World Book Day

It's World Book Day! And LGBTQ+ History Month!! And International Women's Day (on Sunday)!!! To quote Lorelei Lee in Gentleman Prefer Blondes, 'things keep on happening all the time'. We can't keep up.  

We've got a couple of recommendations for LGBTQ+ History month in a moment, but first, a reminder to check out the Kayton Library's celebration of reading for World Book Day (and International Year of Reading).  You can't have missed the magnificent Bookflix posters all around the school, blazoned with reading suggestions from teachers, prefects, Polecon, the Boat Club. If you want something a bit more targeted, try the librarians' 'Round the World in 80 Days' challenge. With just under 80 days left in the school year, can you read a book from every continent? You can pick up a booklet with suggestions for each location from the library: stickers and Haribo for every continent you tick off.  

And if you fancy something more substantial (and possibly even healthier) than inter-continental Haribos, you can win Nando's vouchers in the library's annual 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' quiz. Outside the library, there's a table laid for several mystery, literary guests: can you work out who they are? If you want some tips, have a look at last year's quiz (and the answers) here: have fun!  

Meanwhile, some suggestions for LGBTQ+ History Month.  

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound by torrin a. greathouse

Recommended by Mr Gardner

This prize-winning collection of poetry, published in 2021, presents an extraordinary and at times quite explicit poetic exploration of the bodily. Whilst the collection is most striking for its focus on visceral suffering, anguish and persecution, there is also joy—or at least the tantalising promise of it—in the poetry’s projection of a transfigured ideal of beauty and desire.

If you would like to read a sample of greathouse’s poetry, a poem from her most recent publication Deed is linked here.

World Book Day Quizzes - more answers, and the winner ...!!!

In today's post, the last post of term, we bring you the answers to the final rounds of our World Book Day Quiz: Miss McLaren's questions on women writers, and Mr Gardner's annual literary cryptic crossword.  And after that, the announcement you've all been waiting for - this year's winner ....

But quiz answers first. Round 5: women writers.

Question 1: whose first novel had an epigraph by John Milton, and was sub-titled The Modern Prometheus?  This should have been easy. And it was. Although the first edition of the novel was published anonymously in 1818, almost all of you knew the answer to this question was, of course ...

Mary Shelley. 'The Gordon Ramsay Story' was not an answer we were expecting, but the host of Hell's Kitchen undoubtedly has form when it comes to bringing fire to humanity, so yes, Atom, we can see the underlying logic there. If we squint hard enough.  

Guess Who Came to Dinner: the answers (and the winners ...!)

On the last Tuesday of term, we'll be revealing the answers to the final rounds of the Book Blog quiz, and announcing the winner. Last week, the Kayton Library also held its annual World Book Day quiz, which was as popular as ever.  In today's post, we bring you the answers, and reveal who were the winners of those elusive Nando's Vouchers.    

Guess Who Came to Dinner.

Mrs Pemberton

After the excitement buzzing around the table outside the library last week, it is time to reveal who came to dinner with The Kayton Library for World Book Day. 

This year’s clues arranged around the eight table settings certainly sparked some debate and challenged the literary brain-cells of staff and pupils alike. Thank you to all those who got involved and to the Drama Department and Mr Tretiakov for helping to deck out the table with some excellent props.

And so to the answers……..

World Book Day Quizzes: the final rounds ...

 Thanks very much to all of you who had a stab at Mr Green's anagrams yesterday: we'll be revealing the answers in a moment ...

But first, it's the final day of quizzes, and today, there are TWO rounds. It's International Women's Day on Saturday, so to celebrate this, Round 6 - see here - brings you ten questions about women writers.  

And our final round is Mr Gardner's annual, fiendish cryptic crossword: be afraid - be very afraid ... 

He's asked us to publish a disclaimer, because this one is really difficult.  But perhaps he's under-estimating you - see if you can prove him wrong? Here's the grid: and you can find the clues here - good luck!

A quick reminder that it's also the final day to enter the Kayton Library's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' quiz, and win those fabulous Nando's vouchers. Visit the table outside the library, if you haven't already done so, to see if you can identify all the literary guests, or hop back to yesterday's post here and look at the photos. 

