Lucky Jim
Jim Dixon is a young lecturer in medieval history at a nowhere in particular English redbrick university, trying to keep the job he mostly hates. Kingsley Amis follows him through a term of academic humiliation, disastrous social weekends at his professor's house, and an entanglement with a manipulative fellow lecturer named Margaret. Jim's real gift is his private, comic contempt for the whole apparatus of postwar British respectability, which explodes into the famous set piece of a very drunk public lecture. Lucky Jim helped define a whole line of postwar English fiction and remains one of the funniest novels in the language. It has been claimed by generations of writers and academics as a personal favorite.
What you might want to know about Lucky Jim
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A junior medieval history lecturer at a provincial English university plots to survive his awful boss, his awful girlfriend, and his own worst instincts.
Yes. Lewis has repeatedly named Lucky Jim as one of the funniest books he has ever read and one he rereads, mentioning it in interviews and reading lists.
No. Amis's targets are universal, and the comedy lands whether or not you know the difference between a redbrick and a Cambridge college.
Lucky Jim was written by Kingsley Amis, published in 1954 by Penguin Classics.
Lucky Jim is 251 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Lucky Jim takes most readers 4 to 5 hours to finish.
Lucky Jim is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.