Berlin Library's Collection Shows Scary Side Of Schools

Press release from the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library:

BERLIN, CT — With students back in the classroom after more than a month and Halloween fast approaching, the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library is promoting a unique genre of reading.

The library, located at 234 Kensington Road, Berlin, has plenty of titles showing the "moody, mysterious tales of ambition, intellect, and the shadowy side of academia."

Yes, schools and universities can be scary places, and Berlin's books show that in more ways than one.

"Step into the world of dark academia, where mystery, intellect, and gothic aesthetics blend into a genre that celebrates the pursuit of knowledge, but with a shadowy twist," wrote the library.

"Whether it’s hidden secrets in ancient libraries or the thrill of intellectual rivalries, these stories will captivate you with their moody atmospheres and intense explorations of ambition, obsession, and the darker side of academia.

Among the books fitting this genre are:

Society Of Lies

Lauren Ling Brown

When her sister Naomi, about to graduate from Princeton, is found dead on campus, Maya, believing it was no accident, discovers Naomi joined the same underground society she did years ago and now every clue is leading her back to the past—and to the secrets she’s kept all these years.

Leda And The Swan

Anna Caritj

When her classmate, Charlotte, disappears after a wild campus party, Leda, who is now dating Charlotte’s ex, becomes dangerously obsessed with finding her and begins to fear for her own life.

Good Girls Lie

J. T. Ellison

In a follow-up to Lie to Me and Tear Me Apart, a popular transfer student at an elite prep school races to protect a dangerous secret when a killer sets her up for a string of murders.

The Secret Place

Tana French

The Secret Place — a board where the girls at St. Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously– is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper. Dublin Detective Stephen Moran joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.

Magic For Liars

Sarah Gailey

When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister–without losing herself.

An Education In Malice

S. T. Gibson

A dark academia tale of blood, secrets and insatiable hungers from author of the cult hit A Dowry of Blood.

The Sea Of Lost Girls

Carol Goodman

In the tradition of Daphne du Maurier, Shari Lapena, and Michelle Richmond comes a new thriller from the bestselling author of The Lake of Dead Languages-a twisty, harrowing story set at a prestigious prep school in which one woman’s carefully hidden past might destroy her future.

The Library Of The Unwritten

A. J. Hackwith

Assigned to watch the restless characters of books left unfinished by their authors, a head librarian of Hell’s neutral Unwritten Wing tracks an escaped Hero before an angel attack reveals the existence of a powerful literary weapon.

The Examiner

Janice Hallett

Told in emails, text messages, and essays, this innovative page-turner follows a group of students in an art master’s program that goes dangerously awry, from the internationally bestselling author Janice Hallett.

An Academy For Liars

Alexis Henderson

A young woman with a gift for persuasion, Lennon Carter, is invited to take an entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret part of Savannah, where she learns how to master her strange power.

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

Jenny Hollander

After fleeing as the lone surviving witness to horrific, gruesome events at her graduate school, Charlie Colbert disappeared and rebuilt her life only discover that the events of that night are being adapted into a film.

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro

A reunion with two childhood friends–Ruth and Tommy–draws Kath and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into the supposedly idyllic years of their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the serene English countryside, and a dramatic confrontation with the truth about their childhoods and about their lives in the present.

The Broken Girls

Simone St James

More than sixty years after one of four friends in a reputedly haunted boarding school goes missing, journalist Fiona Sheridan resolves to learn her sister’s fate before a harrowing discovery is made.

The Fortune Seller

Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Starting a job at a Manhattan hedge fund after graduation, Rosie uncovers the true identity the mysterious Annelise, a girl who infiltrated her elite Yale set with devastating consequences, and wonders if it’s too late for her to put right what went wrong.

The Institute

Stephen King

The playground was surrounded by a chainlink fence at least ten feet high, and Luke saw cameras peering down at two of the corners. They were dusty, as if they hadn’t been cleaned in a while. Beyond the fence there was nothing but forest, mainly pines…. Whatever the Institute was, it was in the middle of an old-growth forest, which meant in the middle of nowhere.

Babel: Or The Necessity Of Violence
An Arcane History Of The Oxford Translators’ Revolution

R. F. Kuang

A Chinese boy orphaned by cholera and raised in Britain is trained to work at Oxford’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, the world’s center for translation and magic through silver-working, where he must choose between competing loyalties.

Portrait Of A Thief

Grace D Li

A Chinese American art history major at Harvard, Will Chen is offered a (very illegal) chance to reclaim five priceless treasures China lost centuries ago and assembles a team of fellow students, chosen for their skills and loyalty, to help him on his mission—and make history.

The Swallows

Lisa Lutz

When a creative writing assignment leads to unsettling allegations about her school’s indifference to sexual assault, a new teacher organizes a group of marginalized girls in an escalating gender war.

I Have Some Questions For You

Rebecca Makkai

In the riveting new novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Great Believers, a woman must reckon with her past when new details surface about a tragedy at her elite New England boarding school.

The Teacher

Freida McFadden

A pariah at Caseham High School after having an inappropriate relationship with a teacher, Addie is desperate to keep the truth hidden, while Evie, horrified to find Addie in her class, is keeping something from her husband—and each will learn just how far someone will go to keep them silent

When We Were Silent

Fiona McPhillips

An outsider threatens to expose the secrets at an elite private school.

The Maidens

Alex Michaelides

When a member of a secret society known as The Maidens is murdered, a brilliant, but troubled, group therapist finds her obsession with proving the guilt of an untouchable Cambridge University professor spiraling out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her life.

The Starless Sea

Erin Morgenstern

Discovering a mysterious book of prisoner tales, a Vermont graduate student recognizes a story from his own life before following clues to a magical underground library that is being targeted for destruction.

A Deadly Education

Naomi Novik

An unwilling dark sorceress destined to rewrite the rules of magic clashes with a popular combat sorcerer while resolving to spare the lives of innocents. By the award-winning author of the Temeraire series.

Bright And Tender Dark

Joanna Pearson

Decades after the murder of nineteen-year-old college student Karlie Richards, her former roommate, now middle-aged and divorced, becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth amidst online conspiracy theories, speculation and the lingering shadows of the past.

Special Topics In Calamity Physics

Marisha Pessl

Having moved from one academic outpost to another throughout her childhood at the side of her aphorism-prone father, Blue van Meer attends the elite St. Gallway School in her senior year, where she falls in with a charismatic group of friends before the deaths of a teacher and student awaken her analytical instincts.

The Lying Game

Ruth Ware

Four girls are best friends and inseparable at Salten, a second-rate boarding school near the cliffs of the England Channel. They are notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies to both fellow boarders and faculty. Their little game has consequences when they soon learn their shared past was not as safely buried as they had once hoped.

Only If You’re Lucky

Stacy Willingham

Moving into an off-campus house with magnetic and addictive Lucy Sharpe and two other girls, shy and quiet Margot finally comes out of the shell she’s been in since her best friend Eliza died until one of the fraternity boys next door is murdered and Lucy goes missing.

We Wish You Luck

Caroline Zancan

A coming-of-age campus novel about a group of students who take revenge on a professor after she destroys one of their own.

This press release was produced by the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.