Yes, unfortunately it’s the time of year when the broadsheets invite the great and the good to recommend all the books you should buy to read on your summer holidays, whichever part of the back garden you are heading to with your beach towel.
No-one we asked was willing to provide any suggestions which were not their own books and so we decided just to pick the ones we thought sounded good.
So here then is our spanking new list of the best higher ed novels and text books you will want to be ordering now.
The Lockdown Trilogy: Zoom at the Top, A Zoom With a View, The L Shaped Zoom
Understanding University Pensions (Third Edition, now 7 comprehensive volumes)
Interview with the Vampire: Stories from the Oxbridge student recruitment front line
Harry Potter and the Philosophy Department
Barber’s Barbs – your favourite snappy quotes from the outgoing OfS chair
Still More Places for Maces: University Regalia Around the World
More Registrars and their Registers
The Handmaid’s Fail – unsuccessful widening participation programme in a dystopian future HE system
The Boleyn Inheritance: managing A-list legacy acceptance
The Lady of Quality Enhancement
Behind the Scenes at the University Museum
An Office Collection Volume III – the latest circulars and publications from the past year of the OfS
The Dissertation Word Count of Monte Cristo
Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest – University Course Design for Dummies
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll: Academics and their Baggage
A Murder of Quality Assurance
Our Man in Havana – New Overseas Student Recruitment Markets
20,000 League Tables in HE
A Place of Greater Safety: University H&S from NEBOSH to RIDDOR
Of Mice and Men – Gender Inequality in the World of Animal Research
And of course we could not ignore everyone’s favourite holiday read – it’s the Spiked! Bumper Summer Fun Book 2020, once again with all your favourite pseudonymous scribblers adopting wilfully contrarian positions on just about anything. With pull out picture spreads, photo stories, quizzes, puzzles and colouring. This year featuring a Living Marxism nostalgia section too.
Bestsellers
And some of the best HE sellers from the past year which you also might like to consider
The Borrowers: University Librarians have their say
Hoods from the Hood – Graduation Paraphernalia and Street Culture
Cheats really do prosper – why essay mills are making a killing
The Bonfire of the Vanity Courses – Radical curriculum redesign made easy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The hottest new graduate entry jobs
The Sign of Four Star: Sherlock Holmes and the REF
To Kill the Mockingbirds: campus avian control strategies
Gold! Always Believe in Your TEF Score
North and South: the UK’s Hampton Universities Compared
Data Delights and Tableau Tableaux
UKRI or I cry, Bees or Baize? The definitive sector pronunciation guide
How to dig “digs”: Understanding contemporary trends in student accommodation
The Essay Mill on the Floss
I Spy Universities
I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester – Agricultural Economics in the Archers
For Whom the Bell Tolls – Universities and their Clocktowers
What great HE books will you be taking on holiday this year?