TIOLI September 2010: Back to School challenge thread

Please post about the books in an educational setting you plan to read. Or even the ones you would read if you could only fit them in or that you'd suggest others read...

I'm planning to read

Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep
Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

but haven't started either yet.

Antonia White, Frost in May is one that I'd like to join in with rereading. It's about an early 20th century girl who is sent to a convent boarding school.

A couple of you plan to read Village School by Miss Read - I'm tempted!

Last month I read two new books that would fit:

Daniel Pennac, School Blues, a book by a French novelist and former teacher about the effect of being labelled a dunce at school, and some of the ways to change that. I have to review it for the Bookbag

Andrew Taylor, The Anatomy of Ghosts - a historical campus novel and murder mystery, set at Cambridge University in 1786. Reviewed for The Bookbag.

Others I'd like to reread

Antonia Forest's school stories
Noel Streatfeild, Ballet Shoes
The Chalet School stories
David Lodge's Rummidge novels
Colette, Claudine at School

I've only read the first of Joanne Dobson's Karen Pelletier mysteries featuring a university professor - there are at least four more, and I liked Pamela Thomas-Graham's first Ivy League mystery and have another two somewhere....

Here's a link to the mother thread...

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=97878

I just finished Old School by Tobias Wolff and hope to get a review written later today. It was a quiet little book that packed a punch. I really enjoyed it.

I plan on reading The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman which is a mystery set in a boarding school in upper New York state.

I'm planning on reading Halide's Gift by Frances Kazan, which is an historical fiction book about Halide Edib. Her father defied the Sultan and sent Halide to a western school. She was one of the first Turkish women to graduate from the American College for Girls. She then wrote articles about education and women's rights for a Turkish newspaper, and worked for the Turkish education ministry.

I've already completed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was a really an August read that just carried over into the new month. I'm quite enjoying the series, and although I haven't planned to read to The Goblet of Fire this month as well, I might end up doing so.

Daddy-Long-Legs is my only other planned read for this challenge.

I read Frost in May last year, and thought it was wonderful.

I was both too old and too young to read the Harry Potter books when they first appeared. To old as I was not a young adult at the time. To young as I did not have any young adults of my own.

After reading the young adult Hunger Games series last night as part of TOLI, I was more willing to examine this genre. And so I have Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone set up for this challenge, the school challenge.

In my opinion there's no "too old" for Harry Potter. They're great books for any age.

#7 Definitely! I was both too old and too young to read them when they first came out but I loved them. Mike, I'm thinking of joining you with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone this month although I will never manage to read all the books I could count for this month's challenge!

I've heard good things about Frost in May and would like to read it at some point but I don't have a copy and I'm trying to concentrate on reading through my TBR pile at the moment (a hopeless task..)

I was probably also too old and too young to read them when they came out: the first was published when I was 19. It wasn't that I thought I was the wrong age to read them, it was more that I wasn't interested in children's books or fantasy then: I was aware they existed, and were popular, but I wasn't particularly interested for me. So I am reading them for the first time now.

#1 Good idea about Joanne Dobson. I wasn't thinking of her at all for this category. I've read all but the most recent one. I think I'll add her latest, Death Without Tenure to the wiki. Dobson is an English professor.

I've also enjoyed the Pamela Thomas Graham Ivy League mysteries. Another college-oriented mystery series I can recommend is the Ann Waldron series set at Princeton. The first one is The Princeton Murders.

I'm also planning to read David Denby's, Great Books, in which a reporter goes back to college to read the Great Books. I've got a few other college/university-related nonfiction books but I can put the Denby book to good use, filling a slot in my 1010 books and reading category.

I got sucked into the Daddy Long Legs vortex and added it to my Nook. It seems people really like it. Jean Webster was the niece of Mark Twain and died in childbirth at age 40. Wow, there's a story in itself, though not for this topic.

I haven't planned to read a school/education book yet but I wanted to mention...

I read Prep last year and highly recommend it. It is such a good character study. Bought me back to my school years... some good; some bad memories. Curtis Sittenfeld is a great author, I've read American Wife too - amazing!

I'd like to second the recommendation of Prep. I, too, thought the main character was so real. I gave the book to my daughter (who's closer in age to that character than I am!). My daughter was in total agreement with me.

Although Frank McCourt's follow-up books were not quite the book that Angela's Ashes was, I like this author's account of his experiences while teaching in the NYC public school system in his books 'Tis and Teacher Man.

