Campus Core

School's in for fall

Is there anything more magical than walking across a college campus, shuffling your feet through a carpet of leaves in brilliant hues of orange, yellow, and red? I’m fortunate enough that this my daily life for three months of the year, or at least Monday-Friday, and perhaps this is why I associate autumnal reading with collegiate settings. To that end, I recently finished Elin Hilderbrand’s newest novel (yes, she is another auto-buy author for me) and it delivered exactly what I was looking for.

I should note that it was a perfect fall weekend in central Virginia, and I did make sure to diligently complete all the seasonal outdoor activities - running, farmers market-ing, rooftop bar-ing to peep the gilded foliage down below. But the majority of my Saturday was spent devouring The Academy, which centers on a New England boarding school and its cunning cast of characters. I was sad for it to end, but comforted myself with two things: 1) the knowledge that a sequel is on its way next September, and 2) starting a new book, of course.

This novel has been on my nightstand for years (literally) but I have never before last night picked it up. Knowing that it, too, is set on a school campus in New England, I decided to ride the momentum of The Academy and dive into what is sure to be a much darker and deeper read, not to mention longer—while The Academy clocked in at 413 pages, A Secret History is 576, which of course is practically a leaflet compared to the last Donna Tartt novel I read (The Goldfinch, which totals a whopping 800ish, depending on the edition). Luckily, reading is in session, and in season, and I’m excited to leaf through every last page.