Final post of term ...

Sadly, Mr Shouler is leaving St Paul's - but he very kindly paused in the middle of packing up all his books to answer the book blog's questions:

Q: What were you reading when you were a teenager?
A: In my early teens, not much. Doing Tess of the d'Urbervilles for GCSE made me want to do English A-level, and then I didn't look back. An unhealthy cocktail of DH Lawrence, EE Cummings and Martin Amis when I was about 16 or 17.

Books of the Year

Looking for something to read over the holidays? Then you've come to the right place - it's our annual 'book of the year' post.  We asked people to nominate the books they'd most enjoyed this year, fiction or non-fiction, and here are the results: many thanks to all those who contributed, and Merry Christmas from the book blog!

Miss Douglass's book of the year is The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson:

'This book had a very funny, but incredibly complex plot. I loved how it cleverly came together towards the end and the characters were so well written.'

Poem of the Day

Keats, 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'

John Keats wrote the following poem after an evening devouring George Chapman's translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Keats develops the idea of the reader as voyager or astrologer, discovering new worlds through his encounter with the literature of the past. The importance and immediacy of a personal experience is stressed - the speaker of the poem 'had [...] been told' about Homer, but the first hand experience of his work is revelatory.

Much have I travel'd in the realms of Gold,
And many goodly States and Kingdoms seen;
Round many western Islands have I been,
Which Bards in fealty to Apollo hold;
But of one wide expanse had I been told,
That deep-brow'd Homer rul'd as his demesne;
Yet could I never judge what men could mean,
Till I heard CHAPMAN speak out loud and bold.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout CORTEZ, when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific, — and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

This month marks the 200th anniversary of the poem's publication in December 1816, and 2016 is also the quartercentenary of the publication of Chapman's full translation of Homer, the first to appear in English, in 1616.

Book of the Week

The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
Reviewed by Ollie Moore

The Lord of the Rings series was written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, more commonly referred to as J.R.R. Tolkien. An English writer, poet, philologist and university professor, he is known for the works of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. His works tend to fall into the high-fantasy genre.

The Lord of the Rings is set in Middle Earth, a fictional world created by Tolkien. ‘Middle Earth’ is inhabited by mystical creatures such as hobbits, orcs, trolls, ents, elves, wizards, dragons, dwarves and men.

AVARICE

by Alex Jacob

The following is a story I wrote as part of a collection of seven, each depicting one of the seven deadly sins. It's the pithy tale of a man so consumed by his greed for money that he neglects his family, his wife, and ultimately, his own sense of moral integrity, only to fail at the last minute to fulfil his desires.

Avarice

“Ninety five,” shouted out Mr Nelson. 

“One hundred!” came the expected reply from the other side of the room. It was like an infuriating echo thought Mr Nelson to himself. From his place in the crowd, Mr Nelson could not source the face belonging to the voice, but he could make out chubby fingers waving frantically in the air. He could not help but feel personally insulted that the man had chosen to bid specifically against him.

His wife placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Mr Nelson snapped round.

“Get your hands off me!” he bellowed, with unexpected violence. He hadn’t meant to shout, but his anger at losing several bids in a row had culminated in an unexpected surge of aggression; unfortunately his wife was the only person there to receive it. He turned back round quickly so as to avoid the questioning looks from the crowd around him. 

Mr Nelson made his living by buying cheap antiques from auctions such as these, and selling them off at far higher prices. He fixed his eyes on a variety of items on the stage. Several items in particular piqued his interest. Years of gathering antiques had meant that Mr Nelson had an eye for fine furniture, priding himself on an ability to identify rare antiques merely by their design.

Book of the Week

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster

Recommended by Seb Thomas

The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster, is a powerful drama that follows the life of Professor David Zimmer, forced to adjust to a new and painful reality, after his family is tragically killed in a plane crash. After spending much of a year in a hive of depression and self-pity, he finds his way out by discovering Hector Mann, a silent film comedian. The book is narrated in the first person by Zimmer but switches focus between him and Mann as the actor's past is gradually uncovered.

