Books of the Year

The book blog's final post of the term is our regular 'books of the year' round-up, featuring books from all genres and for all age ranges, suggested by staff and students. Happy reading!

Clockwork Angel - The Infernal Devices 1 by Cassandra Clare
Recommended by Joaquin Birts

 

I recommend this book because it spans across genres - action to romance to thriller and so on. It follows the life of a sixteen year-old New York City girl who is forced to move to London in the late 19th century because of her brother’s disappearance. She then finds out about a whole new world in which her brother had been exploring.

Book of the Week

In The Distance by Hernan Diaz

Recommended by Mr Pirrie

Now that the excitement of the Booker has died down, and my copy of Shuggie Bain is sitting on a gargantuan pile of others for Christmas reading, I though it might be worthwhile to venture across the pond to America’s pre-eminent award for letters: The Pulitzer. Its roots since 1917 are in journalism and drama, but over the last hundred years it has expanded into a wide range of categories including poetry, criticism, non-fiction and biography to name a few. 

When a friend recommended In The Distance by Hernan Diaz (a finalist for the 2018 Fiction prize) as worthy of belonging to the great tradition of frontier literature my curiosity was piqued; when the novel arrived and a review on the back stated 'It’s as if Herman Melville had navigated the American west, instead of the ocean', I was smitten.

The House of Bernarda Alba: Director’s Notes

Mr Anthony

In August 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, one of Spain’s greatest writers was assassinated on the orders of fascist militia allied to Franco. For years, the details of Lorca’s murder were shrouded in mystery but, given his open allegiance to the leftist Popular Front, he quickly became, in death, a political martyr for the anti-Nationalist movement. Yet one of his assassins later bragged of having fired two bullets into the poet 'for being queer'. 

Decades later, Spain’s literary establishment, and even his own family, refused to acknowledge Lorca’s sexuality. As biographer Ian Gibson attests: 'Spain couldn’t accept that the greatest Spanish poet of all time was homosexual. Homophobia existed on both sides in the civil war and afterwards; it was a national problem.' And yet in Sonnets of a Dark Love, produced shortly before his death, Lorca writes: 'You will never understand that I love you / because you sleep in me and are asleep. / I hide you, weeping, persecuted / by a voice of penetrating steel.' The sexuality of the sentiment is clear in Spanish, in which nouns are gendered.

Book of the Week

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Recommended by Thomas Hallé

 Winterson’s critically acclaimed novel can be rightly classified as a classic and a cornerstone of English literature; the continuously topical themes discussed in Oranges, ones of parental power dynamics and our own character development as we age and begin to define ourselves not solely as an extension of our parents, as well as the turbulent relationship between homosexuality and religion relevant in modern society, are wonderfully packaged in a largely accessible and thought provoking manner, in what is a blend of fiction and Winterson’s personal experience. 

Tell me the truth about ...

Today's post features some non-fiction picks from 4B.

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman
Recommended by Kirin Bhatnaga

'It explains quantum physics and the complicated biography of a Nobel-prize-winning scientist in a very simple and often funny way.'

Strange Places, Questionable People by John Simpson
Recommended by Max Clapham

'John Simpson’s long career in journalism makes his autobiography an exciting read. What I like is that you don't have to read it from front to back - you can dip in and out and still enjoy it.'

SPS Predict the Booker 2020 - and the winner is ...

By Ed McFie

This year’s Predict the Booker Prize, held virtually for the first time ever on Zoom, and compèred by Mr Breslin, saw six Pauline readers making six short presentations on one of six books from the Booker prize shortlist. Their task? To win the audience over by arguing the case for their given book.  

First off was Hari Collins, presenting Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi. 

The book focuses on a mother, Tara, and her daughter, Antara, vividly exploring the relationship between the two. Initially, Tara treats her daughter very badly, to the point of physical and verbal abuse, as she recklessly follows her own desires. But as Tara ages, and develops dementia, Antara is obliged to take care of her mother, although her mother never did the same for her. 

