THE MURIEL HALL LIBRARY - Be inspired and challenged by books in the Sixth Form 2018-2019
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Be inspired and challenged
by books in the Sixth Form
2018-2019
THE MURIEL HALL
LIBRARY
Carlos ACOSTA Pig’s Foot
Oscar Mandinga, great-grandchild of the founders of a small hamlet deep in the Cuban
hinterland, is a sardonic teller of tales, some taller than others. One day Oscar wakes to find
himself utterly alone, the sole descendant of his family line. He is not sure what to do or where
to go but, in the midst of this uncertainty, he sets out to find his ancestral village and the
meaning of the magical pig's-foot amulet he has inherited.
Carmen AGUIRRE Something Fierce
Something Fierce is the true story of a resistance member living in fear. Aged 11, Carmen
Aguirre was taken by her mother away from her comfortable Canadian exile, back to South
America, to spend her teenage years in the various safe houses her mother and stepfather
ran. At 18, she joined the guerrilla resistance in Pinochet's Chile. Today she lives in Canada
again, where she is a celebrated playwright and actress.
Kate ATKINSON Life After Life
What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first
breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the
tale. What if there were an infinite number of chances to live your life? Life After Life follows
Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again.
Margaret ATWOOD The Handmaid’s Tale
The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like
all dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a
repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which
her future hangs...
Jane AUSTEN Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice has delighted generations of readers with its hugely entertaining view of
the world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood,
the lives of Mr and Mrs Bennet and their five daughters are turned upside-down. Pride
encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness
challenges sagacity, as misconceptions and hasty judgements lead to heartache and scandal,
but eventually to true understanding, self-knowledge and love.
Pat BARKER The Regeneration Trilogy
Set during the First World War, the trilogy explores with gritty realism the whole dirty,
glorious and horrifying business of war. The three novels, Regeneration, The Eye in the Door
and The Ghost Road are also available in separate volumes. The Ghost Road won the Booker
Prize in 1995.
Julian BARNES The Sense of an Ending
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011 and a Sunday Times bestseller, this is a
novel from a writer at the very height of his powers. The Sense of an Ending is the story of a
middle-aged man trying to come to terms with events of the past, particularly during his late
school and university years, which are thrown up in later years, and his memory of them with
comes with varying degrees of accuracy.
Sixth Form Reading List
Paul BEATTY The Sellout
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing on the southern outskirts of Los
Angeles and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, The Sellout showcases a comic
genius at the top of his game. In Beatty’s trademark absurdist style, which has the uncanny
ability to make readers want to both laugh and cry, The Sellout is an outrageous and
outrageously entertaining indictment of our time.
John BOYNE The Absolutist
September 1919: Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver some letters
to Marian Bancroft. Tristan fought alongside Marian’s brother Will during the Great War, but
in 1917 Will laid down his guns on the battlefield, declared himself a conscientious objector
and was shot as a traitor. But Tristan also holds another deep secret. The Absolutist is a novel
that examines the events of the Great War from the perspective of two young soldiers, both
struggling with the complexity of their emotions and the confusion of their friendship.
Charlotte BRONTË Jane Eyre
Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness
and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. Her natural independence and spirit
prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds
love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to
make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her
convictions, even if it means leaving the man she loves?
Emily BRONTË Wuthering Heights
The wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine
Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. Wrongly believing that
his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return
years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his
former miseries. This unique novel is a masterpiece of English literature.
Bill BRYSON A Short History of Nearly Everything (N/F)
A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bryson’s quest to find out everything that has happened
from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to
here, being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us,
like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them
comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not
so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know…
A.S. BYATT Possession
Winner of the 1990 Booker Prize, Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at
once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young
scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and
poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle
against time.
Sam BYERS Idiopathy
Katherine and Daniel used to be together. Now Katherine hates everyone, but not as much as
she hates herself, while Daniel tells his new girlfriend he loves her, because not telling her
would be like telling her he doesn’t love her. Winner of a Betty Trask Award in 2014, this
bitterly humorous debut is a novel of love, narcissism, and ailing cattle.
Sixth Form Reading ListGeoffrey CHAUCER (retold by Peter Ackroyd) The Canterbury Tales
Making a major part of England's literary heritage accessible to a new audience, Peter
Ackroyd's The Canterbury Tales renders Geoffrey Chaucer's timeless tales in lucid, compelling,
modern English prose. On a pilgrimage to Canterbury, a group of travellers agree to a
storytelling competition. As they make their way along the road, they drink, laugh, flirt, argue
and try to outdo each other with their tales, which can be taken as a mirror of 14th-century
London.