The characterisation in this novel is excellent, and Mann's character is especially interesting. We come to truly understand his motivations, and his story is perhaps what most makes the book compelling. Zimmer's character is far more mysterious to the reader, due to his mixed motives which stay obscure to the reader for most of the story.

My favourite part of the book is near the beginning when Zimmer first discovers Mann in a documentary about silent film. It is the second most important turning point in Zimmer's life, after his family's death, and, in a moment of inspiration, he breaks out of his death-like trance and transforms into a completely different character, one with a renewed sense of meaning and purpose.

Paterson

Recommended by Miss McLaren

If the triumph of Donald Trump has dented your faith in America, Jim Jarmusch’s latest film, Paterson, might give you hope. The picture it paints of the USA is the antithesis of Trump’s: sensitivity and warm-hearted kindness against bullying petulance; diversity and tolerance against bigotry; integrity and honesty against swaggering untruths. If Trump is about building walls and closing minds, Paterson is about keeping them open.

Book of the Week

Carry on, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse
Recommended by Felix Kwok

Carry on, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse is one of the earlier books in the Jeeves and Wooster series. I say earlier due to the fact that it is actually debated which book is first.

We

Recommended by Faris Firoozye

We is the most renowned work of Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin and one of the most influential dystopian novels of the twentieth century which foreshadowed the worst aspects of Soviet culture. 

In a glass-enclosed city composed of absolute straight lines and ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives empty of passion and creativity until D-503, a mathematician, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and influenced works such as George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. 

It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a loud cry for individual liberties, yet is also a powerful and exciting work of science fiction. We criticises the tendency of government in general to repress dissidents and promote stability over human freedom. 

Many critics consider We a response to H G Wells and his 'brand of scientific optimism'. Zamyatin translated several of Wells’s works into Russian; his criticism of Well's utopianism can be found in his repressive depiction of a 'perfect' society.

Book of the Week

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Recommended by Yuval Weiss.

Oryx and Crake is a dystopian novel by author Margaret Atwood, who also famously wrote The Handmaid’s Tale.

The novel deals with various environmental and ethical issues about genetic modification and is told within two parts.

Book of the Week

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevksy
Recommended by Nicholas Heymann

When I first decided to read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment I approached it not without some trepidation. I had always considered it to be a dense, difficult to read book that might feel more like work than enjoyment. Although to a certain extent that is the case, on tackling it I found the book to be perfectly readable - even when taking into account its philosophical nature.

One of the key features of Crime and Punishment is undoubtedly the philosophy that lies behind the decisions taken by the main character Raskolnikov – for me that added a lot to the book as a whole as it gave a new dimension to the characters.

Look

Look

Rolling slow and late, London bound,
The coach, turning, gives me briefly
A dozen seagulls judder hectic
In a pinch of air between a post-war
Semi and a Methodist church.

In that concrete channel, beaks blunted,
They trampoline the air, rhythmless
Over a thin, shit-strewn pathway,
Like shook sand at a beach bombing
Or the egg timer of a furious cook.

A wild breach, awkward and stunning,
The mute music of their jolting scales.
Dancing with incommunicable knowledge,
Incautiously caught and locked white hot
In a lonely spot they briefly bloat.

Then, a refuse lorry, blocking all, passes.
Green sacks slump, lavishly stuffed and
Wind-whipped, heaving like a load of lungs.

But I saw a dialect scattered on the air,
And am sewn silent now, in passing.

                        Christian Anthony

Book of the Week

The Circle by Dave Eggers 
Reviewed by Mr Copeman

The eponymous corporation in Dave Eggers’ dystopian novel is a thinly veiled amalgamation of Google and Facebook, two companies described by The Guardian this week as ‘the most powerful and secretive empires we’ve ever known.’

First published in 2013, Eggers’ prescient novel portrays a social media obsessed world; a scenario which requires little imagination today.

Book of the Week

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Reviewed by Alexander Kwang

The book begins with an opening sentence, ‘There was a hand in darkness, and it held a knife’: like all of Neil Gaiman’s books, the language is oddly simple. Yet he manages to create an effective blend of suspense and the supernatural in the story.

