Every weekend, we delve into the British backlist and recommend a book for you. Tom Sharpe’s 1974 novel, Porterhouse Blue, is a good, old-fashioned, satirical look at the University of Cambridge. Who couldn’t do with a chuckle these days?

porterhouse-bluePorterhouse Blue, by Tom Sharpe

“Porterhouse College is world renowned for its gastronomic excellence, the arrogance of its Fellows, its academic mediocrity and the social cache it confers on the athletic sons of country families. Sir Godber Evans, ex-Cabinet Minister and the new Master, is determined to change all this. Spurred on by his politically angular wife, Lady Mary, he challenges the established order and provokes the wrath of the Dean, the Senior Tutor, the Bursar and, most intransigent of all, Skullion the Head Porter – with hilarious and catastrophic results.”