Tracy CHEVALIER Falling Angels
1901. The two graves stood next to each other, both beautifully decorated. One had a
(ridiculously?) large urn and the other, almost leaning over the first, an (overly sentimental?)
angel. The two families visiting the cemetery were divided even more by social class than by
taste. They would certainly never have become acquainted had not their two girls, meeting
behind the tombstones, become best friends and involved in the life of the gravedigger's son.
Wilkie COLLINS The Dead Secret
A mystery of unrelenting suspense and psychologically penetrating characters, The Dead
Secret explores the relationship between a fallen woman, her illegitimate daughter and
buried secrets, in a superb blend of romance and Gothic drama. Displaying the talent and
energy which made Collins the most popular novelist of the 1860s, The Dead Secret represents
a crucial phase in Collins' rise as a mystery writer.
Stephen CRANE Maggie
This unflinching portrayal of the squalor and brutality of New York life produced a scandal
when it was published in 1893. Crane's novel tells the story of Maggie Johnson, a young
woman who, seduced by her brother's friend and then disowned by her family, turns to
prostitution. More than the tale of a young woman's tragic fall, this is a powerful exploration
of the destructive forces underlying urban society and human nature.
Kiran DESAI The Inheritance of Loss
In the foothills of the Himalayas sits a once grand, now crumbling house, home to three people
and a dog. There is the retired judge dreaming of colonial yesterdays, his orphaned
granddaughter Sai who has fallen for her clever maths tutor, the cook, whose son Biju writes
untruthful letters home from New York City, and Mutt, the judge's beloved dog. Around the
house swirls mountain mist, but also the forces of revolution and change. For a new world is
clashing with the old, and the future offers both hope and betrayal.
Emma DONOGHUE Room
Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key.
Jack and Ma are prisoners. This extraordinary and moving novel was shortlisted for the Man
Booker Prize 2010. The story is narrated from the point of view of the child and reveals the
strength of maternal love despite physical and mental deprivation. A must-read for
Psychology students!
Arthur Conan DOYLE The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the series of short stories that won immense popularity for
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is
full of famous cases, including ‘The Red-Headed League’, ‘The Blue Carbuncle’, and ‘The
Speckled Band’. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed
his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler in the
very first story, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’.
Sixth Form Reading ListRoddy DOYLE A Star Called Henry
Roddy Doyle’s stirring, deeply anti-romantic, account of the siege of the Dublin Post Office
during the Easter Rising is remarkable, but hardly less so is his account of life on the Dublin
docks, or Henry's treks around the countryside as one of Michael Collins' hard men, teaching
guerrilla warfare to dairy farmers and clerks. The love affair between Henry and his equally
blood-thirsty teacher and wife Miss O'Shea is sweet and touching.
Margaret DRABBLE The Millstone
Set in a London not yet quite swinging, where sexual liberation is still on its way, this prize-
winning (John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, 1966) novel follows the progress of Rosamund Stacey,
who becomes pregnant as a result of a one night stand, and must adapt to life as a single
mother, finding herself transformed in the process.
Sebastian FAULKS Birdsong
Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a
national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in
Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine
love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences
of the war itself.
Sebastian FAULKS Human Traces
Jacques Rebière and Thomas Midwinter, both 16 when the story starts in 1876, come from
different countries and contrasting families. They are united by an ambition to understand how
the mind works and whether madness is the price we pay for being human. Moving and
challenging in equal measure, Human Traces explores the question of what kind of beings men
and women really are.
Patrick Leigh FERMOR A Time of Gifts
Are you considering a Gap year? In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on
an extraordinary journey by foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts
is the 1st volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as
Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses: of the events which were curdling Europe at that
time, its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the
storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him…
F. Scott FITZGERALD The Great Gatsby
Narrated by an innocent outsider and set against a background of Long Island glamour and
New York squalor, this is the story of a mysterious financier's passion for a young lady, and a
tale of adultery and murder. The reader is taken into the superficially glittering world of the
mansions which lined the Long Island shore in the 1920s, to encounter the narrator's cousin
Daisy, her brash but wealthy husband Tom Buchanan, Jay Gatsby and the mystery that
surrounds him. An undisputed classic of 20th-century American literature.
