Neal Stephenson's first book: a fantasy about a plate-glass university ("American Megaversity") taken to its illogical extremes. Stephenson claims not to be proud of this book, but it's one of my favourites -- I suspect much of the humour will be lost on you if you haven't been involved in academia recently, however! This new paperback edition is definitely more pleasant to read than the bootleg copy I had while it was out of print; thoroughly recommended.
ISBN 0380816032.