For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
This tearjerker book made me want to get back to the classroom to make students feel as strongly about me as they had about David.
The author visits former students to find out how he impacted their lives. He has cancer and marital issues, but it doesn’t stop him for being positive and grateful about his encounters with students he taught in high school.
On his travels throughout the country, he slept on their couches, broke bread with them, and conversed with them for hours. He came to the conclusion that his life had been richer through knowing and guiding them into people he was proud of.
Through this book, I discovered the generosity of spirit that exists among educators as they create communities in classrooms that encourage growth and learning.
In this “beautiful, heartfelt, and ultimately important story about love, kinship, gratitude, and miracles” (Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author), a beloved high school English teacher with terminal brain cancer undertakes a cross-country journey to reunite with his former students in order to find out if he made a difference and discovers what is truly important in life along the way.
David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal…
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!
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.
'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.…
I’m obsessed with obsession; with the nature of intimate relationships. If I could obsess about a topic as easily and naturally as I can about a human, I’d probably have five or six advanced degrees. As a writer I’m most frequently drawn to third-person limited because I love the marriage of intimacy and distance it can create. It's that marriage that confounds me; the dark inner spaces contained by the people we love.
Gender takes a backseat to obsession when college student Regina becomes enamored with Professor Nicholas Brodeur, before finding a deeper romantic connection with his volatile wife. Choi nails the mix of awe and attraction that can characterize the relationship between a young person and an older counterpart. Lyrical and emotionally immersive, this academic novel depicts a regular young woman who believes (as we all do) that the strength of her passion is unique.
An intimately charged novel of desire and disaster from the National Book Award-winning author of Trust Exercise and A Person of Interest
Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill. He's said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He's condemned on the walls of the women's restroom, and enjoys films by Roman Polanski. But no one has warned Regina about his exceptional physical beauty-or his charismatic, volatile wife.
I’ve loved history and historical fiction since childhood and have been writing historical fiction/historical romance for about ten years. To give readers a sense of what life was really like almost three hundred years ago, I do extensive research: the weight of a 1717 French musket, the terrain where my story is set, and guardianship law, among other details. Titled men, gentlemen smugglers, and ballrooms are mostly absent because although they’re the stuff of daydreams, our most common problems center around family relationships. Making ends meet, difficult relatives, loyalty to family versus honor, or one’s own best interests or duty offer plenty of scope for conflict (and excitement and romance, too).
I loved that the hero of this book was illegitimate, raised in a workhouse, is a naval hero and a genius who remembers everything he has read, and is also incapable of tying his neckcloth neatly.
It’s a compelling story with good writing, humor, and a believable love interest, and it’s not populated almost exclusively by the titled and wealthy. All those things appeal to me very strongly.
Teaching at St. Brendan the Navigator’s School for workhouse boys intended for the navy, Sailing Master Six and his bride turn frightened, deprived children with no experience of kindness or affection into a family. That made a heartwarming novel that enchanted me—and I’m not easily enchanted. I’ll be re-reading it.
Sailing Master Able Six, Royal Navy, is a man like no other. To call him a mere polymath is to sell him short. Someone with his extraordinary gifts should rise to the top, unless it is the 1800s, where pedigree and money govern Regency society, as sure as Napoleon seeks world domination. A bastard raised in a Scottish workhouse with nothing in his favor except his amazing mind, Able must navigate life ashore on half-pay during the uneasy Truce of Amiens, and find a way to provide for his charming bride Meridee Bonfort, a gentlewoman to be sure, but lacking…
In my writing and in my life, I look at life and relationships in terms of what is and isn’t expected or acceptable. I’ve been fascinated by how pleasure itself has become a dirty word and how it can be exploited and used. Women have so much more potential and are so much more complex than what is given to us by media and social constructs. I write to expose the underside of identity, beliefs, and especially how past encounters color and shape our ability to experience pleasure.
I loved the shadow world of this book. How it was hard to determine if the relationship was indeed toxic or if the lust and hunger pointed truly to a love affair. It was sexy and disturbing at the same time.
It’s the relationship that fascinated me. The blurry lines between sex and love. Between grooming and real caring. And that even as an adult, the character doesn’t really know, and isn’t able to clearly understand how she feels.
An instant New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 DYLAN THOMAS AWARD
'A package of dynamite' Stephen King
'Powerful, compulsive, brilliant' Marian Keyes
An era-defining novel about the relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her teacher
ALL HE DID WAS FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AND THE WORLD TURNED HIM INTO A MONSTER
Vanessa Wye was fifteen-years-old when she first had sex with her English teacher.
She is now thirty-two and in the storm of allegations against powerful men in 2017, the teacher, Jacob Strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student.…
Ever since reading Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal in high school, I’ve always appreciated books and stories that can tackle dark subject matter in a completely deadpan way. The creator knows what they’re doing is kind of a joke and they’re inviting you along for the ride. I enjoy reading books where I think the writer had a really good time writing it, even if that means occasionally torturing the reader.
This is a seriocomic novel about a female eighth-grade teacher who sexually lures her male students. Extremely graphic and thought-provoking, Tampaalso manages to be an incredibly entertaining dark comedy. Like a lot of sensationalistic books, this approaches a serious topic and turns it into a nearly absurd piece of entertainment. It’s also extremely well written. I loved it.
Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She is attractive. She drives a red Corvette. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed and devoted to her. But Celeste has a secret. She has a singular sexual obsession - fourteen-year-old boys. It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought. Within weeks of her first term at a new school, Celeste has lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web - car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods.…
As a psychologist and university professor teaching internationally, I’ve had opportunities to listen to people’s stories globally, and impart wisdom gleaned from my own cross-cultural experiences. Invitations to share ranged from teaching others inner and spiritual healing methods to being Reader’s Digest’s “Online Ask an Expert about Infidelity”, to training local recovery workers during the two deadliest disasters of this century. Therefore, I cannot say I ‘chose’ to become an expert on betrayal. It chose me. From childhood on, betrayal gave me opportunities to personally experience and learn from interpersonal infidelities, health crises, social injustice, and mass trauma. The school of hard-knocks tests us first—then we get the teaching.