Richard FLANAGAN The Narrow Road to the Deep North
In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Burma Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans
is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save
the men under his command from starvation, cholera and beatings, he receives a letter that
will change his life forever. This is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war
and truth, as one man comes of age and prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
Sixth Form Reading ListGustave FLAUBERT Sentimental Education
Frederic Moreau, a young man in search of excitement, falls in love with Mme. Arnoux, a
beautiful, dark-haired older woman. His fascination will last a lifetime, as he works to become
first an acquaintance of her husband, then a firm family friend. But Frederic’s hard-won
closeness to Mme. Arnoux will not bring satisfaction, only his own ultimate betrayal of love.
Amanda FOREMAN The Duchess
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most flamboyant and influential women of
the 18th century. She was variously a compulsive gambler, a political savante and operator of
the highest order, a drug addict, an adulteress and the darling of the common people. This
authoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizing picture of a fascinating world.
Aminatta FORNA The Memory of Love
Lying in hospital in Sierra Leone, Elias Cole recalls the desire that drove him to acts of
betrayal he has tried to justify ever since. Kai, a gifted young surgeon, who bears mental
scars from the civil war, is desperately trying to forget the pain of a lost love. It falls to a
British psychologist, Adrian Lockheart, to help the two survivors, but when he too falls in love,
past and present collide with devastating consequences. The Memory of Love is a heart-
breaking story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
John FOWLES The Collector
Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He
is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student, Miranda. When he wins the pools he
buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him
in time. Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices and
contempt if she is to understand her captor, and so gain her freedom.
Marilyn FRENCH The Women’s Room
A landmark in feminist literature, The Women’s Room is a biting social commentary on a world
gone silently haywire. Written in the 1970s but with profound resonance today, this is a
modern allegory, depicting women’s lives in the 1950s, that offers piercing insight into the
social norms accepted blindly and revered so completely. Never take for granted your
opportunities to study at university…
Neil GAIMAN The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a novel about memory, magic and survival, about the
power of stories and the darkness inside each of us, created by the unparalleled imaginative
power of Neil Gaiman. It is a book of fantasy, yet completely grounded in real-life
characters. It is a book about childhood, relived from an adult perspective. An extraordinary
and highly recommended read!
Maggie GEE My Driver
Vanessa Henman flies out to Uganda for an African writers' conference. She also means to
visit her former cleaner, Mary Tendo, now the Executive Housekeeper of Kampala's Sheraton
Hotel. But Mary has secretly summoned Vanessa's beloved ex-husband to her village to help
build a new well, and her son Jamil is missing. Vanessa sets off alone on safari to see the
mountain gorillas. But she quarrels with her driver and a bloody war closes in. Can anyone
save her? And will Mary find her son?
Sixth Form Reading ListStella GIBBONS Cold Comfort Farm
When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, her only choice is to
descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed
Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching
fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and
crazed old Aunt Ada Doom. A hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas, Cold
Comfort Farm (1932) is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.
Romesh GUNESEKERA Reef
A single lighted match banishes Triton from his father's home to the employ of Mister
Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamps, sea movements and a Sri Lankan island's
disappearing reef. Stranded in London years later, Triton plumbs the depths of his childhood
memories, a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil, and brings us to
understand how he has navigated this brave new world which once lost will haunt him forever.
Yaa GYASI Homegoing
Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery, one a slave
trader's wife. The consequences of their fates reverberate through the generations that
follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of
Mississippi, from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three
continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel.
Mohsin HAMID The Reluctant Fundamentalist
As dusk settles, you are invited to join a mysterious stranger at a Lahore café for tea. You
learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. He is more
worldly than you might expect, better travelled and better educated. He knows the West
better than you do, and as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream
(and a Western woman) and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true
reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear …
L. P. HARTLEY The Go-Between
An invitation to a friend's house changes an adolescent boy's life. Discovering an old diary,
Leo, now in his sixties, is drawn back to the summer of 1900 and his visit to Brandham Hall.
The past comes to life as Leo recalls the events and devastating outcome that destroyed his
beliefs and future hopes.
Samantha HARVEY The Wilderness
Jake has Alzheimer's. As the disease takes hold of him, Jake struggles to hold on to his
personal story, to his memories and identity, but they become increasingly elusive and
unreliable. What happened to his daughter? Is she alive, or long dead? And why exactly is his
son in prison? What went so wrong in his life? There was a cherry tree once, and a yellow
dress, but what exactly do they mean?