Hari argued that Doshi explores ideas about freedom from an unusual perspective. Whereas many novels set a repressive, conformist older generation against freedom-seeking youth, Doshi complicates the issue by presenting it from the point of view of a younger woman who yearns for order and organisation, but is trapped by her mother's refusal to follow the traditional path: for Antara, her mother's non-conformity is as stifling and stultifying as the conformity against which the older woman originally rebelled.  

It's almost Booker time ...

Next Thursday, the judges announce the winner of the 2020 Booker prize - complete with a guest appearance from Barack Obama - and in case this wasn't exciting and suspense-filled enough, on Monday, we're running the third SPS 'Predict the Booker' event. We can't promise any former US Presidents, but Mrs Cummings will be hosting, Mr Breslin will be compèring, and six Pauline readers - Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter, George Davies, Hari Collins, Monty Brown, Kiyo-Brandreth-Stroud and Joachim Sciamma - will make a case for each of the novels on the shortlist. Then YOU - the online audience - decide ... 

Previous 'Predict the Bookers' have been held in the library: this year, it's our first ever 'live' broadcast, so tune in and cast your vote: registration details can be found here.  We've been wrong two years in a row - who knows, maybe 2020 will be third time lucky!

If you'd like to prepare for the event, and aren't entirely sure you'll get through all six novels over the weekend, here's a quick catch up on the books in question, and their authors, courtesy of those nice people at the Booker website.  

Literary Pick'n'Mix

Today's post is a lucky dip of recommendations from 6B. There’s something for everyone: non-fiction, murder mysteries, young adult fiction, stories to read to younger siblings or revisit, and general fiction.

Book of the Week

How to be both by Ali Smith

Recommended by Mrs Waller

 

This is a Marmite book: three quarters of its reviews are 5-star or 1-star. The former think Smith’s a genius; the latter are irritated and frustrated by unpunctuated sentences and ‘unnecessary artificial effects’. I usually swap books with my mother and sister, but they both physically recoiled when I mentioned this one, which only made me more curious. I liked it straight away, from the opening in which the first narrator in my edition plays with time, before and after her mother’s death. 

 

We’re nearly at half term! So many books are waiting hungrily for SPS students to read them. 5EN.C are back with another series of exciting recommendations. Check them out!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Recommended by Thomas Chittenden 

Can you give a brief outline of the book?

It is told through the perspective of a boy named Charlie who is considered a wallflower, essentially watching life from the sidelines. He then meets two older people who are far more outlandish than himself: Patrick and his step-sister Sam. They essentially introduce Charlie into their world and bring him out of his little shell. However, as all his friends are older and soon to leave for college he starts to feel as if the world is crashing in on him.

The October Half term is nearly on us! It’s two whole two weeks long: plenty of time to read a whole book! And left over time to start a second!  If you would like any ideas about what to read, 5EN.F have kindly shared their recommendations.

Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer

Recommended by Jonah Collett

Can you give a brief outline of the book?
It is about a boy called Alexander Karpenko living in a city called Leningrad in communist Russia whose father is a revered dock-worker whose plans to make a workers' union leads to his death. Unknown to Alexander, his friend Vladimir was behind it. He then flees the country with his mother, who is an expert cook, and his destination is decided by the flip of a coin. Then the book follows the story of his two alter egos. Alex goes to New York whereas Sasha goes to London. Each character’s fascinating rise from a 15 year old immigrant to a leading politician and extremely wealthy businessman leads their stories to intertwine and finally their finale occurs back in his homeland of Russia, with Vladimir involved. 

Book of the Week

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Recommended by Ryan Ko

For those of you who know me, you will know that I love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Having read all her novels, it's hard for me to pick out a favourite – but for today, I will focus on Americanah.

Americanah is a love story between two childhood sweethearts, Ifemulu and Obinze. Both from Nigeria, Ifemulu moves to Philadelphia whilst Obinze moves to the UK. The two are distant in geography, but are linked through the way in which they both are disconnected from the land they live in. This is particularly impressive on Adichie's part because both the UK and the USA have different histories and different social structures; so whilst she is able to intimately connect them through their isolation, she doesn't box both protagonists in a shared consciousness and is able to shed light on the individual position of race in both countries. 

