1) Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
It feels right to start this list off with the quintessential Cambridge novel. The story centres on Sir Godber, a frustrated former politician-turned-master desperately trying to reform his beloved Porterhouse College in the face of stark opposition from his fellows and staff. Their ludicrous reactions to proposed changes to college structure (including introducing female students, reforming the canteen and providing free contraception) end up with, quite literally, explosive consequences. The amusing array of side characters include a research graduate smitten with an older, widowed bedder; a grouchy Head Porter who comments frequently on the brilliance of students who frequently get the better of him; and Lady Mary, whose self-indulgence has ironic and catastrophic effects. With an extremely satisfying, if predictable, ending, Sharpe constructs an absurd but at times all too familiar story.

2) The Liar by Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry is a funny man. There is a lot of humour in his debut novel: the story of Adrian Healey’s journey through life, a large portion of which is spent at the fictional St Matthew’s College, Cambridge. Healey’s life is exciting: he flirts with danger through publishing illicit magazines and has a brief stint as a rent boy in London. Fry’s characters are characteristically ostentatious to the point where they at times feel unrealistic. Equally, the climax of the book suffers from having a few too many twists – Fry at times seems uncertain what kind of story he actually wants to present, be it a comedy, tragic social commentary or even spy novel, leaving the reader unsure of what exactly it was they gained from reading it. Although, in the end, some of these faults can be forgiven in the face of an unreliable narrator, the titular liar.

3) Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
As someone that is not necessarily the biggest fan of Birdsong, I think there’s a lot of things to like in Engleby. In contrast to The Liar’s Healey, Faulks’s character Mike Engleby’s unreliable narration puts the reader on edge from early on in the text. The story takes the format of a journal, Mike’s personal story as a working-class boy studying at an unnamed traditional university (clearly Cambridge) and the complicated relationship he develops with one of his peers, Jennifer Arkland. Faulks sets up Engleby’s strange memory gaps early in the novel, and the arc strongly kicks into gear when Jennifer disappears one night following a party at Malcolm Street. The inside of Engleby’s head is a fascinating if difficult place to be, and there’s no question that the novel is engaging. The second half of the novel is perhaps less interesting than the first, and indeed Faulks’ story is by no means ground-breaking. Read it for the thrills, not to gain anything profound.

4) Maurice by E.M. Forster
Maurice is in many ways a phenomenal novel. Published after Forster’s death in 1971, as he feared it would be unpublishable, the story of Maurice Hall is in many ways a deeply uplifting one. When attending Cambridge, Maurice meets fellow student Clive Durham with whom he forms a secret romantic attachment for two years. The real centre of the novel comes after our eponymous protagonist leaves university, heartbroken by his lover’s desire to get married in what both parties are fully aware is a miserable union. His attempts to cure his homosexuality through hypnotism prove impossible, and it is not until he meets Alec Scudder, an under-keeper and his social inferior, that you sense a real chance of hope in the character’s life. In many ways Maurice is a typical period piece, with the obvious exception of the main character’s sexuality. Forster’s use of this novel as a kind of therapeutic exercise is clear in how stunningly open it is in a time before the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Immensely powerful and very readable.