Susan HILL The Woman in Black
Proud and solitary, Eel Marsh House surveys the windswept reaches of the salt marshes. Arthur
Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs. Alice Drablow, the house's
sole inhabitant, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie hidden behind the shuttered windows.
It is not until he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, at the funeral, that a
creeping sense of unease begins to take hold, a feeling deepened by the reluctance of the
locals to talk of the woman in black - and her terrible purpose.
Sixth Form Reading ListAndrew Michael HURLEY The Loney
If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere
between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time. It was impossible
to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would
reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever
went near the water. No one apart from us, that is…
Kazuo ISHIGURO The Buried Giant
The Romans have long since departed and Britain is steadily declining into ruin, but at least
the wars that once ravaged the country have ceased. The Buried Giant begins as a couple,
Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son
they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards, some strange and other-
worldly, but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal the dark and forgotten
corners of their love for one another.
Kazuo ISHIGURO Never Let Me Go
In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the
lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of late 20th-century
England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatises her attempts to
come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate
that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world.
Howard JACOBSON The Finkler Question
Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler,
a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. They
never quite lost touch with each other, or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik. They share a
sweetly painful evening revisiting a time before they had loved and lost. It is that very
evening, when Treslove hesitates a moment as he walks home, that he is attacked, and his
whole sense of who and what he is inevitably changes. Man Booker Prize winner 2010.
Adam JOHNSON The Orphan Master’s Son
Pak Jun Do knows he must be the son of the master of the orphanage, not some kid dumped
by his parents; it was obvious from the way his father singled him out for beatings. He knows
he is special when he is picked as a spy and kidnapper for his country, the glorious
Democratic Republic of North Korea. He knows he must find his true love before it's too late.
He knows he is not like the other prisoners in the camp. He is going to get out soon. Definitely.
Stephen KELMAN Pigeon English
11-year-old Harrison Opoku, the second best runner in Year 7, races through his new life in
England with his personalised trainers (the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen) blissfully
unaware of a very real threat. Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister,
Harri absorbs the strange elements of city life, from the bewildering array of Haribo sweets,
to the gang of older boys from his school. His life is changed when his friend is murdered.
Matthew KNEALE English Passengers
Matthew Kneale's English Passengers tells the story of an 1857 expedition to Tasmania, in
search of the Garden of Eden, whose members - including a vicar and a sinister racial theorist
- don't realise they are actually aboard a Manx smuggling ship. Told by a score of different
characters and packed with drama, comedy and punch, English Passengers is a major work of
the imagination.
Sixth Form Reading ListRoman KRZNARIC The Wonderbox (N/F)
The Wonderbox is full of stories and ideas from history, each of which sheds invaluable light
on the decisions we make every day, whether we think about the different uses of the senses
or changing attitudes to time. History is usually read for pleasure or for insight into current
affairs, but The Wonderbox, stepping into the territory of Alain de Botton and Theodore
Zeldin, is 'practical history', using the past to reflect on our day-to-day lives.
Hari KUNZRU My Revolutions
It’s the day before Mike Frame’s 50th birthday and his quiet provincial life is suddenly falling
apart. But perhaps it doesn’t matter, because it’s not his life in the first place. He has a past
that his partner Miranda and step-daughter Sam know nothing about, lived under another
name amidst the turbulence of the revolutionary armed struggle of the 1970s. Now Mike can
no longer ignore the contradiction between who he is and who he once was. Which side was
he on back then? And which side is he on now?
D.H. LAWRENCE The Virgin and the Gypsy & Other Stories
These stories of myth and resurrection, of uncanny events and violent impulse, were, with one
exception, written and published in the latter half of the 1920s, coinciding with the
composition of Lawrence's controversial masterpiece Lady Chatterley's Lover. In this collection
we find some of his most beautiful, hauntingly melancholy fictions.
Ira LEVIN This Perfect Day
A classic dystopian novel first published in 1970. The story is set in a seemingly perfect global
society. Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language and all ethnic groups
have been eugenically merged into one race called “The Family”. The world is ruled by a
central computer called Uni that has been programmed to keep every single human on the
surface of the earth in check. They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when
to reproduce. Chip dares to think otherwise…
Walter LORD A Night to Remember
On April 15th, 1912, Titanic, the world's largest passenger ship, sank after colliding with an
iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives. Walter Lord's classic bestselling history of the
voyage, the wreck and the aftermath is a tour de force of detailed investigation and the
upstairs/downstairs divide. A Night to Remember provides a vivid, gripping and deeply
personal account of the 'unsinkable' Titanic's descent.
