November 2024
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    Looking for books about life in academia. Not necessarily student life, but more about life as an independent researcher or a professor. I’m currently a postdoc and sort of going through an existential crisis. Having second thoughts about this career and my future; not sure what I’m in it for anymore. Any suggestion is welcome. Thank you.

    by ancin

    5 Comments

    1. Stoner by John Williams. I think he only wrote three books, and all are great. Note that this is not a feel-good book.

    2. Dazzling-Ad4701 on

      the robber bride by Margaret Atwood has three main female characters. and one very villainous female villain 😉

      one of the three is a professor of history, specializing in war. it’s kind of peripheral to the main plot, but you said “any”. and it does cover her history from undergrad to professor.

      another option: moo by Jane smiley. a wide cast of characters at an American agricultural college.

      mickelsson’s ghosts by john Gardner. MMC is a tenured professor of sociology although again,it’s not *about* that.

      by Alison Lurie, from the 60’s or 70’s: the war between the Tates, love and friendship, foreign affairs, probably at least one other. all of them set in or revolving around characters at a fictional new england college.

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