A bit creepy, but likeable nonetheless, Neil Gaiman quickly establishes a relatable protagonist - a young infant, of unknown name - and a dangerous antagonist known as Jack.

But Is It Literature?

"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"


Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to you ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

Book of the Week

Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin


Recommended by William Gee

 Li Cunxin’s Mao’s Last Dancer is set during China’s cultural revolution in the 1940s and follows the life of Li, who gets scouted from his school to be a professional dancer. On the journey from his peasant family to becoming a world-class dancer and travelling the globe, Li encounters many hardships and challenges. For example, we see that his body is pushed to the limit in a quest for the regime’s perfect body-type, and he faces people who doubt his potential. The story is inspired by Li’s own life and therefore the narrative is extremely moving and continually encourages the reader to relate to him.

Due to the fact that the story is inspired by true events, Cunxin’s characterisation is realistic and engaging. Primarily we grow to empathise with Li as the story is a first person perspective, so we experience his emotions first-hand. Cunxin’s style enables the reader to relate to Li in his proudest moments, such as when he is selected to dance professionally. Comparably, we can also sympathise with Li in times of sadness and mourning, such as when his grandmother dies. Therefore Li is portrayed as three-dimensional because Cunxin provides emotional depth to his character. In general, the plot does not reveal too much as it goes on and so keeps the reader guessing about what is going to happen. This maintains the suspense required to keep the reader interested.

Black History Month

Alex Aslett

The latest display in the Walker Library celebrates Black History Month.

The exhibition includes a display about Thomas Clarkson (OP), one of the leading figures in the movement to abolish the slave trade. 

Book of the Week

Euphoria by Lily King
Recommended by Mrs Holmes

Euphoria is the 2014 Kirkus Prize winning novel by Lily King. It is essentially a curious love affair of the 1930’s, largely based on the period the American anthropologist and feminist icon Margaret Mead spent researching traditional cultures in the Sepik Valley in Papua New Guinea.

The tale of the ménage à trois sweeps one onwards to an unsettling dénouement but the most interesting aspect of the novel is the description of the diverse, rich and strange social structures of the region which in the remoter areas of the country are little changed today.

Ways of Reading

Mr Shouler

Back to the future: forward to the past?

Blogging about books can seem quite an incongruous activity – like talking about music or dancing about architecture, perhaps. A new, rapid, provisional medium meets an old, revered, established one. But many of the great works of literature weren’t published as books in the first place: some, like Homer, began as oral poetry; others started their life on the stage; and many first appeared in magazines, periodicals, or newspapers. Dickens’ novels, for example, were published section by section in places like All the Year Round, and crowds gathered in Liverpool to await ships delivering the latest instalments of his works.



Modern technology offers us new ways of reading – e-readers allow people to go on holiday with their whole library; apps offer interactive, collaborative experiences. It also, perhaps, gives us a chance to rediscover some of the old ways of encountering texts. Sites like Journal Lists allow you to sign up to receive instalments of works by Dickens, John Clare, and Addison, for example, in the same frequency as their original readers. You can be emailed a couple of chapters a week of Hard Times, for example, and see whether the experience of reading it in this way alters your perception of the work. On sites like modjourn.org, you can find pdfs of the magazines in which modernist poems and short stories were first published, and it’s fascinating to read them alongside each other and alongside the advertising and journalism of the time. Katherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’ and Yeats’ ‘In Memory of Major Robert Gregory’, both now considered classics, first appeared in the very same issue of The English Review, for example, where they were cheek by jowl with advertisements for Tatcho hair growth, military jewellery, and the League of Nations pride essay. And the British Library offers facsimiles of texts through the ages, presented interactively on screen, giving a vastly different experience from the stultifying, hushed reverence implied by imprints like Penguin Classics.

Try reading a book you know, or have studied, in a different format. How does it alter your experience of the work? How does it make you rethink your understanding of its concerns, its context and its texture?

