8. What PGS Staff Are Reading This Summer

 Carol Webb

This summer my reading is going to be recommendation driven!

In an assembly Year 7 pupils recommended the fantasy writer Holly Black and I have chosen The Cruel Prince as my starting place.  I am hoping for drama, love and good world-building.  

On the sci-fi front I have really enjoyed the first book in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells; it is crime fiction set in space with a central character who reminds me very much of the Sue Grafton's ABC detective, Kinsey Millhone.  I forget who recommended this but I say thank you!

I am reading a prequel to the Black Witch Chronicles which a Year 11 recently read and said was 'so good'.  It would be easy to place The Black Witch Chronicles by Laurie Forest into the romantasy genre as a simple and enjoyable magical drama however the story can be seen as an allegory for the rise of Nazism in Germany and as such it makes one think about one's values and how one would defend them.  And helpfully the recommendation, On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder made by Mrs Casillas Cross, identifies how a regime becomes authoritarian and what needs to be done to resist.  

Miss Champion recommended The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon which Time Out describes as 'A page-turning epic, sketching World War II as seen through the eyes of two comic book writers.'  I have grown to love comic books and so this will, I am sure be a joy.  

There are a multitude of other books sitting in my tbr piles, many are recommendations and I feel very fortunate to have so many goodies waiting to be explored.

Everywhere I go this summer I will search out the bookshops in order to discover what gems they hold and I will not pass any libraries either, without popping in to say hello to the librarian and to see if they have any ideas that would work well in our own library.  I am, after all a bookaholic!

John Sadden

Rather than write about books that I intend to read over the summer, I've compiled a brief list that I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole while wearing Marigold gloves. I'm disregarding the normally sound advice that one should never judge a book by its cover or by what the critics say. Put simply, it’s just that I don’t like the idea of any of these books.  

Keir Starmer: The Biography by Tom Baldwin (2024); in which the author devotes 448 pages attempting to humanise the presumptive UK Prime Minister. The author was a senior Labour adviser. Say no more. How to be a Politician by Vince Cable (2022): how a failed Labour wannabe who sought a career with the Lib Dems, became their leader, and then joined the Conservatives in a catastrophic coalition government, can seriously offer advice on being a politician demonstrates a breathtaking level of chutzpah.  

Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss (2024): the idea of Truss portraying herself as some sort of saviour goes beyond the wildest realms of parody. Fighting Bull by Nigel Farage (2010): I’m not sure that Farage had thought through the title of his autobiography. He's certainly combative and talks bull. A more apt title might be “My Struggle”.

Seventy-Two Virgins by Boris Johnson (2004). Not only is this novel described as sexist and homophobic, but it also includes “all sorts of racist tropes”(sources: Jonny Diamond lithub.com and Serina Sandhu inews.co.uk).  

Gareth Hemmings

The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion: Unapologetic Explosion by Andre Marmot. This charts the sudden and slightly unexpected revival of jazz in the UK during the early 2000s at a time when jazz had become “uncool”. It looks at the roots of jazz and the context of the roots revival in Britain over the last 25 years. 

I’ll also be reading Becoming A Composer by Errollyn Wallen. The autobiography and memoirs of a fascinating and significant contemporary British composer.