Six top books about university life

Michelle Dean is a critic and journalist based in New York. One of her six best books about university life, as shared at the Guardian:

Possession: A Romance by AS Byatt

The notion that scholarly work might have its own intrigue and romance is very difficult for a novelist to illustrate. Hours spent gently sorting through old papers in archives don’t provide much inherent drama. Yet Byatt figured out a way to get the addictive, dizzying spell of research across in this exceptionally romantic book. It follows a graduate student and a feminist professor who discover that two obscure poets, their mutual obsessions, once actually met – and had a secret affair.

Read about another entry on the list.

Possession also appears on Kelly Anderson's top five list of books for newlyweds, Rebecca Mead's list of six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era, Marina Warner's ten top list of fairytales, Ester Bloom's top ten list of fictional feminists, Niall Williams's list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, Kyle Minor's list of fifteen of the hottest affairs in literature, Emily Temple's list of the fifty greatest campus novels ever written, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best fossils in literature, ten of the most memorable libraries in literature, ten of the best fictional poets, ten of the best locks of hair in fiction, ten of the best graveyard scenes in fiction, and ten of the best lawyers in literature, and on Rachel Syme's list of the ten most attractive men in literature, Christina Koning's critic's chart of six top romances, and Elizabeth Kostova's top ten list of books for winter nights.

--Marshal Zeringue