Book of the week: In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic by Professor X

Professor X expands on the essay he wrote for The Atlantic in 2008, in which he questioned whether college is the right place for every 18-year-old in America.

(Viking, $26)

Give adjunct professors some credit, said Dwight Garner in The New York Times. They’re apparently good at “delivering bad news.” In 2008, a shadowy adjunct calling himself Professor X emerged from the lower depths of academia with a wickedly funny account of his experiences teaching night courses on creative writing at two undisclosed institutions of higher learning. His essay, which appeared in The Atlantic, also carried a somber message: Perhaps not every 18-year-old in America is college material. Outrage followed—at a pitch suggesting that the author had proposed “the beating to death of baby whales using the dead bodies of baby seals.” In expanding his essay to book length, Professor X has padded out his argument without watering down its message. This is “the work of a compassionate man” who simply wishes that U.S. colleges would stop taking money from people who don’t belong in them.

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