Book of the Week: Vernon God Little

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre
Reviewed by Luke Osborne

Vernon God Little is a brilliant satirical novel by D.B.C. Pierre, published in 2003. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2003 along with many other awards.

The story follows a 15-year-old boy named Vernon Little who lives in a small town in Texas. The book starts with Vernon sitting in the Sheriff's office waiting to be questioned about his involvement as an ‘accessory to murder’. We learn that this is to do with the tragedy following a school shooting the town recently has suffered, that killed many pupils. He is being questioned as the shooting was committed by Vernon’s close friend Jesus, who killed himself after shooting fellow classmates. The book is written in the first person and shows the thoughts of our protagonist as he continues life in Texas; these thoughts are often funny as they satirize the stereotypical Texan lifestyle. As the days pass the whole world seems to be against Vernon: he becomes a co-suspect to the shootings, and the media turns against him. The media coverage of Vernon is presented by someone called Mr. Ledesma, who appears first as a friend to Vernon but eventually turns against him.

With the whole world seemingly against him, Vernon decides to run away Mexico and get a house on a beach, something which he first heard about in the movies. On the bus ride to Mexico he stops off in Houston to meet his crush, Taylor. He tells her of his plans and wants her to join him. She says no, crushing his spirit. After this he continues onto Mexico. After a few days in Mexico he is caught and taken into custody. He later learns that he is being accused of almost every single murder in Texas since he ran away. He is put on trial with death penalty crimes in his name. I won’t spoil the story, so I’ll leave it at that.

I like this book as it gives a very honest and funny take on today’s world, from the opinion of someone of a similar age to me, with sometimes strong language, making it all very easy to relate to. It also tells the story of what it is like to have everyone against you. It has an exciting and page-turning plot that keeps you on edge every step of the way. It is one of the best books I have ever read, and a definite must-read recommendation.

A* for Ian McEwan's Nutshell?

Ian McEwan's latest novel, Nutshell, re-works Shakespeare's Hamlet, from an unusual point of view.  Here's Mr O'Keeffe's response. 

Well, Ian, what can I say? You’ve done it again – out smarted your clever class-mates and dazzled your teacher with a real tour-de-force.

Your classmates chose a more predictable approach. Many wrote as Gertrude (the closet scene being a particular favourite). Some opted for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, despite my warning that this had been very successfully tackled by a former student some years ago. There were a few Horatios, a couple of gravediggers, an Osric, a Laertes, and several Claudiuses. One smart-arse chose Yorick’s skull and another decided to be the arras.

But you, Ian, have outdone them all. You have outsmarted the smartest.

Book of the Week

Wonder by R J Palacio
Recommended by Xavier Chaudhary

'My name is August. I won't describe what I look like.  Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.'  Wonder charts the emotional and social turmoils of ten year old August 'Auggie' Pullman, a boy born with a rare facial deformity, who, despite having gone through twenty-seven corrective surgical procedures, and behaving a feeling like a 'normal' child, will never look even close to normal.

In a frankly brutal world, where appearances really do count, August finds himself being stared at in horror and avoided by others, and with even August's father likening August's situation to a 'lamb to the slaughter', we learn how August overcomes his middle school struggles. 

And the school's favourite Roald Dahl novel is ...

... Fantastic Mr Fox.

Many thanks to everyone who voted. The final results were:

1. Fantastic Mr Fox (20% of the votes)
2. Matilda (15%)
3. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (14%)
4. The Twits (12%)
5. The Witches (8%)
6. Boy, The BFG and James and the Giant Peach (each with 5%)
7. Going Solo (4%)
8. Tales of the Unexpected (3%)
9. The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar (1%)
10. The Magic Finger (0%)

And yes, we know that doesn't quite add up to 100%.  And we're sorry we didn't include Esio Trot or George's Marvellous Medicine in the list - but thanks to all of you for participating! 

Happy Birthday Roald Dahl!

Today is Roald Dahl day - and this year, the celebrations are jumpsquifflingly huge, because it's 100 years since the writer's birth on 13th September, 1916.

