What PGS Staff Are Reading This Summer: 2

David Wickes

I will be reading a mixture of fiction and non-fiction as always in the summer. For fiction I am looking forward to Robert Harris’ latest offering Act of Oblivion. The author of the Cicero Trilogy and, my favourite, An Officer and A Spy (about The Dreyfuss Affair) turns his attention to the people responsible for the execution of King Charles I. When Charles II returns after The Restoration, those responsible for his father’s death, if they are still alive, are hunted down. Two of them flee to America, but is that far enough for them to escape vengeance. I have also seen that S J Parris has released the final instalment in her Giordano Bruno series. Set in the heady events of the 16th century, this series follows an ex-monk turned academic sceptic through a number of adventures across, first England, then Europe as he tries to win favour with influential people, especially the Queen of England.

For non-fiction, I am looking forward to reading about two of the great figures of the 19th century – people who have had a profound effect on the world up to the present day. A two volume biography of Napoleon by Michael Broers, a professor of History at Oxford, who I have enjoyed meeting on various occasions, promises to be enlightening about someone who still provokes mixed reactions. Karl Mark by Gareth Stedman Jones will be equally as illuminating, hopefully. I will enjoy comparing both to other biographies that I have read on those two influential figures. 

Bryony Hart

This summer, I will be reading Joanne Harris’s new novel, Broken Light. I am a big fan of hers and remember going to hear her talk about her writing when Chocolat was at its height.  Her stories always revolve around magic, mythology, and storytelling, as well as sinister twists, so I look forward enjoying this.

I want to also this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction winner Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. It was the one novel in the shortlist that I didn’t get around to reading! I was secretly hoping that Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait would win!

Alongside reading fiction, I have just purchased a book called The Teachers Toolkit Guide to Memory by Ross Morrison McGill. I recently attended one of Ross’s webinars, and I was really impressed by his thoughts about how pupils learn and what teachers can do to help information stick!

Alex Casillas-Cross

Pip Pip by Jay Griffiths offers a sideways look at time, and The Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak have been recommended to me by a legend and therefore a chance to connect further to someone who I respect. 

With every summer the encouragement to read about key places and people of historical interest is always a present thought and therefore hoping to read You Will Hear Thunder, a collection of Russian poems by Akhmatova, and perhaps a re-read of I, Rigoberta Menchu who have inspiring and real stories to tell. 

Emma Burns

This summer I am really looking forward to relaxing with a huge pile of books that have accumulated all year - and now will have some time to read! 

Eve Bites Back is an investigation of the lives and achievements of eight female writers who were determinedly written out of the canon of English Literature. Anna Beer uncovers their stories and re-evaluates their place in the timeline of literature and writers and celebrates their daring and eventful lives. Super Infinite by Katherine Rundell is a biography of one of my favourite writers, John Donne. He had a fascinating life, moving from playful roue to the Dean of St Pauls and wrote some of the most crackling and energetic poetry committed to paper. He also lived through tumultuous social change in England. I am really looking forward to this! 

Lessons is the latest novel by the masterful Ian McEwan. The story of one man’s life is shown through the prism of the huge change the world witnessed, from the Second World War to the disaster at Chernobyl. McEwan is so good at placing the micro within the macro of a larger experience, and I cannot wait to read it! The Last Devil to Die - because we all need to relax with a ripping story by Richard Osman. Success by Martin Amis: the recently departed enfant terrible of the 1980s literary scene wrote this in the early eighties and I am keen to see how it holds up. I might even re-read my essay on it from my University days…