Meanwhile, those anagrams. We have to be honest: many of you were clearly baffled.  But come on - Mr Green helped you out with the publication dates, plus occasional clues in the anagrams themselves: so they weren't entirely impossible. Just challenging. Seriously challenging.  And here are the answers.

World Book Day Quizzes: Round 4

It's World Book Day!!! And we've got an abundance of book themed quizzes for you. Thanks very much to everyone who participated in yesterday's quiz: we'll be revealing the correct answers (and some of the most inventive wrong ones) in a moment.

But first, here's a link to today's quiz questions, which have been kindly supplied by Mr Green.  He's given you some anagrams of novels related to fantasy, the supernatural and the fantastical: can you figure out their titles? Bonus points, of course, if you can also identify the author ...

You've also got one more day to enter the Kayton Library's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?' quiz and win those fabulous Nando's vouchers. Visit the table outside the library, or look at the photos here, to see if you can identify the literary characters each place setting represents. You can submit your answers here.   

Here's Guest 1:

World Book Day Quizzes: Round 3 ...

Many thanks to all those of you who took part in yesterday's quiz: we'll be revealing the answers in a moment ...  

But first, here's the link to today's quiz. It's Mr Harris's regular 'can you judge a book by its cover?' round. Five book covers, titles removed - what are they? (and bonus points if you know who wrote them).  

Yesterday, Mr Hudson flummoxed many quizzers with his 'book titles that are actually quotations'.  The multiple-choice format gave you options - a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. Sadly, that didn't help ... 

Book 1 was E M Forster's A Passage to India:

World Book Day Quizzes: Round 1

It's World Book Day on Thursday, and as usual, SPS is celebrating this with an abundance of quirky, book-themed quizzes. The Kayton Library is once again extending an invitation to its annual 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' quiz - can you identify the literary guests from their place settings?

And here on the book blog, we'll be running a short daily quiz. Today's round is brought to you by Mr Kemp. As teacher i/c of FilmSoc, he's devised a series of questions about films based on the works of William Shakespeare: can you figure out which film is adapted from which play?  Enter the quiz here - and the answers will be revealed tomorrow: have fun!

World Book Day Winners ....

In our penultimate post of this term, we're bringing you not just the answers to the final Shelfie quiz, the Heads-of-House Head-to-Heads, but also the answers to the Kayton Library's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' quiz AND - even more importantly - revealing who won those Nando's vouchers ...

If we were presenting the results of the final Shelfie quiz in the form of a House Points table, it would look something like this: 

World Book Day: the Final Shelfie Quiz ...

Congratulations to all those of you who did Thursday's quiz: we'll reveal the answers in a moment, but first, our final quiz. It's a veritable clash of the titans, as Mr Blurton, Dr Field, Dr Gilks, Miss Gill, Mr  Harrison, Mr Nilsson, Mr Stewart and Miss Warner go Head to Head. You know them as leaders - but do you know them as readers??? Click on the link - Friday's Shelfie Quiz - and find out ....

World Book Day: Shelfie Quiz Number 4 ...

Thanks to all those of you who had a stab at matching yesterday's tomes to their English teacher owners. We'll let you know if you got them right in a moment - but now for our penultimate Shelfie Quiz. Today, our shelfies have been kindly donated by teachers from the Art, Film & Video, Economics, Sports and Philosophy Departments, plus - as today actually IS World Book Day -  our sixth shelfie is from the Kayton Librarian herself (and if you haven't yet visited the Library's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' quiz, do check it out: it's great fun, and there's a Nando's voucher in it if you win!).  

So - click on the link if you want to guess which books belong to Mr Grant, Miss Khan, Miss McGreevy, Mr Maguire, Mr Mahmoud and Mrs Cummings - Thursday's Shelfie Quiz - and in the meantime, here are the answers to yesterday's.

World Book Day: Shelfie Quiz Number 3 ...

 Well - we must confess: we think we made yesterday's quiz too easy.  We'll reveal the answers in a minute, but first of all, our third Shelfie quiz of the week. This one might be trickier. Today, all our shelfies come from the same Dept: English. Mr Gardner, Dr Pryce, Mr Pirrie, Miss McLaren, Mr Harris and former English teacher Miss Muir have kindly sent in their snapshots, and now it's your turn to work out which books belong to who. So - where does Madame Bovary rub shoulders with Flaubert's parrot? Who's kept their Christmas lights up, and whose bookshelf is shrouded in gloom? Did we realise English teachers were such fans of Mike Brearley?? and whose cactus is that??? Click on this link - Wednesday's Shelfie Quiz - if you'd like to take part.

