What PGS Teachers are Reading This Summer II

The summer holidays are the perfect time to explore new books, writers and ideas. Portsmouth Point asked PGS teachers to reveal what they are going to be reading over this summer. 

Mr Goad

My plan is to settle down and enjoy another Dickens - possibly Martin Chuzzlewit, but I am open to suggestions. I love his portrayal of character and thoroughly enjoyed Dombey and Son last summer. I am also planning on asking Dr Webb to lend me some of Tom Stoppard’s plays from the library. I particularly enjoy trying to imagine his plays in performance as I read them, often quite a challenge, particularly when he goes a little maverick and invents his own language as in Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, read over the last half term. Finally, I usually can’t resist a good children’s yarn and after a recommendation from Jo Godfree, who was supporting the Leonardo competition recently, I plan on buying Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines Quartet, for the family of course… but I might just have to get a sneak preview first…

Mrs Worley

I am still reading The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting. I was set this by my reading group at Easter, but since I’ve moved house I haven’t found as much time as I would like to read, so I am still half-way through it, and doubt I’ll manage to finish it until August.  I am enjoying this because it is a mystery based in Norway and Shetland; rain storms, gales, rough seas and rocky landscapes are the backdrop to this intriguing story, and there is nothing nicer on a hot summer's day, than to read about cooler & wetter places.

Mrs Kirby

I’m about to read The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal (won the Caledonia Award). It’s set in the year of the Great Exhibition and tells the story of twins, Iris and Rose, who work in a doll emporium in central London. Iris is invited to become the pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost’s muse and is herself an aspiring painter. However, her path crosses with the obsessive taxidermist, Silas, who has his own plans for her. From glancing at the early pages, the novel feels dark and Dickensian - I’m hoping for a glorious, macabre romp through Victorian London. 

Dr Purves

I plan on reading the following, although given how busy this summer is looking who knows, maybe I will be limited to one of the many Julia Donaldson books that I can pretty much recite by heart.

Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. I saw Prof Blakemore speak on this topic at a conference around four-and-a-half years ago, just after I joined PGS. She is a fantastic speaker and the research she presented was very powerful in helping those present to better understand why adolescents can make decisions that look so questionable to their parents and teachers, and also why their behaviour in groups can be so different from how they are as individuals. I am looking forward to reading about this in more detail and also refreshing my understanding. This is one of those books that everyone involved in educating adolescents should read.

Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado-Perez. I am about halfway through this book. It is absolutely eye-opening, quite shocking and, simply put, everyone should read it.  

Either Shame or Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I have started both, but need to return my copies to the library as I leave PGS so will make a trip to Waterstone's and see which one I find first. 

I would also quite like to read some more of the poetry of Tony Harrison. I was introduced to his work very recently and also, coincidentally, discovered that he is a former pupil of the school I am moving to in September. The little I have read so far is raw and uncompromising, but hugely evocative. 

Of course, it may just be more Julia Donaldson!