Not only was Dahl one of the greatest children's writers of all time, he was also a spy, a fighter-pilot, a medical inventor and recipe deviser, and his two excellent and entertaining autobiographies, Boy and Going Solo are highly recommended, if you haven't read them already.

Library news

Alex Aslett

There are two new displays in the Walker library.

In the outside cabinet, there's a display of books by and about the dramatist Samuel Beckett, whose  play Endgame, along with some of the writer's shorter works, was performed in this week's drama festival.

Inside the library, there is a display linked to this year's commemoration of the Battle of the Somme.  It includes the biographies of six Old Paulines who fought in the battle, two of whom died.

Book of the Week

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
Recommended by Thomas O'Sullivan

Written in 2006, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a story about friendship, tragedy, and life during the Holocaust.

Having reached number one on the New York Times bestsellers list, as well as in the UK and Australia, this powerful book stands out in part because of its unusual perspective. It's told through the eyes of Bruno, the 9-year-old son of the horrible, murderous commander at Auschwitz concentration camp. Bruno is completely clueless and has no idea about the horrible things going on around him or why they are happening. This perspective allows the readers to feel a strong sense of foreboding, long before they know how big the terror surrounding Bruno’s world is. The readers will be amazed by the great differences between Bruno's normality and lack of experience, and the extreme horrors throughout the novel.

Some people reading this book will be able to quickly relate to Bruno, who is moved from his home and sent somewhere 'nasty and cold' where he has no friends; he is lonely, his sister bugs him, and adults treat him as if he's not there. He wants to do art and read books rather than history and geography. He wants to go outside and explore. At one point Bruno is even jealous of the life of the boy on the other side of the fence because at least he has other boys who he can play with.

Overall, this book is about the importance of friends and family, and whilst there are sad moments throughout the book, it is still very touching, and gives a sense as to how hard life was during that period in time. If you are looking for a touching, tragic book about life during the Holocaust, this is definitely the book for you.

Welcome back

For those of you new to the school, today's post is an introduction to the book blog - telling you a bit more about what it does and how you can get involved. 

The blog publishes regular posts, usually on Tuesdays and Fridays, covering all matters book-related.  Our Tuesday post is usually a 'book of the week' post: anyone can submit a review of any book they've enjoyed and want to recommend.  Some of our posts feature creative writing: Pandemonium and Areo, magazines written and produced by the junior and senior year groups, are published on the blog (click on the magazine names to read the most recent issues).

 
Other occasional posts have focussed on individual writers or genres - such as Charles Cavalla's article on the evolution of the graphic novel or Conrad Barclay's comparison of fiction and non-fiction murder mysteries. Our regular 'Fist of Five' series offers a selection of five books that have a common link: for instance, Mr Hager's five books with the word 'road' in the title, or Ben Phillips's five short stories by H P Lovecraft. Other posts focus on literary events or anniversaries - such as our celebration of 400 years of Shakespeare. The tag cloud on the right hand side of the home page groups blogposts by keyword - so feel free to browse. Beneath that, there's a list of posts by date, if you want to browse chronologically.

The book blog also offers a huge range of suggestions for reading: if you're stuck for ideas, have a look at our Reading Lists tab: there you'll find lots of recommendations - including top ten books in a particular subject (Politics, Chemistry or Drama, for instance), and the English Dept's suggestions for wider reading, organised by theme and genre.   The Links tab takes you to other useful websites - such as the Guardian's top 100 books, or the Book Trust's bookfinder page. 

The blog is open to everyone in the school community - pupils, staff, parents.  If you'd like to write something for the blog, just e-mail us at spsbookblog@stpaulsschool.org.uk, or contact any member of the English Department.  Have a great term!

Summer reading

For our final post of the term, Mr Littlewood, Mr Deakin and Dr Burke, all three of whom are (sadly) leaving SPS this year, very kindly answered our questions about the books they enjoy.  Here, to inspire you with ideas for summer reading, are their responses.

Areo

By Fahad Al-Amoudi, Andrew Farry, Andre Hirschler and Nikita Lysyuk

The June issue of Areo has now been published: read it online here.