World Book Day: Shelfie Quiz Number 2 ...

Thanks to everyone who had a go at our first shelfie quiz yesterday. The results were impressive, and you can find out the answers below. But first, today's quiz, which features teachers from the Modern Languages, Science and ICT department. So - you tell us: which teachers arrange their books by colour? Who's working their way through this year's Booker Prize Winner Prophet Song? Who has a lot of books about Bladerunner and who has three copies of Bonjour Tristesse?  Click on the link to take part - Tuesday's Shelfie Quiz - and see if you can identify the shelfies from Miss Byrne, Mr Tofts, Miss Cotton, Dr Holmes, Mr Green and Miss Squire.  

IWD and World Book Day Quiz

There's a lot to celebrate this week. It's International Women's Day on Friday - 

and there are loads of fantastic events taking place, including today's Classics Society presentation on Female Writers in Antiquity (it's not just Sappho, you know), Wednesday's Senior English Society meeting, with Miss Trepanier discussing feminism and narrative form, and Thursday's Sci-Fi/Filmsoc mashup, on women film directors to watch. You can find out more about all the events taking place here.  And as if that wasn't enough excitement for one week, Thursday is World Book Day!!!

This year's festival of all things book-related includes the Kayton Library's second 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' quiz (you can find out more about last year's here). The library also asked teachers some book-themed questions - including 'which book would you save from a burning building?', 'which book influenced you as a child?', 'which book did you throw across the room?' and 'which book have you always wanted to read?' Watch out for the posters based on people's answers: they'll be popping up all over the school.

 
Here on the book blog, we're running a week of 'match the teacher to the shelfie' quizzes.  What is a 'shelfie'? we hear you cry. Well, this photo can probably help you figure it out:

Every day, we'll be posting some shelfies and challenging YOU, the Pauline reader, to work out which bookshelf belongs to which teacher.  Today, Maths, Geography and History go head to head: Miss French, Mr Allon, Mr Isaac, Mr Poyner, Mr Fagan and Miss Milanova have bravely sent in their shelfies.

So, click here to try today's quiz: on whose bookshelves do George Orwell and Pat Barker stand side by side? Where does Alex Bellos hang out with Laura Bates? Ben Stokes and Robert Webb jostle with nineteenth century explorer Richard Burton? Who delivered our first ever digital shelfie? And who hasn't taken their Christmas decorations down yet???

Answers will be revealed tomorrow ... !

World Book Day Quiz - the answers ...

In the last post of this term, we're bringing you the answers to this year's World Book Day Quiz - and (even more importantly) announcing the winners ...

In Round One, Mr Harris wondered whether you could identify five books by their covers. By and large, it turned out that you could.  The first cover - 

belonged to Mario Puzo's The Godfather: 

Most of you knew this, although Noughts and Crosses was a popular alternative, plus titles along the lines of 'Pinocchio', 'Muppets or Puppets?' and (sigh) 'The Installation of the Ceiling Mounted Fan'. It's a visual metaphor, people. 

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - the results!

One of the highlights of last week's World Book Day celebrations was the Kayton Library's 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' quiz. In today's post, Mrs Cummings reveals the answers, as well as the lucky winners of those Nando's chicken dinners ... 

'We set the table for 8 and put props at each place setting so you could work out who our literary guests were. Did you work them all out?

World Book Day Quiz

 This week it's World Book Day!!!! (on Thursday) - so that means it's time for the Book Blog's annual World Book Day Quiz.  

This year's questions have been devised by Mr Harris, Mr Kemp, Miss McLaren, Mr Dormandy, Mr Gardner, Miss Muir, Mr Green and Dr McDonnell: huge thanks to all of them for contributing. So - time to test your literary knowledge, with questions on book covers, theatre slang, scifi, clifi, nature and animals, literary chronology, a cryptic Shakespeare crossword and a splendour of literary moustaches.  There's a link to the quiz here - it's open until 9.00 am next Monday, so feel free to submit your entry at any time before then.  The answers, and the winner, will be revealed in our post in the final week of term. 

