A pair of throwback classics.  In Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis, Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in history at a provincial university, struggles to hold on to his shakey academic perch and win the girl of his fancy. Lucky Jim “defines academia in the eyes of much of the world as does no other book (Washington Post).” It also contains some of the finest comic set pieces in the English language (The Observer).””  Franny and Zooey contains J.D. Salinger’s stories about alienated siblings from a well-to-do family. Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification as an antidote to the perceived superficiality of life. Her brother, Zooe points out that her pursuits are as self-involved as the egotism against which she rails.