries for good measure, though I've read few of them myself.

#campus novel #my detection obsession #book recommendations #asks and answers #nayana currimbho #elaine hsieh chou #carol goodman #geoff cebula #sebastian faulks #guillermo martinez #edmund crispin #robert robertson

[oldshrewsburyian]

For @bibliophilicwitch’s Sunday Tomes and Tea, English Breakfast and a darkly hilarious campus novel.

#adjunct #geoff cebula #currently reading #adultbooklr #tomes and tea #queue

[oldshrewsburyian]

I'm always in the mood for comedy; have you enjoyed anything with jokes in it? My recent fiction new reads include The Constant Rabbit, Harrow the Ninth, the Vinyl Detective series.

Thank you for recommendations-in-exchange! Given what I usually post about, “have you enjoyed anything with jokes in it?” is an amply justified question. The answer, however, is yes! 

The funniest book I’ve read recently is Geoff Cebula’s Adjunct, a campus novel about academia’s timeless peculiarities and uniquely twenty-first-century dysfunctions.

I also enjoy Alexander McCall Smith’s Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, sharper and darker than most of his work, which is all to the good, I think.

For somewhat darker humor, from Central Europe, I recommend:

Edith Templeton, Summer in the Country

Bohumil Hrabal, Closely Watched Trains

Miroslav Krleža, On the Edge of Reason

Sándor Márai, Casanova in Bolzano

Oh, oh, and also! for two uproarious Oxford comedies, Robert Robinson’s Landscape with Dead Dons and Max Beerbohm’s Zuleika Dobson.

#book recommendations #elodieunderglass #humor #geoff cebula #alexander mccall smith #edith templeton #bohumil hrabal #miroslav krleža #sandor marai #robert robinson #max beerbohm #landscape with dead dons

[oldshrewsburyian]

She wanted to say something along the lines of 'I don't care what seems plausible right now. I just need you to believe me. I know it isn't fair to you, but a line has been drawn in the world, and I need you not to think, but to declare yourself on my side.' But she couldn't quite form these words right now.

Adjunct, Geoff Cebula

#book quotes #adultbooklrquotes #campus novels #this one hits Too Close to Home #as all good satires should? #geoff cebula #adjunct #adventures in academia

[oldshrewsburyian]

Elena was so caught up in romanticizing the simple fact that her students cared about things that she had already walked to her car before remembering that she needed to get the second-year textbook from her office.

Geoff Cebula, Adjunct

#campus novels #adultbooklrquotes #currently reading #geoff cebula #adjunct #also about me

[oldshrewsburyian]

Is it too soon to start asking for autumn book recommendations? If not, what are your go-to books for the lovely fall season? (Which is... horrifically close. How on earth are we in late August already?)

From a temperate climate I have moved to a climate where my curry plant loves being outdoors for about half the year, so... it feels early, despite the fact that we are, astonishingly, in late August. However! Some suggestions.

For transitional late summer reading, I might recommend Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock, Edith Templeton's Summer in the Country, or Sándor Márai's Casanova in Bolzano.

I always like a good mystery novel, but especially in fall, I like a nice seasonally-appropriate one. Roberto Tiraboschi's The Apothecary's Shop may not be set in autumn (I'm honestly not sure), but it feels autumnal. Jeanette Winterson's The Passion is another novel that celebrates the mysteries of Venice. G.M. Malliet's Wicked Autumn is a sly, genre-savvy whodunit with a vicar-sleuth. Especially when I am feeling slightly frayed due to life events, my instinct is to submerge myself in Gaudy Night until I feel better. It may live on my bedside table this fall.

I also turn to campus novels in the fall, to get myself ready for the delights and absurdities of the semester. The absurdities of American higher education are... particular to it, but I do read the Brits too. (It suddenly occurs to me to ask/wonder: is this a peculiarly Anglophone genre?) I enjoy rereading Zuleika Dobson. Martha Southgate's The Fall of Rome is set at a private school, not a university, but it's very good and I think can be classed with the genre. Geoff Cebula's Adjunct is delightfully creative and delightfully absurd. I recently finished Jane Smiley's Moo, which I loved in part because even as Smiley is cynical and knowledgeable about the realities of non-elite US higher ed, she also seems to retain a genuine belief in the community of learning and discovery that higher education ought to provide, as do I.

Happy reading! reciprocal recommendations always gladly welcomed.

#book recommendations #asks and answers #counterwiddershins #adultbooklr