What PGS Teachers Are Reading This Summer: V

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, Mrs Morgan,  Mr Rees, Dr Webb and  Daisy Rumbold-Watson share their summer selections.

Jo Morgan

One of my favourite things about the summer holiday is the opportunity to read more. I have just finished Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm no Longer Talking to White People about Race. If you haven't read it and you're interested in the BLM movement please check it out. It's a quick read and so important. 

This summer I have a huge pile of books to get through on race and ethnicity and next on my list is How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi. I also love a bit of feminist literature and plan to read Michelle P King's The Fix - Invisible Barriers that are Holding Women Back at Work. I've also got some fiction on my list. First up is Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (recommended to me by loads of people!) and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (recommended by my mum).

Luke Rees

I’ve been reading Somebody Should Have Told Us recently and although I’ve not quite finished it, I can recommend it. This summer I’m really looking forward to reading On Purpose by Steve Chamberlain. Steve is a performance coach and I’ve attended a number of his excellent seminars. Steve claims that On Purpose will “take you on a journey through the seven stages of creating an extraordinary life. You’ll begin by finding your values (who you are), before uncovering your purpose (what you're here to do). You’ll then be given the tools to make this your reality.” I’m looking forward to testing these these claims.

Carol Webb

My 'to-be-read' pile is dangerously out of control.  I shall work hard on it this summer in order to lower the risk of injury to others.  

I really enjoyed Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other and so I want to read a) another novel by her and b) I believe she intends to read (TLS 26/6/20) the following this summer:

• Dean Atta's Black Flamingo (tick, I read that as part of the Carnegie shortlist and it recently won the Stonewall prize too)
• That Reminds Me by Denis Owusu  
• Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasary.

Both sound really appealing.  Was the Cat in the Hat Black: the hidden racism in children's literature and the need for diverse books by Philip Nel was recently recommended by a PGS parent.  It is so readable that, if truth be told, I have already dived into its pages and this may be finished before term ends. There are also a couple of Irish writers who I want to catch up with: Anne Enright and Elaine Feeney.  Poetry beckons too.  Recently I have been looking through the websites and catalogues of small independent publishers and there are so many gems there that need to be experienced.  Reading the haiku written by Richard Wright over the last week has been inspiring, to the point where I did pick up my pen to create some involving seagulls.  Sadly the seagulls were far from cooperative and have refused all public literary appearances.

After reading Girl, Mother, Other I plunged into a re-read of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway which is set just after the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918.  It resonated so well with Evaristo's work in its stream of consciousness style and focus on women's roles.  The comparison also allows one to see how much our attitudes to mental health have changed between the periods depicted in these books.  I have decided to re-read all of Woolf's novels this summer, I see her work so differently now from the reader I was in my early twenties.  It was Evaristo's novel that triggered memories of that age: living, working and reading in London of the '80s and '90s.  

Shaun Tan has just won the Greenaway Medal for Tales From the Inner City.  I am a long-term fan and collector of his books so this is going to be a special pleasure that I will save for August.

Whatever you choose, explore and enjoy!

Daisy Watson-Rumbold

The isolation of lockdown rekindled my love for exploring the words and characters of a good novel, so this summer I'm hoping to educate myself, and hopefully, get lost in a few more brilliant books. 

To suit the mood of a COVID-infected world, I'm reading George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' at the moment and hoping to follow it on with an equally dystopian novel, Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange". Politics is something that gets me going, so I'm hoping these books will challenge a few of my political and societal ideals. Speaking of challenges, I'm hoping that I'll gather the courage to start Cervante's 'Don Quixote", and the commitment to finish it. 

I'm also hoping to delve into some non-fiction books, 'The Secret Barrister" and Lisa Appignanesi's "Mad, Bad and Sad: A history of women and the mind doctors from 1800 to the present." have caught my interest. Both books expose parts of our society that interest me and will broaden my horizons on those subjects.

Following a feminist pattern, I'm going to use the summer to embrace some more female writers in history. Sylvia Plath's 'Bell Jar', 'Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams' and the poems in 'Ariel' are holding a place. As well as Alice Walker's 'The Colour Purple' and 'Rebecca' by Daphne Du Maurier.