Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in School or College

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.
• Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to The Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
• Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
• Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is a Freebie – choose anything we like!  I’ve decided to teach you all a lesson, in a manner of speaking, with my Top Ten Books Set in School or College.  Clicking on the title will take you to the book’s description on Goodreads or my review.

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Goodbye Mr Chips by James Hilton

Memorable for me from the 1939 film version starring Robert Donat (for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor, beating Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, James Stewart and Mickey Rooney in the process), the heartwarming story of a much-loved teacher.

A Murder of Quality by John Le Carré

As a favour to an old friend, spymaster George Smiley turns detective to investigate the murder of the wife of an assistant master at the distinguished Carne School.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.” The story of an unorthodox teacher and her special, and ultimately dangerous, relationship with six of her students.

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

Sherlock Homes utilises his remarkable knowledge of bicycle tyre tracks to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of the son of the Duke of Holderness from a prestigious boarding school, and to earn himself the pay check of a lifetime in the process.

Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

A lonely schoolteacher reveals more than she intends when she records the story of her best friend’s affair with a pupil .

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier

Shakespeare’s Othello re-imagined as school playground conflict between diplomat’s son, Osei Kokote, and the manipulative, Ian, as the latter sets out to destroy the new boy’s relationship with Dee, the most popular girl in school.

Indignation by Philip Roth

Studious, intense Marcus Messner arrives on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio’s Winesburg College against the backdrop of the Korean War.

The History Man by Malcom Bradbury

The adventures of Howard Kirk, self-appointed revolutionary hero and the trendiest of radical tutors at a fashionable campus university in the 1970s.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college, who consider themselves beyond the boundaries of normal morality, slip from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last – inexorably – into evil.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Whilst attending a reunion known as a ‘gaudy’, Harriet Vane reluctantly enlists the help of ardent admirer, Lord Peter Wimsey, to find the culprit behind a series of increasingly unpleasant events at her former Oxford College.

And, for those after extra homework, or in detention, here are a few more:

The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn by Colin Dexter
‘A School Story’ in Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James
Villette by Charlotte Brontë
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton
What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge
Frost in May by Antonia White
Oh, go on then….Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

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Next week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic: Frequently Used Words in (Genre) Titles