What PGS Teachers Are Reading This Summer: III

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. Here, teachers Mr deTrafford, Ms Burton, Mr Lemieux, Dr Howson, Dr Smith and PGS parent, Mrs Hawdon, share their summer selections.

Tom de Trafford

I have already started reading the The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel, but I have been struggling to finish it whilst only reading in small bursts late at night (I keep forgetting who is who from the long list of historical characters). I am planning to spend a week at the start of the holiday really immersing myself in Tudor England and the twists and turns of the court of Henry VIII. I loved the two earlier books from the trilogy Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and the way that the author is able to give a sense of what England was like at this time and the complex interaction between religion, politics and desires of the king. Thomas Cromwell makes a compelling central character and, despite some of the terrible things he does, you really start to hope it all ends well for him, although it rarely does in the court of Henry VIII!

Louisa Burton

I have seen The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce advertised quite a lot (probably most likely as a result of targeted adverts!) and so I am finally going to see what it is all about. "Feel good" and "uplifting" are words that don't often describe the books that I tend to read (!) but there's unlikely to be a better time than now, post-lockdown, to try something different with a sprinkling of positive vibes. I currently have very little understanding of what this book is about . . . I'm assuming a journey of sorts by a chap called Harold. Ask me in September and hopefully by then I'll have a better idea!

Simon Lemieux

I am planning to read Prisoners of History: What Monuments Tell Us About Our History and Ourselves by Keith Lowe. I always find monuments and memorials interesting and I have read quite a bit about the First World War and memorials and ex-Soviet monuments now 'resting' and thought I'd take the subject a bit further. It also ties in with all the current debate about Confederate statues, Colston, etc.

I am also going to be enjoying Jon Sopel’s A Year at the Circus: Inside Trump’s White House - the title says it all . . .

Beth Hawdon

Because of the social changes taking place I decided to two classics, The Machine Stops by EM Forster, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  The first reflects the state of isolation many of us found ourselves in during Covid lockdown.  The second had a major effect on the USA on the verge of abolition; this heart-rending story is still important, with both the BLM movement and the modern slavery of human trafficking. I am working on two novels right now, one about militarisation of our world and the other about human trafficking. Hopefully, when published, members of the PGS community will be interested in reading them.

Mark Howson

I generally only read non-fiction, but within this I will read anything so Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd does not follow a significant trend although I really enjoyed the books written by other doctors such as Oliver Sacks. I will follow this up with some sustainability.

Martin Smith

The Abolition of Woman: How Radical Feminism Is Betraying Women by Fiorella Nash