Thursday, 12 December 2019
Books of the Year
It's time for our annual Books of the Year post, where staff and students share their recommendations of the best books they've read this year. So if you're in search of something to read during the holidays, you've come to the right place!
Friday, 6 December 2019
Leaver's Post: Mrs Waller
Sadly, this term we're saying goodbye to Mrs Waller, Head of English at SPJ, whose brilliant teaching has enabled so many future Paulines to navigate their way successfully through their entrance exams, and who also steered 6H at SPS through the murky waters of their iGCSEs last year. She has also been a regular contributor to our book blog posts, and very generously found time to contribute to our regular leavers' questionnaire.
What were you reading when you were a teenager?
Short stories by Ian McEwan and Angela Carter, The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall, novels by Flann (quirky) and Edna (well-wrought) O'Brien, Perfume by Patrick Suskind, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, all sorts of urban stuff by Michael Bracewell (The Crypto-Amnesia Club was my favourite I think) and Martin Amis ...
... the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, the Philip Pullman of his day perhaps, dystopia by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, obvious teen winners like The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, the Hitchhikers ‘trilogy’ by Douglas Adams and in my more earnest moods almost anything by George Eliot (though one of them’s AWFUL – can never remember which…possibly Felix Holt), and comics (like Stray Toasters, Tank Girl, Arkham Asylum, 2000AD)
... the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, the Philip Pullman of his day perhaps, dystopia by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, obvious teen winners like The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, the Hitchhikers ‘trilogy’ by Douglas Adams and in my more earnest moods almost anything by George Eliot (though one of them’s AWFUL – can never remember which…possibly Felix Holt), and comics (like Stray Toasters, Tank Girl, Arkham Asylum, 2000AD)
Monday, 2 December 2019
Book of the Week
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
Recommended by Thomas Chittenden
Mia was only ten years old when she was given her first lesson in death. Six years later, she takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made when she lost it all, barely escaping with her own life, her ‘familia’ less fortunate.
All the odds are against her though and vengeance against such powerful enemies seems futile, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia knows she must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies and not only endure and learn from the teachings of murderers - but also survive it. As the book says: 'The Red Church is no ordinary school, but Mia is no ordinary student.' And as Jay Kristoff puts it: 'Iron or glass they’d asked? Mia clenched her jaw. Shook her head. She was neither. She was steel.'
Recommended by Thomas Chittenden
Mia was only ten years old when she was given her first lesson in death. Six years later, she takes her first steps towards keeping the promise she made when she lost it all, barely escaping with her own life, her ‘familia’ less fortunate.
All the odds are against her though and vengeance against such powerful enemies seems futile, so if she is to have her revenge, Mia knows she must become a weapon without equal. She must prove herself against the deadliest of friends and enemies and not only endure and learn from the teachings of murderers - but also survive it. As the book says: 'The Red Church is no ordinary school, but Mia is no ordinary student.' And as Jay Kristoff puts it: 'Iron or glass they’d asked? Mia clenched her jaw. Shook her head. She was neither. She was steel.'
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