Dangerous Friend is an Eastern wake-up call for Western ‘seekers’ and ’would-be spiritual teachers’. Drawing from Vajrayana teachers, Rig’dzin Dorje clarifies betrayal is a “final portal of freedom…in which we are able to question…our narcissistic determination to maintain the illusion of duality.” As a transpersonal psychologist, I’ve noticed sometimes Western seekers who hunger for enlightenment imagine devotion to their Spiritual Teacher will give them a ticket to ride a wave of bliss into nirvana.
A teacher must betray a student’s fantasies, attachments, and delusions, (including those about their teacher), in favor of devotion to the teachings. Despite a desire to have others be accountable to us, and responsible for us, this book confirms the necessity to cultivate Self-compassion and awareness—and to turn inward for liberation.
Although Tibetan Buddhism continues to grow in popularity, the crucial relationship between teacher and student remains largely misunderstood. Dangerous Friend offers an in-depth exploration of this mysterious and complex bond, a relationship of paramount importance in Tibetan Buddhist practice.
According to Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the student must have complete trust in the teacher (the "dangerous friend") if he or she is to achieve any understanding. It is the teacher's responsibility to uphold the integrity of the tradition, the basis of which is compassion for all beings, by transmitting it properly to an appropriate student. Likewise, it is the student's responsibility…
I grew up, a child of the eighties, in a Minneapolis household filled with music and dance. My mom took me to see the moviePurple Rainwhen I was thirteen and I was never the same. And though I no longer rat and spray the life out of my hair, I’ve always felt an affinity for the decade. The music of the time inspired so much of what we hear today. Notes and lyrics are just another forms of story. So, please enjoy my list. And if you find your foot tapping, pop in a cassette, a CD, or maybe even spin a record while you read.
This wonderful YA set in the seventies is part Booksmart with a bit of Judy Blume sprinkled in. I love humor in books and at times, this one will have you snorting your latte through your nose. The story follows Susan, an aspiring soccer player who just happens to have the hots for the foxy coach. What follows is a book that shines a light on a teenage girl owning her sexuality, building lasting friendships, and discovering what she really wants. I loved this book and though I read it a while ago, it has stuck with me in such a good way.
“One part Judy Blume, one part Amy Schumer, Gimme Everything You Got is incredibly warm, bracingly frank, and laugh-out-loud hilarious. I didn't want the game to end.” —Katie Cotugno, New York Times bestselling author of 99 Days
It's 1979—the age of roller skates and feathered bangs, Charlie’s Angels and Saturday Night Fever—and Susan Klintock is a junior in high school with a lot of sexual fantasies . . . but not a lot of sexual experience. No boy—at least not any she knows—has been worth taking a shot on.
Family history has always fascinated me. I didn’t want mine to be buried with my loved ones. So, out of curiosity, I asked relatives lots of questions. If unsatisfied, I sought answers elsewhere. I traveled as far as Celle San Vito, Italy, where my grandfather was born, to solve a one-hundred-year-old mystery, and I filmed it for others to enjoy. I’ve memorialized momentous family events in poems, handmade greeting cards, memory books, screenplays, a documentary, and now, in my memoir A Cup of Tea on the Commode. The books on my list are about “family.” I’ve been moved by each, and I hope they move you as well.
Like many people, I first discovered Morrie on Nightline with Ted Koppel. Like many, I fell in love with his charm, courage, and determination to continue doing what was in his bones, teaching us what’s truly important in life.
Mitch Albom, his former student, shares many of Morrie’s lessons and his gift of uplifting others while facing his own death. I laughed, cried, and thanked Mitch and Morrie for sharing this gift with me.
THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON THAT HAS TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF OVER 9 MILLION READERS
'Mitch Albom sees the magical in the ordinary' Cecelia Ahern __________
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague? Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it? For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.
Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to…
When I was a child, my mother offered daycare at our house. The kids, the regulars, had moms who worked outside their homes. I’ve been listening to the personal, social, and economic worries of adult women since I was in kindergarten. I hope my stories portray their vulnerability, resilience, kindness, and capacity for violence. I set women centerstage as a sign of respect and to make the full range of women as people—our personhood—visible and undeniable. I’m drawn to stories of women who lash out and commit terrible acts. To be counted, I think we must be perceived as human and therefore fallible, potentially dangerous, capable of anything.
I like stories in which ordinary people are tested, really driven to the breaking point.
At the center of this novel, a grieving school teacher addresses her final class before the scheduled break. Gradually and with ever-increasing suspense, we learn that the teacher has uncovered the awful circumstances behind the recent death of her child.
In this powerful, well-paced story of innocence and cruelty, the central character is a typical educator, a dedicated person with a lot of responsibilities who has been pushed beyond the limit. She isn’t a psychopath. Her actions merely demonstrate how far a sane, self-sacrificing person might go, in the name of justice for a loved one.
The Internationalization of Capital explores the nature of capitalist expansion, providing a wealth of up-to-date empirical data combined with incisive theoretical analyses of the dynamics of international capitalism within a comparative-historical framework. The unique combination of theory and extensive data on the labor force structures of various countries makes this work engaging reading for all who are interested in the class basis of conflicts and crises in the world economy.
Social and Economic Studies
This book explores the nature of capitalist expansion, providing a wealth of up-to-date empirical data combined with incisive theoretical analyses of the dynamics on international capitalism…
