Top Ten Tuesday: Back to School – Books Set in Schools/Colleges

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

• Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
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• Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

In view of it being the start of the new school/college year soon, this week’s topic is Back to School/Learning Freebie.   I’ve decided to pick ten books set in schools or colleges, not necessarily all models of educational excellence!  Click on the title to read my review or the full book description on Goodreads.

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Goodbye, Mr Chips by James Hilton 

Mr. Chipping, the classics master at Brookfield School since 1870, takes readers on a journey through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  It’s a poignant love story that also chronicles a new, uncertain world full of conflict and upheaval.

(The 1939 film version starred Robert Donat, for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.)

 ‘The Priory School’ in The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Holmes, aided as always by the trusty Dr. Watson, is engaged by Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable, headmaster of the Priory School, to solve the mystery of the abduction of Lord Saltaire, the only son of the Duke of Holderness, from the school.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

A modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello set in a school playground.

A Murder of Quality by John Le Carre

George Smiley investigates when old friend, Miss Ailsa Brimley, editor of a small newspaper, receives a letter from a worried reader: “I’m not mad. And I know my husband is trying to kill me.” However, the letter has arrived too late because the woman who wrote it, the wife of an assistant master at the distinguished Carne School, is already dead.

Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new art teacher at St. George’s, befriends her.

When a scandal involving Sheba turns into a media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend’s defence – and ends up revealing not only Sheba’s secrets, but also her own.

Indignation by Philip Roth

In order to avoid the draft, Marcus must graduate from college, avoiding the distractions provided by room-mates and the opposite sex – not to mention complying with the rules of the conservative Winesburg College.

Marcus’ encounter with a female student has unexpected consequences and sets off a chain of events that will change the course of his life.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Set in the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods.  She strives to bring out the best in each one of her students, determined to instil in them independence, passion, and ambition.  However, one of them will betray her.

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

Set in a fashionable campus university, Howard Kirk is the trendiest of radical tutors. Timid Vice-Chancellors pale before his threats of disruption; reactionary colleagues are crushed beneath his merciless Marxist logic; women are irresistibly drawn by his progressive promiscuity. A self-appointed revolutionary hero, Howard always comes out on top.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries.

But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever.

‘A School Story’ in Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James

Unusual Latin sentences start to appear among the work which Sampson, a Latin tutor at a boarding school in the south of England, sets his students. Sampson appears deeply troubled by the messages contained in them.