9 Recently Released Dark Academia Books

Unlike cottagecore, this aesthetic lays a huge emphasis on language and literature. From cluttered bookshelves, and leather bound books to reading late into the night, these are all staple components of dark academia. While traditionally the aesthetic focuses on reading Gothic classics along the lines of Frankenstein, not everyone enjoys those books.

Modern dark academic books tend to fit into a certain box. They are usually set in prestigious universities, with characters exploring darker urges and some violent elements.

Here are 9 Dark Academia Books for your reading marathon

If We Were Villains

M L Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's meets the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.

As seven actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, the plays spill over into life, and one of them is dead. The rest face their greatest challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

The Secret History

Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, who miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

Dead poets society

N. H. Kleinbaum

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to "make your lives extraordinary! " Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society--a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school, they let their passions run wild. As Keating turns the boys on to the great words of Byron, Shelley, and Keats, they discover not only the beauty of language, but the importance of making each moment count. But the Dead Poets pledges soon realize that their newfound freedom can have consequences. Can the club survive the pressure from authorities determined to destroy their dreams?

Six of Crows

Leigh Bardugo

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .

1)A convict with a thirst for revenge

2)A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

3)A runaway with a privileged past

4)A spy known as the Wraith

5)A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

6)A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Song of Achilles

Madeline Miller

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

Black Chalk

Christopher Yates

It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: The stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you?

The Lake of Dead Languages

Carol Goodman

Twenty years ago, Jane Hudson left the Heart Lake School for Girls after a terrible tragedy. Now she has returned to the school as a Latin teacher, recently separated and hoping to make a fresh start with her young daughter. But messages from the past dredge up forgotten memories that will become a living nightmare.

Since freshman year, Jane, Lucy Toller and Deirdre Hall, were inseparable–studying the classics, performing rituals on the lake, and sneaking out after curfew However, the last winter before graduation, everything changed. For three lives were taken, all victims of senseless suicide. Only Jane was left to carry the burden of a mystery that has stayed hidden for more than two decades in the dark depths of Heart Lake.

Now pages from Jane’s missing journal, written during that tragic time, have reappeared, revealing shocking, long-buried secrets. And suddenly, young, troubled girls are beginning to die again . . . as piece by piece the shattering truth slowly floats to the surface.

Ninth House

Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of dead-end jobs, and much worse. By age twenty she is the sole survivor of an unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Searching for answers herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful. But their occult activities reveal to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.