Books of the Year

It's time for our final post of the term - and of 2021 (what a year). In spite of everything else that's been going on, somehow, we've all kept reading.  Here are some of the books we've enjoyed most. 

Sandro Weeks recommends The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach: 'a fun book about the journey of a college baseball team in Wisconsin with a storyline riddled with drama, anticipation and complicated relationships'.

Luke Buckland recommends The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angelina Boulley: 'it is a thriller about Daunis Fontaine, a Canadian girl with a French Canadian mother with inheritance to the Sugar Ojibwe Tribe of her late father. She encounters a tragic murder, which leads her down a path of drug trafficking in her community, eventually intertwined in an FBI investigation of the trafficking ring. I would argue that this book is insightful, suspenseful and emotionally complex, as it depicts alongside the thrilling plot, some of the great contrasts between her tribal heritage and Westernised culture from her French Canadian mother.'

Leavers' Post ...

Sadly, at the end of this term, we are bidding farewell to Mr Collinson and Mr O'Brien - but they've been kind enough to answer the book blog's leavers' questionnaire before departing.  

What were you reading when you were a teenager?

Mr O'Brien: As an early teen I was obsessed with the Alex Rider series. I progressed to reading a lot of SAS Fiction, especially by the author Chris Ryan. 

Mr Collinson: I grew up on the edge of the West Yorkshire moors, just outside Bradford and very close to Haworth, home of the Brontës. I was absolutely mesmerised by the novels and also by the landscape, which is still wild and somehow unforgiving. My surroundings definitely made the books come alive. I still like to visit the Brontë parsonage museum from time to time, when I am up there.