Book(s) of the Week – Fiction and Non-Fiction

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve 

Recommended by Raphael Hibou

'It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.'

This is how Philip Reeve commences Mortal Engines, a steampunk, post-apocalyptic series about motorised, ‘traction’ cities preying on smaller ones in a chaotic future. Following a ravaging sixty-minute war, the world was geologically upheaved and people had to adapt in what was known as ‘the great downsizing’. Then, tractionism was invented and the scarcely-resourced world rapidly became an enormous hunting ground where cities vied for power in a predator-prey relationship known as Municipal Darwinism, chasing smaller cities and closing their huge hydraulic ‘jaws’ on them: melting them for fuel or salvaging them for parts in this chilling food chain. Humans are either resettled in the predator city or, in other towns, enslaved!

Book of the Week

Mordew by Alex Pheby
Recommended by AJB

Mordew has the most exciting blurb I've read in years:

'GOD IS DEAD, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew.

In the slums of the sea-battered city a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns. Until one day his desperate mother sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew.

The Master derives his magical power from feeding on the corpse of God. But Nathan, despite his fear and lowly station, has his own strength – and it is greater than the Master has ever known. Great enough to destroy everything the Master has built. If only Nathan can discover how to use it.

So it is that the Master begins to scheme against him – and Nathan has to fight his way through the betrayals, secrets, and vendettas of the city where God was murdered, and darkness reigns…'

As the blurb might suggest, this is one for fans of Philip Pullman and Gormenghast, while in no way feeling derivative of either. Initially you may fear you are going to drown in neologisms, but things soon settle down into a novel that is conceptually interesting but highly readable. You can only admire the originality and range of its author whose previous novels have included a life of James Joyce's daughter and Playthings, 'arguably the best neuronovel ever written'.

All these books are published by Galley Beggar Press, a 'small but mighty' independent publisher, which accurately defines itself as 'committed to publishing daring, innovative fiction'. Their novels might not always have the superficial polish you'd find with a mainstream publisher, but this is where genuinely exciting writing is happening, Ducks, Newsburyport recently bringing them some much deserved Booker-Prize attention [find out what Nikolas Boyd-Carpenter thought of the novel in at last year's Predict the Booker prize event here]. Writers might like to check out their courses and short-story competitions.

How To Grow Your Own Poem

Some of you may have seen in the news or on Twitter the increasing prominence of the inspirational teacher and poetry guru Kate Clanchy.  Her students have been especially active during lockdown, publishing moving and inspiring works about life during the pandemic.  Follow her on Twitter and you will get a daily offering of one of her students' poems, some of whom have gone on to win national awards.

Check out her Twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/KateClanchy1

She has published a number of books, but her most recent, How to Grow Your Own Poem promises to be both inspirational and to offer you a chance to develop your creative skills at the same time.  The poems in the book are designed to help provoke a rich response in you, the reader, and there are exercises to help you write something of your own.  Why not try it out over the coming weeks?  Please do share your creative efforts with your teachers and remember that the school's creative magazines Areo and Pandaemonium (run by Mr Gardner) are always looking for submissions.

If you're someone who prefers criticism to creativity, perhaps check out Stephen Fry's useful and accessible book, The Ode Less Travelled as an alternative.  You'll learn a lot about literary techniques as well as learning about different ways of constructing your own verse.

Book of the Week

Sing to It by Amy Hempel

Recommended by Mr Hager

'I leave a lot out when I tell the truth. The same when I write a story.'

Amy Hempel's new collection of short stories is an, at times, moving and provocative read. It is also a quick one.

Hempel is regarded as a minimalist, although she doesn't like the term because she feels it implies that plot and detailed emotion are required in normal fiction. She is famous for the precision of her sentences and for the ways in which she often achieves her effects without creating the standard story arc, or without obvious points of tension and conflict. Some stories might feel flat as a result, or might fail, but when they work there is a sense of something quite remarkable that has been created out of almost nothing. James Wood, writing in his New Yorker review, says, 'her stories assemble extraordinary sentences. And each purified sentence is itself a story, a kind of suspended enigma.'

