Take a vicarious trip back to campus with these books that unfold, at least in part, at your alma mater—either the real one, or a fictionalized and renamed incarnation that will still strike a familiar chord.
A number are bestsellers penned by critically acclaimed, award-winning authors and remain popular. While a few are out of print and may be harder to find, copies can generally be located online.
Garnering comparisons to the work of Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park fame), the plot involves killer fungi and spider-sized nanobots run amok; created for benign scientific purposes, both become potential tools of biowarfare.
Big Red and Ithaca references abound in McEuen’s critically acclaimed novel—from a local dog rescue group to the nature preserve in Ellis Hollow.
'A Journey to Sahalin' by James McConkey
“Mr. McConkey is a professor of English at Cornell and observed firsthand the troubles there,” says the New York Times in its review of this 1971 novel about a university in the aftermath of a polarizing protest for Black student rights.
“He is completely convincing. Of the book’s many qualities, the one that most impressed me was the unforced tenderness that suffuses it.”
The protagonist is the dean of students at the school, dubbed “Brangwen.”
Dan Rosenberg/Provided
From left, MFA students Gerardo Iglesias, Sarah Iqbal and Aishvarya Arora listen to observations by two young poets at the Ithaca Children’s Garden.
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Semiconductors are at the core of the economy and national security. Their importance makes them a target. Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, discusses how Cornell is helping to keep the semiconductor supply chain safe.
Doug Nealy/Unsplash
The Peace Arch, situated near the westernmost point of the Canada–United States border in the contiguous United States, between Blaine, Washington and Surrey, British Columbia.