Faulty Towers Meets the Academy—that’s my TV Guide description of Lucky Jim, the latest on my PhD reading list.

The story follows an inept British university lecturer bumbling through a series of social and academic disasters. His bumblings are not due to a lack of intelligence, mind you, but rather to complete disregard for academia’s absurdities such as the publish-or-perish mentality and cut-throat colleagues.

Some describe the book as hilarious, which I suppose was true forty-some years ago when it hit the shelves. But today that assessment seems overrated. Still, I did laugh out loud twice. Though it took me a full fifty pages to “get into” the 150-page book, the moments of whimsy made for a “not completely unfortunate” read.