See if you agree, and let the Blog know which ones you thought were the best. The opening story alone is worth the price of the book, and there are other gems hidden away.

You'll also enjoy Hempel's characters' eccentricity, and the ways in which she uses the humorous and the mundane. There's a story that approaches the civil rights movement, for example, through the artwork 'Doll Tornado' that has divided critics.

If you're someone who likes to define things, then read some of Hempel's stories and decide what constitutes a short story, or a poem, or a prose poem. There's a lot of food for thought here, and some of the stories are compact enough to fit into the time between a lesson, and certainly into a couple of Pauline lunchtimes.

This week saw the announcement of the shortlist for the Booker prize, which is awarded to the best novel written in English each year. The judges - a particularly fascinating group, including poet and dramatist Lemn Sissay, Emily Wilson, translator of Homer’s Odyssey, and Lee Child, creator of modern day epic hero Jack Reacher - produced a longlist of 12 novels back in July, and they’ve now narrowed that down to the final six.

Hilary Mantel famously did the double in 2009 and 2012, by winning the prize for the first two novels in her series about Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell. Anyone hoping she might do the triple, with the final novel in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, will be sadly disappointed - she didn’t make the final cut. But you can find a list of the novels that did here - and an article about them here - and they all sound brilliant. They're all available to borrow from the Kayton Library, so get reading, and see what you think. 

Book of the Week

The Beach by Alex Garland

Recommended by Alex Kilsby

Let me start this off by saying: I’m not one for books. I’m a very picky reader. And I don’t read as often as some would like me to. So, when my mum handed me The Beach saying “Read this, or so help me god I will go nuts,” I felt I had no choice. And somehow I was so gripped by the first few chapters I just kept reading. Until, twenty four hours later, I finished it, satisfied and overjoyed with it. And let me tell you, that is incredibly rare for me.

The Beach, written in 1996 by Alex Garland, is an anti-tourism book written through the eyes of a tourist. It tells of paradise ruined by trampling feet, and westerners only looking for a good photo. A traveller who yearns for something more than a brief holiday spending the time next to noisy roads, shouting tourists and stale locations. 

Book of the Week

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Recommended by George Khairallah

It’s the weekend in England on an unpleasant winter day with the wind howling outside. With nothing much to do and my brother reading, I searched my bookshelf looking for a good book to delve into, and that is how I found Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, a semi-autobiographical story recommended to me by my mom and grandparents.

I had never before heard of this book and only knew that it seemed to be a classic book, written about the author’s childhood growing up in the slums of Brooklyn. I was intrigued and so, with nothing better to do, I started to read.

Welcome back!

This time last year, our first Book Blog post of the term observed that the past few days had been a bit 'turbulent' (suspension of Parliament/heatwave - remember all that?).  We had no idea ... 

But now we're back! And what better way to celebrate the start of term than by submitting a post to the Book Blog? We publish twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, and posts can be anything book-related. Tuesday is usually our 'Book of the Week' slot, and features a book review - fiction or non-fiction, anything you've enjoyed reading. We publish creative writing, host polls and even run the occasional quiz: you can find out more about what the blog does here.  

We've also got booklists, organised by theme or by subject: and we're always happy to add any recommendations you might suggest.  Everyone is welcome to contribute - students, teachers, parents: all you have to do is e-mail your post to us at spsbookblog@stpaulsschool.org.uk.  

So whatever zone you're in, get writing, and tell us all about the books that pop your particular bubble: we'd love to hear from you, and have a wonderful term!  

Leavers' Post ...

Our final post of the term is our leavers' post: sadly, we're saying goodbye to lots of people - but Mr Edwards, Mr Jacoby, Mrs Mitchell, Mr Williams and Mr Kerr very kindly took a break from packing up their virtual classrooms to answer all or some of the book blog's questions.

What were you reading when you were a teenager?

Mr Edwards: Harry Potter was a staple - I was nine when the first came out so we were roughly the same age. In early teens I read all the Willard Price books; I confess my mid teens were a bit of desert partly as my school decided in some millennial wisdom to sell all their books and replace with six desktop computers; in later teens I went through a Raymond Chandler phase.