Alison LURIE The War Between the Tates
Set in a fictional American university in the late 1960s. Once, the Tates were an attractive
family, but now housewife Erica is bored, Brian's career as a university professor is at a
standstill and the children have become revolting teenagers. Then Erica discovers that her
husband is carrying on with one of his students.
Adeline Yen MAH Falling Leaves
The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution,
blamed for her mother's death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her
Eurasian stepmother. A story of greed, hatred and jealousy, a domestic drama is played
against the extraordinary political events in China and Hong Kong. Written with the emotional
force of a novel but with a vividness drawn from personal experience.
Sixth Form Reading ListHilary MANTEL Giving up the Ghost
Giving up the Ghost is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's unusual five-part
autobiography, a wry, shocking and beautiful memoir of childhood, ghosts, hauntings, illness
and family. At the memoir's conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical
misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn, like
chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer.
Hilary MANTEL Wolf Hall
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009. England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne,
Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, and into an atmosphere of distrust and need comes
Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Wolf Hall is a truly great
English novel, which explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With
a vast array of characters and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show
us Tudor England moulding itself with great passion, suffering and courage.
Ian McEWAN Atonement
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister
Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house.
Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend, who, like Cecilia, has recently come
down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed
for ever.
Ian McEWAN Enduring Love
One windy spring day in the Chilterns, Joe Rose's calm, organized life is shattered by a
ballooning accident. The afternoon, Rose reflects, could have ended in mere tragedy, but for
his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Rose, something passes between them -
something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits
Rose's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife Clarissa and drive him to the
brink of murder and madness.
Alison MOORE The Lighthouse
Spending his first night in Hellhaus at a small, family-run hotel, Futh finds the landlady
hospitable but is troubled by an encounter with an inexplicably hostile barman. In the
morning, Futh puts the episode behind him and sets out on his week-long circular walk along
the Rhine. At the end of the week, Futh, sunburnt and blistered, comes to the end of his circular
walk, returning to what he sees as the sanctuary of the Hellhaus hotel, unaware of the events
which have been unfolding there in his absence.
Brian MOORE Black Robe
To Father Paul, the Algonkian Indians are pagans in need of salvation. To the Indians, Catholic
priests are greedy and selfish. Accompanying Father Paul on his mission to relieve a priest in
danger of his life, Daniel is torn between the need to serve God and the power of the Indian
way of life.
Ottessa MOSHFEGH Eileen
Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father and her job as a secretary at the boys’
prison, Eileen tempers her days with dreams of escaping to the big city. When beautiful,
charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted
with what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. Soon, Eileen’s affection for
Rebecca will pull her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination.
Sixth Form Reading ListAlice MUNRO Friend of My Youth
Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 and is considered a master
of the contemporary short story. Originally published in 1990, the ten miraculously
accomplished stories in Munro's Friend of My Youth not only astonish and delight but also
convey the unspoken mysteries at the heart of all human experience.
Neel MUKHERJEE The Lives of Others
Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in
extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world
around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is a note. At home, his family slowly
begins to unravel. Poisonous rivalries grow, the once-thriving family business implodes and
destructive secrets are unearthed, and all around them the sands are shifting as society
fractures, for this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change.
Haruki MURAKAMI 1Q84
The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there
are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are
closely intertwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in
this world, there seems no way to save them both. Something extraordinary is starting. A cult
novel, a love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival
George Orwell’s 1984.
George ORWELL Nineteen Eighty-four
Newspeak, Doublethink, Big Brother, the Thought Police - the language of Nineteen Eighty-four
has passed into the English language as a symbol of the horrors of totalitarianism. George
Orwell's story of Winston Smith's fight against the all-pervading party has become a classic,
not least because of its intellectual coherence.
Mal PEET Beck
Born from a street liaison between a poor young woman and an African soldier in the 1900s,
Beck is soon orphaned and sent to Canada. He escapes work on a farm, and travels across
the continent in a search for belonging. Enduring abuse and many hardships, Beck has times of
comfort and encouragement, eventually finding Grace, the woman with whom he can finally
forge his life and shape his destiny as a young man.