And if one quiz isn't enough for you, the Kayton Library is running another one later this week. Mrs Cummings writes: 

'You’re invited to Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – outside the Kayton Library on World Book Day Thursday 4th March and Friday 5th March. 

Can you guess who the guests are from the clues we’ve put at the table? Extra points given for the author and book title we are thinking of. Two Nando’s vouchers for the two best entries.'

With a fabulous prize like that, how can you resist??? Happy World Book Day, and happy quizzing!  

 

World Book Day Quiz: the answers

In our last post of the term, we're bringing you the answers to this year's epic (some would say marathon) World Book Day quiz, before announcing the winner.  Did you get any of them right? Will it be you?? Read on and find out ...

Round 1 - Can you judge a book by its cover? - was set by Mr Harris. For Cover No. 1, suggestions included Moby Dick, Jaws, The Kraken, Eragon and Swallows and Amazons (does that look like the Lake District to you???), but the answer, as most of you knew was ....

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Cover No. 2 proved much more puzzling. Suggestions included Ted Hughes's The Iron Man, Macbeth, and The Book Thief - at least one of which was on the right track, because the pile of burning books at the central figure's feet was a clue ... 

... that this was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. But only 8 of you recognised it. 

Cover No. 3, stark and simple, reminded some of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A couple of you leapt on the solitary letter above the picture and suggested V for Vendetta. But the letter isn't the first in the title: it's the first in the author's name.  So the correct answer was Virginia Woolf's 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse.  The lighthouse is a clue.  

The 'woolf' theme continued with Cover No. 4, which produced many animal-based suggestions, some of them more plausible than others. But it wasn't The Call of the Wild, The Jungle Book, The Just So Stories, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Fantastic Mr Fox, Beo-wolf (we see what you did there) or Jaws ...  

It was White Fang by Jack London.  With those teeth, how could it not be???

World Book Day

 It's World Book Day!!! And that means it's time for the Book Blog's annual World Book Day Quiz.  

This year's questions have been put together by Mr Harris, Mr Kemp, Dr Cocks, and Mr Gardner of the English Dept; Mr Green, Dr McDonnell and Dr Ruddick of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Soc; Mr Perrin, Head of Modern Languages; Mrs Cummings, the Kayton Librarian; and Mr Dormandy, the Head of Drama.  

So - it's time to pit your wits against theirs. How much do you know about book covers? Famous Literary Faces? Shakespeare plays and their characters? Done a bit of Tolkien? Seen a few James McAvoy films? Dipped into the occasional Victorian novel? Read a book by a woman writer? Decoded a cryptic crossword?  Then this year's prize could be yours for the taking ... The link to the quiz is here, and it closes at 9.00 on Monday morning: good luck!!!

World Book Day Quiz - the answers, and the winner ...

Our first round was Mr Harris's first edition covers: most of you easily identified The BFG, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Goldfinch, but the fifth cover proved more of a puzzle.

Suggestions included Brave New World, Norwegian Wood, 1984, and Catch 22, plus The Seven Dials and The Time Tunnel (neither of those bad guesses, based on the design).  But the answer was actually: 

World Book Day

It's World Book Day!!! 

Yes, even in the middle of a pandemic, the annual festival of books and reading continues.  And here on the blog it's no different.  With a little help from the English, Drama and Classics Depts, plus the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Society, we've put together a quiz to celebrate the occasion, and help you while away the time during the last couple of days of lockdown.  How much do you know about animals in literature? Literary pseudonyms? First editions? Great plays of the 20th century? Can you identify famous writers from their chins, or spot the literary references in our final round of music clips??? We would love to find out. 

So if you have a few minutes to spare, and fancy exercising your wits, or you've finished your exams and would like to do something fun for a change, or you are just twiddling your thumbs in school waiting for your COVID test, please feel free to join in via the following link - the quiz is open until the end of the school day on Friday.  Have fun!!! (and also have patience, because with all those images/music clips, the quiz form takes a little while to load ...).

Try the World Book Day Quiz here

Answers (and winners) will be revealed next Tuesday ...