Mr Jacoby: I remember having a very serious list of books to have read before starting secondary school, from the Odyssey to Rebecca. However I wasn't really a fan of classical literature and must admit I spent my teenage years reading Tolkien!

Mr Williams: Orwell, Buchan, Dylan Thomas, PG Wodehouse, Graham Greene? As a teenager I was an avid reader, voracious and a frequent user of the public library, but apart from some wonderful A Level set texts (Hamlet, Under Milk Wood, The Power and the Glory, Tonio Kröger, Andorra, Les Mains Sales and others which sparked an interest in ‘serious’ reading) memorable reading really started in my gap year and through university.

The final scene from Mr Williams's production of Hamlet, with Will Attenborough in the title role

Mr Kerr: I always loved reading. I got hooked on Stephen King novels. I remember having an argument with my English teacher as he said he wasn't a proper writer! I picked up his On Writing last summer- highly recommend these inspirational words for all future Pauline authors.

Book of the Week

The shortlist for this year's Orwell prizes - awarded for outstanding work in political journalism, fiction and non-fiction - features some particularly extraordinary books. 

Poet and teacher Kate Clanchy's inspirational Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me; Caroline Criado Perez's analysis of data's hidden sexism, Invisible Women; Bernardine Evaristo's Booker prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other (recommended several times already on this blog); Colson Whitehead's shocking and powerful story of systemic abuse in a children's home, The Nickel Boys; and The Windrush Betrayal, journalist Amelia Gentleman's account of how she exposed the scandal of injustice suffered by some of the Windrush Generation - British citizens who travelled from the Caribbean to the UK in the late 1940s, 50s, and 60s, but found themselves reclassified as illegal immigrants, under the Home Office's 'hostile environment' policy after 2012, and were detained, denied their medical, social and legal rights, and even deported as a result.  

Books of the Week

Recommended by Miss Warner

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (fiction)

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala (non-fiction)

People Like Us: What it Takes to Make it in Modern Britain by Hashi Mohamed (non-fiction)

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (fiction: recommended by Will Gee here)

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (non-fiction: recommended by Madame Lapaire-Adumekwe here)

For today’s blog I wanted to bring Toni Morrison, a wonderful writer of fiction, to your attention.

In her foreword to The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores the origins of her novel. In it, she attempts to tackle big and important questions that we should all be thinking about. When I first read it, I was profoundly moved. I therefore think it is worth quoting at length but here are a couple of thoughts worth your critical reflection in relation to literature and its relationship to prejudice and oppression:

• What strategies/privileges does fiction have that mean that it can begin to ‘peck away at the gaze that condemn[s]’ others, and what does Morrison mean by that?

• What can texts do to stir us into an ‘interrogation of [our]selves’ and move us from empathy into self-reflection and positive action?

• How can fiction sometimes perpetuate systems of oppression and privilege?

Book of the Week

The Inheritors by William Golding

Recommended by Hari Collins

The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico believed that all human speech started with poetry, by which he meant not that it was in metre or divided into lines but that it was richly metaphorical and symbolic. One of the finest achievements of William Golding’s The Inheritors is its exploration of how such a language could have worked.

 

The book is about a small group of Neanderthals, the last of their kind, and how they are gradually killed off by the ‘new people’: us, homo sapiens. The Neanderthals (who call themselves simply ‘the people’) do not communicate as we do, using regular sentences; instead, they ‘share pictures’, which involves a combination of ostensive actions, basic descriptions and telepathy. Thinking for them involves effort, but they have much more highly developed senses than we; in particular, their sense of smell is far in advance of ours.

Book Choices on Racial Oppression and Anti-Racism

Ryan Ko 

The Black Lives Matter movement has shone a light not only on the extent of racism, but has exposed how many of us are ignorant of and know too little about the history of racial oppression, myself included. As many of us are allies and cannot truly relate to the experience of black citizens in the UK and USA, we can still try our hardest to understand the role of power in systemic oppression, the history of British Imperialism and how to be actively anti-racist. 