Sylvia PLATH The Bell Jar
Esther Greenwood is at college and is fighting two battles, one against her own desire for
perfection in all things - grades, boyfriend, looks, career - and the other against remorseless
mental illness. As her depression deepens she finds herself bell-jarred away from the rest of
the world. This is the story of her journey back into reality. The Bell Jar is highly readable,
witty and disturbing. What it has to say about what women expect of themselves, and what
society expects of women, is as sharply relevant today as it has always been.
Philip PULLMAN The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Published in the Canongate myth series, a series of short novels in which ancient myths from
myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors, this is the story of
two brothers. One is impassioned and one reserved. One is destined to go down in history
and the other to be forgotten. In Philip Pullman's hands, this sacred tale is reborn as one of the
most enchanting, thrilling and visionary stories of recent years.
Sixth Form Reading ListThomas PYNCHON The Crying of Lot 49
A witty, chaotic and brilliant novel from the incomparable Thomas Pynchon. The Crying of Lot
49 is a highly original satire about Oedipa Maas, a woman who finds herself enmeshed in a
worldwide conspiracy, meets some extremely interesting characters, and attains a not
inconsiderable amount of self-knowledge. Pynchon’s shortest novel, it has been hailed as a
notable example of postmodern fiction.
Anuradha ROY An Atlas of Impossible Longing
Beginning in 1907, the story is of three generations of an Indian family, in which Mukunda, a
casteless boy foundling, and Bakul, the motherless granddaughter of the house, grow up
together. Mukunda spends his time as a servant in the house or reading the books of Mrs.
Barnum, an Englishwoman. As he and Bakul grow, they become aware of their intense
closeness.
Ruth SCURR John Aubrey (N/F)
This is the autobiography that John Aubrey never wrote. You may not know his name; Aubrey
was a modest man, a gentleman-scholar who cared far more for the preservation of history
than for his own legacy, but he was a passionate collector, an early archaeologist and the
inventor of modern biography. With all the wit, charm and originality that characterises her
subject, Ruth Scurr has seamlessly stitched together John Aubrey’s own words to tell his life
story and a captivating history of 17th-century England unlike any other.
Mary SHELLEY Frankenstein
A summer evening's ghost stories fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy
Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism and the origins of life, conspired to produce for Mary
Shelley this haunting night spectre. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic
masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only 19, Mary Shelley's novel
chillingly dramatised the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. It
remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.
Alan SILLITOE The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The title story in this classic collection tells of Smith, a defiant young rebel, inhabiting the no-
man's land of institutionalised Borstal. As his steady jog-trot rhythm transports him over an
unrelenting, frost-bitten earth, he wonders why, for whom and for what he is running. Sillitoe's
depiction of petty crime and deep-seated anger in industrial and desperate cities remains as
potent today as it was almost half a century ago.
Zadie SMITH On Beauty
If it is true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, E. M. Forster, perched on a cloud
somewhere, should be all puffed up with pride. His disciple has taken Howards End, that
marvellous tale of class difference, and upped the ante by adding race, politics, and gender.
The end result is a story for the 21st century, told with a perfect ear for everything: gangsta
street talk, academic posturing, both British and American, down-home black Floridian straight
talk, and sassy, profane kids, both black and white.
STENDHAL The Red and the Black
In this vigorous and fast-moving novel of post-Napoleonic France, Julien Sorel's plans to reach
the higher echelons of society through the priesthood are deflected by his realisation that the
attainment of happiness is of greater consequence than the pursuit of ambition. Stendhal's
depiction of a nation of smug hypocrites scandalised contemporary readers who recognized
themselves or their peers and felt uncomfortable with the energy, imagination and sincerity of
a hero so patently inspired by their lately deposed Emperor.
Sixth Form Reading ListKathryn STOCKETT The Help
Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Black maids raise white children, but are not trusted not to steal the
silver. Meet Aibileen, raising her 17th white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s
tragic death, Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue, and white Miss Skeeter,
who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. No one would believe they
would be friends, fewer still would tolerate it. But each woman finds the courage to cross
boundaries. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell... RECOMMENDED!
Jonathan SWIFT Gulliver’s Travels
Swift's masterful satire, written with great wit and invention, is as entertaining today as it was
when first published in 1726. Gulliver's Travels purports to be a travel book and describes
Gulliver's encounters with the inhabitants of four extraordinary places: Lilliput, Brobdingnag,
Laputa and the country of the Houyhnhnms. A consummately skilful blend of fantasy and
realism makes Gulliver's Travels by turns hilarious, frightening and profound.