I just finished Famous Writers School by Steven Carter - it is comprised solely of communication between an instructor and his students from a creative writing correspondence course. I really liked it until the end. For all of the tips offered to the "students" I think the author could have used his own advice. Still a good book overall, but the book just kind of ended - and in a rather distasteful way, completely out of the scope of the rest of the book

I'm currently reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'm not very far into it and haven't quite figured out what's going on yet, but I think the "educational setting" is close enough to count for this challenge, right?

I also would like to recommend more books I've enjoyed in the past for this challenge.

1. The first is Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl. You will either love or hate this book. It's definitely not a "Meh!" book. It qualifies for this challenge by it being in educational setting. Be prepared for a book that's "overwritten". Whether it's to your taste or not is another matter. (I loved it!)

2. Try The Secret History by Donna Tartt. The setting is a new England college. The issue is a death to which we're introduced right up front. The story is the set of sequences leading up to that death. It's creeeeeeepy!

3. For pure entertainment value, try My Latest Grievance by Elinor Lipman. It's the story of a college student who lives on the campus where both of her parents teach, but her dorm mother is her father's former wife. Uh oh! :) It's a funny book, if you need something light to read. Not as light as some chick lit, though...

I second the recommendation for The Secret History!

I really want to read Special Topics at some point, but probably need to stick to currently owned or borrowed books, there's enough of them!

> 19

I really want to read Special Topics at some point

Ooooh! Try to squeeze it in somewhere. I thought it was brilliant!

I've so far read Daddy Long Legs for this challenge, and am considering trying to squeeze in another one as well. I really love historical boarding school settings, so I'm looking forward to investigating some of the recommendations from this thread.

I can't resist adding Goodby, Mr. Chips by James Hilton as a choice for this Challenge. It's an oldie, but a goodie about an English public school Latin teacher. I've just recently reread it and enjoy it every time.

I will be reading Joanne Harris's Gentlemen and Players for this challenge. It's set in a boys school in the North of England.

>17 SqueakyChu: Madeline, you managed to add to my teetering tower wthout even writing a review. Special Topics in Calamity Physics is now on the pile. It's available at PBS so will be making it's way to me soon. I don't know how I missed it but I'd never heard of it. I loved The Secret History too.

Madeline, you managed to add to my teetering tower without even writing a review

:)

>22 cbfiske: I think I have to read that book about the Latin teacher. I don't know whether I'll get to it this month, but I'll try.

>26 _Zoe_: Hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

I like the sound of Special Topics in Calamity Physics: hooked by title, and reeled in by the first few pages readable on Amazon. Adding that one to the wishlist.

I finished Village School by Miss Read. It was a bit disappointing--somewhat charming but almost no plot.

I saw Old School has already become a shared read here, so I bumped it up my list and I'm starting that now.

I brought my tatty old copy of Daddy Long Legs - marked 10p, don't return, and acquired in October 1983, to work with me this morning, though I still have quite a lot of reading ahead of this one. Looking up Dear Enemy on Amazon, I discovered a Penguin omnibus edition with an intro by feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter, and couldn't resist, also a book by Webster called Patty Goes to College. Oops.

I took Old School out of the library and hope to get to it this month. I'll wait to add it to the wiki when I'm sure I can finish it in September.

I have Old School on the shelf but am also going to wait and see if I can get to it before adding it to the wiki.

I'm going to request Old School and try to read it for TIOLI--it sounds great!

Karen O.

Daddy Long Legs and Dear Enemy are both free downloads on Nook. I assume that would be true on Kindle, but don't know for sure.

How about Anne of Green Gables in this challenge. It's been a long, long time since I saw the series on PBS, but there was much about her education, wasn't there? You can get the Complete Anne of Green Gables for .99 on Nook. Maybe I'll read one of them. I recall liking the series very much.

Heh what's all this interest in Old School? ;-)

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster is trying to be *the* read of the month with five people either already signed up to read this book or who have already completed it!

I must find my copy of Daddy-Long-Legs and get reading: I thought I knew bookcase it was in, but no... Still, it can't have gone far.

If you can't find it I'll send you my current copy when the new one arrives, perhaps in a few days, I just got a despatch email from Amazon this morning.

I've reserved Special Topics in Calamity Physics from the library. Someone read a Muriel Spark for this and that made me think of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Sure enough, it's already been listed as a read for this challenge.