Books are a great source of this knowledge, both fiction and non-fiction, and I hope we can all start reading more on such topics so that we are all better equipped to fight injustice when we see it. Miss Ramsay-Overall has prepared an amazing list of books on the BAMESOC Google Classroom – it is also constantly updated with other resources. Do join! Code: 5mbi7ra.  Today's post offers some further starting points for reading, very kindly contributed by members of the SPS community and their friends.  

Half Term Reading from 4C ...

4EN.C tell us about the books they are currently reading.

‘Twas the Nightshift before Christmas by Adam Kay

Recommended by Pradeep Ellepola

The book I am reading at the moment is a book by Adam Kay called 'Twas the Nightshift before Christmas. Like Adam Kay’s previous novel, this book is a series of witty yet poignant, diary entries from the time when he was working as a junior doctor: however, here all the diary entries are from around Christmas time. 

In both his books, he contrasts his sarcastic, amusing tone with the gruelling jobs he had to do as a junior doctor, and in this particular novel he cleverly contrasts his painful work-life with the festive atmosphere of Christmas. I chose this book because I read and thoroughly enjoyed his first book, This is Going to Hurt. I would recommend it to other students if they are comfortable with a few gory stories (as you can imagine, they get extremely graphic).

Book of the Week

Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul
Recommended by Darshy Pandey

Miguel Street is a masterfully arranged portfolio of characters and occurrences experienced through the eyes of an unnamed young boy in World War 2 Trinidad. At first, the seventeen chapters appear to be isolated sketches based on individuals - however each one ties in and overlaps with the others, adding to the flavour of life on Miguel Street. Naipaul’s development of character is exceptional and the level of detail in which all the eccentricities and mannerisms are explored makes this book truly immersive for the reader. The novel takes us on a unique journey in which we can experience first-hand what life in Miguel Street was like through its each and every characteristic.

Naipaul’s novel recounts the simplicity and limitations of life in a small, working-class neighbourhood Port of Spain, Trinidad. Although the story is not chronological, we reach a climax of the narrator’s departure from the street he has been confined to for so long. It is difficult to categorise Miguel Street as it is unique in so many ways: firstly, it lacks a main plot, however this does not in any way detract from the incredible atmosphere Naipaul is able to engage the reader in. Secondly, the novel is presented in a comedic manner, not laugh-out-loud comedy, but a light-heartedness that is often used to mask the severity of tragic or dramatic occurrences. 

A Dance to the Music of Time

Recommended by Mr Toller 

During the lockdown I have read Anthony Powell’s 12-novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time. 

The narrator Nicholas Jenkins tells the story of his circle over a fifty-year period, starting at boarding school in 1921. Even during his army years in the Second World War (intensely vivid even though he does not see combat), his own personality is secondary to those of his acquaintances, friends and lovers who recur in different combinations throughout the sequence. 

Book of the Week

When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann

Recommended by AJB

A young man escapes deportation to Auschwitz by travelling from Prague to Berlin, where he assumes a false identity - a Jew hiding in the very heart of Nazi Germany.

It’s an extraordinary true story of survival and espionage during the Holocaust and it features strongly in Ariana Neumann’s brilliant new memoir, When Time Stopped. The young man was her father, a man who created a new identity for himself in Venezuela after the war, leaving his daughter only the barest tantalising clues to his former life. Over the years since her father’s death Neumann has gradually pieced together the story of her family during the Second World War and she presents this journey of discovery in the book.

The Stone Machine

Today's post continues this week's focus on the creative writing produced by L8th students for their extended projects.  Alexander Kwang's short story, The Stone Machine, was one of the pieces he wrote for his project exploring the theme of human aspiration, and drawing on the literary styles of H P Lovecraft and Jorge Luis Borges. 