There isn’t an editor’s foreword in the magazine so we thought this would be a good opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions to this immense piece of work. Firstly, we are very grateful that the book blog have agreed to host the online copy of the magazine in time for official release. Those who do not do English are not often aware of the magazine's existence and so we hope to attract more readers to this under-appreciated and under-rated aspect of St Pauls. We also want to extend a thanks to Mr Broughton who has allowed us to revive a largely forgotten publication and for giving us free rein to revolutionise it into our image. The people who deserve the most praise, however, are the incredible writers and artists who have populated the vessel of the publication with such vivid and complex characters. We are very proud to be the editors of this magazine and we hope that our example will inspire future editors to take up the torch and light the flame of future creativity.

Book of the Week

More Than This by Patrick Ness
Recommended by Dominic Lewisohn

After drowning in the sea alone in his final moments Seth wakes up, bruised and battered but alive. How can this be? And where is he?

As Seth begins to discover where he is, does he dare hope that this might not be the end? Might there be more to come after death? The story continues and Seth begins to meet others like him, hiding from something out there in this desolated world. What will they find together? What links them? And why were they chosen?

The main character Seth, is interesting and from the beginning you do not truly know who he is and what he has done. The book develops Seth’s character until by the end you truly know everything that has happened to him and made him like he is. The book has funny dialogue and it is strangely real drawing on topics that surround us today like 'What is after death?'

Book of the Week

I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Recommended by Harry Shaw

I, Claudius by Robert Graves is a novel written about the life of Tiberius Claudius from his birth to the moment he becomes the Roman Emperor.

It is written as if it was an autobiography, so it contains more factual information than most novels would, especially in the first chapter of the book where he is describing his family.

Book of the Week

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Recommended by Frank Milligan

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha tells the story of Patrick 'Paddy' Clarke, a ten-year-old boy from Dublin in the 1960s, told entirely from his perspective. Roddy Doyle takes us on a journey into Paddy’s mind as he recounts the events of an important year in his life.

Essentially a coming-of age story, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha depicts a year in which Paddy matures quite substantially, as his parent’s relationship slowly deteriorates. What makes the novel particularly interesting is how Doyle accurately manages to replicate the thoughts of a ten-year-old, repeatedly showing Paddy’s youthful innocence as he fails to understand exactly what is happening around him as he experiences his rite of passage.

However, the book does not really have a 'plot' in the traditional sense of the word. Though it does have a story, Doyle writes the novel as a series of vignettes, some of which might not have any or much relevance to the story, not following any real form of chronological order, precisely capturing and replicating the stream of consciousness of a ten-year old boy, darting from scene to scene, place to place, whilst Doyle still manages to maintain a coherent story.

Overall, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is a very entertaining and cleverly written bildungsroman, one that manages to perfectly capture the innocent ignorance and confusion of a young boy, whilst telling an interesting and engaging story.

New displays in the Walker Library

by Alex Aslett

There are two new displays in the Walker Library.  The first is a display on the Oxford University Press's Very Short Introductions series.

You can find this display in the cupboard outside the library. 

Book of the Week

Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin (translated by Eugene Jolas, Penguin, 1978)
Recommended by Mr Toller

First published in 1929, this is the story of Franz Biberkopf, an unskilled workman who at the start of the book is being released from prison.

He vows to 'go straight' but is unfortunate in his contacts; he falls in with a criminal gang whose leader Reinhold causes him to be seriously injured.

Peer Gynt

Next week's junior play is Ibsen's Peer Gynt, adapted and directed by Dr Hudson, who here offers an introduction to the play, and explains some of the thinking behind his adaption.

The Norwegian poet and playwright Henrik Ibsen completed his great verse drama, Peer Gynt, in the summer of 1867. He may have been nearly forty but it’s clearly a work that reflects a young man’s fear of responsibility and it includes themes to which he would return in his famous domestic tragedies such as A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881) and Hedda Gabler (1890), especially concerning sins of the past returning to plague their inventors.