I'd also like to read College Girls by Lynn Peril, which has been listed too.

>35 Citizenjoyce: After Anne of Green Gables leaves school, she becomes a teacher in Anne of Avonlea, goes to college in Anne of the Island, and is a teacher again in Anne of Windy Poplars. So the first 4 books in the series would totally work for this challenge.

needed to start a new audiobook and decided I needed something a little more "light hearted" so I started School for Scumbags by Danny King. I have not read any of his Burglar Diaries books, but came across this title specifically for this challenge. Only an hour into it and it's hilarious. A Juvenile Delinquent is enrolled in a school for "Misdirected Youth" - and is taught the real way to become a delinquent.

I accidentally started the fourth Harry Potter last night. ("I didn't mean to, it jumped off the bookshelf and straight into my hands, already open at the first page." *snicker*) I wanted something light and thought I'd read a chapter or two, and then just read it every now and then while I got through some more serious stuff.

I'm on page 364. Sigh.

I have found Daddy-Long-Legs, though.

43> I just now reached page hundred or so of the first Harry Potter book. And I've been reading for three days now. Off and on. And I had completed two books the day before I started (one started and finished, other started the day before).

Interesting and all, just slow going. That and I normally read during breaks and today has been my first day of work since I started the book.

>44 MikeBriggs:: I'm impressed that you have the self-control to read it as you have time instead of staying up all night (or abandoning work)!

45> I've been known, when I am within 50 pages or less of the end, to read to the end.

And I have, on occasion, just sat and read hours on end. I recall one Christmas I acquired one of the Stephen King Gunslinger series books, Drawing of the Three I believe. I stayed up all night and finished it all in one go. In some strangers house, up in their loft.

I suppose I limit myself to breaks for if I didn't, I would probably not be able to stop reading.

I've added College Girl (no s) to the wiki. It's by Patricia Weitz. Not sure that I'll have time to get to it but I hope I do. I've been meaning to read this novel for awhile.

I'm about half way through Daddy Long Legs and loving it. Thank you elkiedee for starting this challenge, otherwise I never would have read it. My sister is a school librarian and had never heard of it. I told her she'd best get to it immediately.

Daddy Long Legs is a reread for me but I'm enjoying it, thanks to whoever first suggested it on this challenge.

Well, I will add a few classics, if anyone is interested:

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
Wouldn't Jane Eyre count?

Just read All is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang, a good part of which takes place in a university writing program.

And a few more that qualify, I think:

Katherine by Anchee Min
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Finished School for Scumbags by Danny King. It was really good. A tad more off-color in language than I usually like, but it worked for this story about a group of juvenile delinquents attending a school billed as a reform school but actually teaches them how to become better criminals. King is a British author and I listened to this as an audiobook with an absolutely brilliant narrator who captured the accents perfectly. I wonder if I would have liked it as much without the narration, but it was laugh out loud funny with some good meaty plot points built in.

I saw Old School on the wiki, so thought I'd read it (if I got it in time from the library). Well, it came in today when I happened to be working at the same, so I will be reading that book for the challenge. How many are reading that book now?

Karen O.

>>52 klobrien2: - I've got a few chapters of Old School left to read so I'll definitely finish it to count for this month. I'm really enjoying it. It seems the perfect TIOLI read with all of the literary references throughout and the students' love of writing and authors.

53: I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying it--I read the first few paragraphs when I picked it up and it grabbed me right away, so I'm pretty sure I'll love it.

Karen O.

I finished a reread of The Worst Witch last night - Mildred is a pupil at a school for witches, but her spells tend to go a bit wrong.

>17 SqueakyChu: Ditto on the Special Topics. I absolutely adored that book. Best book I read last year. But, I hesitate to recommend it because it is so overwritten, and I that it could get under people's skin. But if it grabs you, what a ride!

I finished What Was She Thinking? (called Notes on a Scandal elsewhere) and Frost in May for this challenge. Both were good, although Frost in May is definitely a better novel.

Frost in May is a wonderful book, I really wanted to join you and reread it, but I am so spoiled for choice bookwise.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who read books for this challenge and to those who have mentioned how much they enjoyed it. I just wish I'd had more time for more stories of school and college days.

One month I think I'll post a bildungsroman challenge, books about growing up, coming of age etc.

#59 Sounds like a great idea to me! I love coming of age stories.

Sorry I couldn't participate in your challenge in September. I took Old School out from the library but never got to it.