Why am I passionate about this?
I am a writer whose passion for Dark Academia developed in the academic world, teaching and studying at universities, as well as working in libraries and archives across the U.S. and Europe. I hold a master’s degree and Ph.D. in History from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. The hallowed halls of historic universities provide an ideal backdrop to explore ruthless competition and the relentless drive for intellectual supremacy, which is integral to the Academy. It’s a happy coincidence to me that Dark Academia books have become so popular recently. Fun fact: The Bequest was written before I had ever heard the term!
Joanna's book list on Dark Academia by women to read right now
Why did Joanna love this book?
No Dark Academia list would be complete without The Secret History—Donna Tartt’s 1992-debut (!) has come to define the genre.
Among the many things I love about this novel are that it’s a mystery told in reverse, and a meditation on toxic friendships between students at a top-tier institution, which explores the darker corners of the human psyche contained within classical texts.
It’s a book I come back to again and again, and Tartt’s effortless style has influenced my own writing. There’s an intimacy here, and readers will feel as if they, too, are starting their campus journey together with newcomer Richard Papen, at a college based on Tartt’s own alma mater, Bennington.
14 authors picked The Secret History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
THE BESTSELLER THAT DEFINED AN AGE
'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'
Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries.…