What PGS Staff Are Reading This Summer: 2

 

Emma Burns

This summer I will be taking several books to Crete: Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido which is a reissue of a book first written 40 years ago; I will also be taking Mrs Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerskill which was a gift to me from Mrs Kirby. 

I am then going to Scotland for three weeks and will be taking some other reading: The Crimson Petal and The White by Michael Faber, and The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff.  This author is best known for his classic post World War One play Journey's End, so I am looking forward to reading his 1930s family saga novel.

Happy summer reading, everyone!

Luke Rees

Aside from the classic beach read (I have a couple of unread Wilbur Smith books), I’ll be reading Diverse Educators: A Manifesto, which, featuring contributions from over 100 educators, explores the diverse lived experiences of people involved in education and looks at ways in which those experiences can help shape an inclusive and diverse educational environment. The book looks at gender, religion, race and sexuality, in particular focusing on intersectionality: helping us to understand how everyone has their own unique experiences. 

Simon Lemieux

This summer I will be reading ‘Red Notice’ by Bill Browder. A 2015 expose of corruption and injustice in Putin’s Russia. The author is an American financier whose Russian lawyer gets murdered after uncovering massive fraud by government officials. It sounds like a thriller, sadly it isn’t. It’s been recommended to me by Mr Herbert. I’m looking forward to it but not in an enjoyable way….

Niki King

I started my summer reading early with The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri. Christy (the daughter of Cypriot refugees) volunteered for 2 summers at a UNICEF supported refugee centre in Athens, Greece. And although the book is fiction, it is very much influenced by the real-life stories that the refugees shared with her. Bees symbolise vulnerability but also life and hope and this is what Christy is trying to convey in her book: The people she met experienced unspeakable loss and trauma.  “I wanted to set forth the idea that among profound, unspeakable loss, humans can still find love and light—and see one another.”

I can’t wait to read more. The book has also sparked my interest in the amazing social world of bees, so I will be doing some reading on this too. And for those of you interested, look up The Buzz Project (www.canalrivertrust.org.uk). This was set up by the apiarist Professor Ryad Alsous, a beekeeper in his native Syria, himself a refugee now settled in the UK. 

I also can’t wait to start The Well Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith. Sue is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. She sees the garden both as a beautiful physical space and a mental space, where we can take time out and be with nature and ourselves, in peace, in the moment. ‘I have come to understand that deep existential processes can be involved in creating and caring for a garden…Gardening brings together the emotional, physical, social, vocational, and spiritual aspects of life, boosting people’s mood and self-esteem’.

As someone who is a therapist and who has very recently taken up gardening- very much a beginner-I look forward to reading the book in my garden, taking breaks to tend to my garden mindfully.

Tom de Trafford

This summer, I am looking forward to reading The Island of Seawomen by Lisa See, which is set on an island off the coast of Korea; it is about love and friendship against a background of war and occupation. It was recommended to me by my wife, who loved not only the descriptions but also the evocation of a society in which the women are the breadwinners (through their roles as 'haenyos' - spear-fishers) and the men stay at home to care for the children. 

I would also highly recommend Do Not Disturb by Michela Wrong, which is non-fiction, chronicling the political rise of Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, whose ruthlessness and political astuteness has led him to dominate the country for over two decades, in the aftermath of the vicious ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. This particularly pertinent, and chilling, reading in the light of the UK Government's recent decision to send refugees seeking asylum to Rwanda. It is based on the writer's relationship with Kagame's former Head of Espionage, who was in murdered at the Michelangelo Hotel in Johannesburg, a place I know well from my time living in South Africa.