I’ve enjoyed Julie Schumacher’s clever and snarky novels about the English Department at Payne University (where students wear T-shirts with PAYNE U: WHERE EDUCATION HURTS). Schumacher captures the chaos and wackiness of the current academic scene. Dear Committee Members (you can read my review here), where the English Department is in turmoil, and The Shakespeare Requirement (you can read my review here), where the English Department is under siege by the Machiavellian head of the wealthy Economics Department, Roland Gladwell. Gladwell plans to gut the English Department and take over their offices and conference rooms. Typical academic turf war!

I once took a trip to New York City with two other faculty members and a dozen students to visit Wall Street and other sites with business connections. It was a nightmare. One student stayed out all night and showed up in the morning dazed and confused from the alcohol and drugs he enjoyed during his binge. We had to sober him up and I had to put him on a train back to Buffalo.

Beleaguered head of the English Department, Professor Jason Fitger, gets pressured by the Dean (or face budget cuts) to accompany a group of students for a three-week tour of England. The students all have issues: one young woman has never been away from her cat before. There’s a student with a juvenile detention record. A pair of artistic twins. A couple who have broken up and remain unreconciled with the predictable awkwardness of the situation. And, of course, the student who thought he was going to the Caribbean and only packed T-shirts, shorts, and sun screen.

It doesn’t help that Fitger hates England. Fitger’s ex-wife (and her possible lover, Thor) cause Fitger to reevaluate his decisions about his life. For a rollicking adventure in England with plenty of laughs, give The English Experience a try. GRADE: B+