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.