When I first arrived at the University of St Andrews in 2021, I expected Shakespeare, dense symbolism, and a healthy dose of Old English and Older Scots. And while those were certainly part of the journey, my reading list turned out to be far more surprising and exciting. Over the course of my English degree I wandered from the windswept moors to Swedish crime scenes, unravelled Agatha Christie’s cleverest deception, and wrestled with Ben Lerner’s existential despair over poetry.
Now, as I reach the end of my final year I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on my years at university. I keep returning to the books that defined my university experience and the stories that stuck with me. Several of these books were required. Others I discovered hidden in reading lists or recommended by my excellent tutors. All of them stayed with me. Whether for their elegant prose, emotional depth, or the way they subtly altered my thinking.
Whether you’re an incoming English student at St Andrews, an English major at a different university, or just a reader in search of an interesting read, this article is for you. These are the stories I loved, the ones I wish more people talked about, and the ones I think you’ll want to read next.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in my third year for the EN4407 module, Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction: Gender and Genre. I expected a classic whodunit—typical Christie: a suspicious death, a sleepy village, a circle of suspects. On the surface, it ticks those boxes. But don’t be fooled—Ackroyd is anything but cozy.
What makes the novel unforgettable isn’t just the legendary twist (no spoilers, I promise). Roger Ackroyd’s death isn’t steeped in grief—it’s a clean, clever narrative device. Christie uses it to play with structure, narration, and expectation in quietly subversive ways.
As we discussed in class, Christie was writing in the interwar period, when Britain was still reeling from WWI. Instead of trauma and chaos, she offers puzzles—death as logic, not tragedy. Agatha Christie’s novels have been favourites throughout my degree. Honourable mentions go to And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. If you think crime fiction has to be gritty and gruesome, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd will surprise you.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
I read Wuthering Heights in first year, as part of Culture and Conflict, a module introducing key nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts. This is more than just a classic—it’s a stormy, gothic, and deeply unsettling novel about obsession, inheritance, and rage.
Heathcliff, the novel’s dark centre, is both sympathetic and terrifying. Brontë’s use of a frame narrative and two unreliable narrators adds a ghostly distance to the story, while the moors become a character of their own—wild, haunting, and untamed. What struck me most was how emotion drives every decision in the novel, yet so much remains unspoken or misunderstood.
We spent time in lecture discussing the novel’s political undercurrents: class struggle, domestic violence, and race. It’s a book that refuses to behave—and that’s why I still think about it.
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Another standout from EN4407, The Laughing Policeman opens with a mass shooting on a Stockholm bus. Nine people are dead, including an off-duty police officer—and there are no leads, no motive, and barely a clue.
Laughter is hard to find in this book. It’s part police procedural, part slow-burn social critique. Martin Beck, the famously morose detective, leads the case—but his team, just as flawed and well-drawn, drives the novel’s emotional weight. Each small clue—from a packet of Bill cigarettes to a whisper in a mental hospital—matters.
Beneath the bleakness, it’s brilliant. The novel lays the foundation for Nordic noir: moral ambiguity, institutional fatigue, emotional restraint, and cities that feel like ghosts. By the end, you realise the book isn’t just about solving a crime—it’s about grief, class, and the quiet collapse of certainty.
The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner
I read this extended essay during the EN3217 Writing Poetry module, and it completely reframed how I think about poems. Lerner’s thesis is bold: poetry always fails. And that’s the point.
He begins with Marianne Moore’s line, “I, too, dislike it,” and explores why poetry is so often mocked, misunderstood—even by poets. Lerner dives into Plato, Keats, and bad high school verse, arguing that poetry is an impossible promise: we expect it to express the universal, the eternal, and it never quite gets there.
But that gap between aspiration and failure? That’s what gives poetry its power. It makes us slow down, speak the words aloud, and feel language stretch toward the ineffable. This isn’t a how-to guide—it’s a witty, honest, sometimes exasperated love letter to a form that insists on mattering, even when it disappoints.
Thunderstorm by Cao Yu
I read Thunderstorm in a Comparative Literature class on twentieth-century drama, and it’s stayed with me ever since. Written in 1934, it’s a play set over one stormy day in a wealthy Chinese household. But beneath the domestic setting lies a story about power, gender, and buried history.
As the play unfolds, family secrets collide with the desires of the younger generation. The result is operatic tragedy: betrayal, madness, and collapse. The women in the story—trapped between tradition and change—emerge as some of the most compelling figures.
What struck me most was the way the Zhou family’s silence became a curse. The house itself feels haunted—not by ghosts, but by social expectations. Thunderstorm is intense, theatrical, and quietly radical. A must-read for anyone interested in modern drama or global literature.
These books couldn’t be more different—detective fiction, gothic romance, poetic philosophy, political theatre—but they all taught me something unexpected. They pushed the boundaries of genre, made me question assumptions, and influenced the way I read, write, and think. Whether you’re just starting your degree or looking for your next read, I hope something on this list catches your eye. University reading lists can feel intimidating, but some of the most memorable reading experiences come from the texts we didn’t expect to enjoy. These were mine and maybe, now, they’ll be yours too!