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After many episodes, many opinions, and several books that made us question whether anyone in academia should be allowed off campus, we’re finally doing the sensible thing.
Ranking them.
Every book we’ve read for the Dark Academicals, placed somewhere on the grand and deeply scientific spectrum between dark academic excellence and did we actually enjoy this book?
This episode is part recap, part reckoning, part group therapy. We’re looking back at the books that defined the podcast so far: the ones that understood the assignment, the ones that bent the assignment into something stranger, and the ones that put on the tweed but forgot to turn up to the party.
There will be favourites, there will be disagreements, and there may even be betrayal.
And yes, we will probably still be arguing about the exact placement of at least one title long after the episode ends.
SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE FINAL RANKING BELOW THIS GRAPHIC…
Every book from 1-70
1 An Academy for Liars
2 Rebecca
3 The Song of Achilles
4 If We Were Villains
5 Voice Like a Hyacinth
6 Katabasis
7 The Raven Boys
8 Frankenstein
9 The Whispering Dark
10 The Ruins
11 The Cloisters
12 The Haunting of Hill House
13 The Picture of Dorian Gray
14 The Centre
15 Hell Bent
16 Blood Over Bright Haven
17 She is a Haunting
18 An Education in Malice
19 Darkly
20 A Lesson in Thorns
21 The Incandescent
22 Hungerstone
23 The Monk
24 Madam
25 Belladonna
26 Mexican Gothic
27 Ninth House
28 The Library at Hellebore
29 Boys With Sharp Teeth
30 Catherine House
31 Brideshead Revisited
32 The Talented Mr Ripley
33 Immortal Dark
34 The Things We Do to Our Friends
35 Foxglove
36 Bunny
37 We Love You, Bunny
38 Spoilt Creatures
39 Northanger Abbey
40 The Great Gatsby
41 Interview with the Vampire
42 Babel
43 Arcana Academy
44 The Bacchae
45 Vita Nostra
46 A Great and Terrible Beauty
47 The Maidens
48 A Study in Drowing
49 The Four
50 A Deadly Education
51 Curious Tides
52 Ace of Spades
53 I Have Some Questions for You
54 Black Chalk
55 Summer Sons
56 Sleepwalking
57 A Lesson in Vengeance
58 The Swallows
59 Vicious
60 Picnic at Hanging Rock
61 And He Shall Appear
62 The Atlas Six
63 My Dearest Darkest
64 How We Fall Apart
65 Prep
66 Gothikana
67 The Mary Shelley Club
68 The Coven
69 Stoner
70 The Magicians
