What Pupils and Staff Are Reading This Summer: 1

As we approach the end of the summer term, PGS pupils and staff reveal what they are planning to read over the summer holiday.  

Jo Morgan (JLKM)

Being a bit of a weirdo, I tend to have several books on the go at the same time. My current fiction choice is American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. Set initially in Acapulco, the story follows a Mexican woman and her son who, following the murder of their entire family at the hands of the cartel become illegal migrants trying to make their way to the US. This really has been a harrowing read and I've had to take my time with it, but it offers a beautiful and horrific insight into the experience of refugees. I am also reading Caitlin Moran's More than a Woman. Based on 24 hours in the life of a middle-aged woman, this book is laugh out loud hilarious and utterly relatable (for me, anyway). Reflecting on lessons learnt since her first book How to be a Woman, Moran explains the ways in which her feminism has been compromised, the sad realities of getting older and the ongoing fight for gender equality. On Audible I'm listening to The Madness of Grief by Reverend Richard Coles. Read by the Rev. himself following the recent death of his husband, I'm finding this to be very moving and strangely uplifting. 

Over the summer I can't wait to have time to get stuck into some more reading. Piled up and ready to go are:

• Sista! An Anthology of writings by Same Gender Loving Women of African/ Caribbean Women of African Descent. Edited by Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, Rikki Beadle-Blair and John R Gordon
• We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGBTQ+ Rights.
• The Guilty Feminist: From Our Noble Goals to Our Worst Hypocrisies by Deborah Francis-White, Adjoa Andoh, et al.
• Back to Black: Retelling Radicalism for the 21st Century. By Kehinde Andrews

Phoebe Clark (Year 12)

This summer, I am aiming to read the Gothic feminist classic, The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter, as well as Emily Bronte's The Sky is Darkening Around and other poems. I am looking forward to reading Simon Armitage's modern translation of the medieval eco-poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I will also be exploring several works of feminist theory: The Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir, A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf and A Problem That Has No Name by Betty Friedman.

Emma Kirby (EMK)

I am reading ‘Castles from Cobwebs’ by J. A. Mensah. I’ve only just started it but I’m already gripped. The premise is this: Imani is a baby from Ghana found, supposedly abandoned, by nuns in a remote part of North East England. Raised by them, she is visited by her friend/shadow (not sure what exactly yet!) – Amarie. The narrative is told via flashback, flashforward etc. so that we have a form of Bildungsroman novel but in quite an experimental way. So far, I’m intrigued…