The Stone Machine

Engraving on The Stone Machine

Amongst the infinite dark-matter filled pathways of space from Earth to the boundless planets that exist within the universe, there are two twin stars named Sirloth and Siriur. Around them, there are several planets in orbit, each a different size and home to its own civilisation. The closest planet, Czuria, is the dwelling place of a fittingly named species the Czurs. Characterized by bulbous red tentacles and elongated, cylindrical skulls, the Czurs have no visual stimuli system. It is thus natural that they remain primitive even among non space-faring species. The middle planet, Micregon, is inhabited by a queer species. The planet itself is constantly plagued by conflicts between rival clans. But the last planet, Axace, was where Earth’s contact with the unknown universe first found its purpose.

Axace was said to be a city of immaculacy. It was inhabited by a lively species with an intellect for magnificence. Each of them were 10 Akkads tall, a gargantuan size by Earthly standards. We citizens of Earth are hardly eight feet tall, and our sphere of existence, Earth, is just under 1,000,000 Akkads in circumference. As I had mentioned previously, their size is so colossal that they could be considered miracle workers of impossible human feats. A simple push by an Axacian is equivalent to the force of a thousand man, gathered collectively into a single heave. Despite possessing insurmountable physical energies, Axacians were a race of philosophers and mentalists. They were said to have prided themselves on their highly functioning mental capabilities. Amongst all Axacian inventions, one stood out solely above all others: The Stone Machine. My fellow clansmen have long-held the suspicion behind a replica of sorts residing on Earth, but knowledge of Axace has long since faded into the passing of myth and legend with time.

To those of us who are aware, Axace was plagued by a single predicament, the antithesis to their existence: ever since the conception of the planet, Axacians had suffered the millennia-long glare of the blinding red suns in the eternal daylight. If it was not the unquenchable rage of Sirloth that scorches the crops of Axace, it was the pulsating spears of Siriur that painfully embedded themselves into the skins of these Axacians. This race had never known the meaning of the dark, nor will they ever bask in the silvery shine of the moon.

This giant stone tablet below which I have written these musings is the only inkling of Axacian influence on us humans. From the wise Edimegas, my ancestors had learnt a vast wisdom that comprehend the Stone Machine at its simplest level. And it is now my duty to pass on Edimegas’s wisdom and advice, the remnants of his legacy, to the next generation of the Druids.

Signed: Druid Chieftain Erenor

Through Fields of Gold

This week, we're publishing creative work produced by L8th students for their extended projects. Today's extract is introduced by its author, Zack McGuire.

The following is a section from my EPQ story Through Fields of Gold, which I wrote in the style of Cormac McCarthy - the author most famously of No Country for Old Men. At this point in the story, which is set in the 1930s, the protagonist, a teenage boy, is working on an oil field on the plains of the Texas Panhandle.

Fist of Five - Sci-Fi ...

Miss McLaughlin

Continuing our Sci-Fi theme, inspired by Star Wars Day on Monday, today’s post is designed to introduce you to some great science-fiction reads that are a little less well-known with the hope of inspiring you to add one (or more) to your reading list…

Book of the Week

Miss McLaughlin

Monday - May the 4th – was Star Wars Day (it’s a pun, say it aloud…). So, this week we are going to give some time to science fiction.

Today’s recommendation: Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (1818)

Wordsworth 250

Wordsworth's birthday celebrations have been cancelled, but don't worry!

If you are looking for something to do this weekend, why not take some time to visit the online celebration of it being 250 years since William Wordsworth was born?

http://www.wordsworth250.com/index.html

Celebrations have been disrupted for obvious reasons, and so the Wordsworth Project has gone online.  It started as something where the Wordsworth family could share recordings of different generations reading poems that spoke particularly to them, but it has since expanded to become "a permanent and living archive for anyone wanting to explore Wordsworth's poetry or submit their own personal reading."

You'll find readings of many of Wordsworth's most famous poems, and this might be an ideal way into his work if you aren't familiar with it.  Equally, if you are a Wordsworth aficionado, hearing someone else read is always a fascinating insight into how they interpret a particular poem.

There are also instructions on how to submit your own recording if you are so minded!

This might also be the perfect time to read Jonathan Bate's new work Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World.

Poem of the Week

Poem of the Week: 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'


This week we don't have a Book of the Week, but a Poem of the Week, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's masterpiece 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'.

