Book of the Week

Welcome back, and Happy New Year! We hope you've all enjoyed a relaxing Christmas break, with plenty of reading. New Year is often a time for resolutions, and today's book of the week is sometimes viewed as a classic of the self-help genre.  But does its reputation do it justice? Read on and find out.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Recommended by Mr Preece-Smith

This book has been around for generations — it was already well-established when I was at school — but for years I avoided it. The title suggested something slightly sinister, as if it were a handbook in social manipulation. Who would want to be spotted reading what looked like 'The Beginner’s Guide to Gaslighting'?

Books of the Year

It's our final post of the year, and, as always, we've asked people to recommend the books they most enjoyed reading this year.  

First up this year is Miss Douglass: 'This year I have been on a mission to read as many books as I can: at the moment I have read 54. The one that surprised me the most, so much so that I am now reading more books by the same author, was Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. 

Usually, I can predict where a book is going, so it is rare that a plot twist surprised me. Elantris had two different plot twists that surprised me.'  

Book of the Week

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Recommended by Allen Li

‘We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly.’ This line from Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending captures the essence of the story, as the narrator’s carefully constructed sense of self begins to crumble. What he once believed to be a stable, ordinary past is overturned by fragments of memory that he has forgotten or purposefully cast aside. 

Play of the Week: Hamlet

In today's post, Miss Mazur introduces the senior school production of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Books of the Week

Today we have several recommendations, kindly suggested by Mr Hager and Theo Katzenellenbogen.

Endeavour by Peter Moore 

Recommended by Mr Hager

This is an amazingly readable non-fiction work centred around the ship Endeavour and Captain Cook’s extraordinary voyage to the Pacific Ocean in 1769, and his role in the exploration of Tahiti and Australia. 

SPS Predict the Booker Prize 2025: and the winner is ...

On Monday evening, SPS readers gathered in the Kayton Library, and online, via the live-stream, for our annual Predict the Booker event. Six Paulines, from the 5th form to the U8th, stepped up to the podium, each of them recommending one of the shortlisted novels and attempting to win the audience's vote. 

But is the audience vote worth winning? As our host, the imperturbable Mr Mahmoud, politely pointed out, when it comes to predicting Booker prize-winners, the SPS audience have a spectacular record of unrelenting wrongness. For six successive, success-less years, we've failed to back the right horse.  So could this be the night that finally broke the curse? Read on, and find out …

Book of the Week

Next Monday, the Kayton Library is hosting its annual 'Predict the Booker' Event. Six Pauline readers explore and appraise the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize for Literature, before the audience vote on which novel they think will win: you can find out more about the event here, and the shortlisted novels here, and we'll be reporting on the event in next Wednesday's post.  

Meanwhile, today's book of the week - a classic of the horror genre - is perfectly poised between two significant dates: last Friday's Hallowe'en, and next Saturday's anniversary of Bram Stoker's birth in 1847.  Yes, our book of the week is Dracula - recommended by Tom Ritchie.