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.