It is being showcased as part of a Big Read organised by Philip Hoare, who was previously responsible for the Moby Dick Big Read and the author of the wonderful non-fiction study of whales Leviathan.

The Ancient Mariner Big Read is available here: https://www.ancientmarinerbigread.com

Today marks day 11 of the Big Read.  It has taken three years to organise, although the lockdown timing of it might make you think that it was something conceived of more recently, perhaps in the style of the ill-fated 'Imagine' tribute by Gal Godot.  Thankfully, this has been more thoroughly thought-through, and it is well worth your time.  Jeremy Irons began it, and it has contributors as diverse as Iggy Pop, Hilary Mantel, Tilda Swinton and the winner of the Foyle young poets award 2020.

Each reading is accompanied by contemporary artwork.  More details are available in Philip Hoare's article for the Guardian.

If you are minded to, you should certainly check out Leviathan itself, and there's always Moby Dick to return to, or to read for the first time, if you are ever in need of being in the company of greatness.

Fist of Five: Islands ...

Today's post was triggered by the National Theatre's excellent adaptation of Treasure Island, which has recently been available for streaming, as well as a post on the language of keeping a distance (including 'isolation' and 'quarantine') on the Merriam Webster blog. As John Donne observed, no man is an island. Although a famous New Yorker cartoon disagrees -

- plenty of fictional characters inhabit islands, and here are five of the most interesting.

Book of the Week

The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
Conor Sinnott

J. D. Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye had sat in the periphery of my awareness for about two years and I had heard a smattering of details along the way: a sardonic adolescent plays hooky and kills time hanging around Manhattan.

I figured that I already knew so many teenagers who thought their wit was acerbic enough to land them an editor’s position at Private Eye that reading this novel that’s usually taught to fourteen year olds in the US would be a touch jejune. However, with my eighteenth birthday fast approaching, and the disarming reality of adulthood on its heels, I thought I might as well read it, if only for some puerile entertainment.

Further suggestions for lockdown reading ...

This time they come from the 6th form and the U8th, with (as usual) a pithy, three-word recommendation attached.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy: 'portal to adventure'

The Trial by Franz Kafka: 'dystopian, confusing, Kafka-esque'

Book of the Week

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha

Recommended by Mr Hager

A hard-hitting and very readable novel from the creator of the well-regarded Juniper Song detective series, this recent work from Steph Cha explores the repercussions from the LA race riots of 1991 by focusing on two families who are drawn together in very unexpected ways.

The novel is set mostly in 2019, with flashbacks to 1991, and is particularly interested in family ties, how they continue and how they are dissolved, and how the past becomes lost through acts of conscious and unconscious revision or obfuscation.  It asks important questions about our relationship with ourselves, our families and the wider community, whilst the shocking event at the centre of the novel asks important moral and ethical questions of the reader and of the characters themselves.  All of this is done within a ‘thriller’ framework, making the novel something of an addictive reading experience whilst challenging us to think more deeply about important and polarising issues.

The novel created something of a Twitter storm before its UK publication, and is well worth a read.  It also allows you to think about the great literary difficulty that is ‘ending a novel well’.  Critical opinion on the final sections of this novel has been divided.  See what you think, and let the blog know!

More details are available here from the publisher, Faber & Faber.

If you want more details about the Juniper Song series, click here.

This is not my hat ...

Today's post is the book blog's first EVER video post - even lockdown has a silver lining.  Many thanks to Dr Gaydon, who has generously shared with us his review of Jon Klassens's brilliant, award-winning picture book This Is Not My Hat. You can find it via the link here. 

If you're intrigued by Dr Gaydon's analysis, and you'd like to take a look at the story yourself but you don't have a copy of the book to hand, you can find a version of it read aloud on Youtube here.  And if you'd like to read another post that celebrates the subtle philosophical undertones of writing for children, take a look at former member of the English Dept Bernard O'Keeffe's deconstruction of David McKee's Not Now, Bernard, which you can find here.  Thanks once again to Dr Gaydon for pioneering the video book blog post - the first, but hopefully not the last!