Colin THUBRON In Siberia
This is the account of Thubron's 15,000-mile journey through an astonishing country - one
twelfth of the land surface of the whole earth. He journeyed by train, river and truck among
the people most damaged by the breakup of the Soviet Union, travelling among Buddhists
and animists, radical Christian sects, reactionary Communists and the remnants of a so-called
Jewish state, from the site of the last Czar's murder and Rasputin's village to the ice-bound
graves of ancient Sythians, to Baikal, deepest and oldest of the world's lakes.
Colm TÓIBÍN The Testament of Mary
In a voice that is both tender and filled with rage, The Testament of Mary tells the story of a
cataclysmic event which led to an overpowering grief. As her life and her suffering begin to
acquire the resonance of myth, Mary struggles to break the silence surrounding what she
knows to have happened. In her effort to tell the truth in all its gnarled complexity, she slowly
emerges as a figure of immense moral stature as well as a woman from history rendered now
as fully human.
Anne TYLER A Spool of Blue Thread
Abby Whitshank begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959.
The whole family are on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have
heard so many times before. From that porch we spool back through the generations,
witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family,
four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly
worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…
Kurt VONNEGUT Slaughterhouse-Five
One of the very best anti-war novels ever written. Flicking between the US, 1940s Germany
and the fictional planet Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical protagonist Billy
Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a
Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering in a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses.
Slaughterhouse-Five is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd.
Jeannette WALLS Half Broke Horses
A debut novel based on the extraordinary life of Jeannette Walls’ maternal grandmother, a
sassy, straight-talking heroine for whom saving lives, taming wild horses and beating ranch
hands at poker are all in a day’s work. Born in 1901 in the rolling grasslands of West Texas,
Lily Casey Smith left home at the age of 15 with very little formal education, to begin
teaching in a frontier town, riding 500 miles on her beloved pony, Patch, all alone, to get to
her job.
Sixth Form Reading ListHugh WALPOLE The Castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most
influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever
associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a
mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of
Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction.
Evelyn WAUGH Brideshead Revisited
The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to
the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation
with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted
first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote
sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.
Edith WHARTON The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing
comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the
backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's powerful prose,
combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of
the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920.
Florence WILLIAMS Breasts (N/F)
Endowed with a witty and inquisitive voice, Florence Williams explores where breasts came
from, where they have ended up and what we can do to save them. Williams uncovers the
latest science from the fields of anthropology, biology and medicine. Her investigation follows
the life-cycle of the breast, bringing her from a plastic surgeon's office, where she learns
about the importance of cup size in Texas, to a laboratory where she discovers the presence
of toxins in her own breast milk. Winner of the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
D.W. WILSON Once You Break a Knuckle
In remote western Canada, good people sometimes do bad things. Two bullied adolescents
sabotage a rope swing, resulting in another boy's death. A heartbroken young man chooses
not to warn his best friend about an approaching car. Crackling with tension and propelled
by jagged, cutting dialogue, D.W. Wilson's stories reveal to us how our best intentions can be
doomed to fail or injure, how our loves can fall short or mislead us, how even friendship -
especially friendship - can be something dangerously temporary.
Jeanette WINTERSON The Gap of Time
A baby girl is abandoned, banished from London to the storm-ravaged American city of New
Bohemia. Her father has been driven mad by jealousy, her mother to exile by grief. 17 years
later, Perdita doesn't know a lot about who she is or where she's come from, but she's about to
find out. Jeanette Winterson’s cover version of The Winter’s Tale vibrates with echoes of
Shakespeare's original and tells a story that shows that whatever is lost shall be found.
P.G. WODEHOUSE Something Fresh
This is the first Blandings novel, in which P.G. Wodehouse introduces us to the delightfully dotty
Lord Emsworth, his bone-headed younger son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, his long-
suffering secretary, the Efficient Baxter, and Beach the Blandings butler. There are two
imposters, each with an eye on a valuable Egyptian amulet which Lord Emsworth has
acquired, and a lot of complications…
Sixth Form Reading ListThis reading list has been compiled by the School Librarian in consultation with members of the English Department teaching staff. All books listed are available for loan from the Muriel Hall Library (the School Library) which is open every weekday during term-time. Books may also be borrowed at the end of term to read over the holidays. Most of the titles listed are still in print at the time of issue of this reading list, and should be available from all good bookshops. We look forward to welcoming you to the Library! We aim to provide support for your studies, and also to make available a rich variety of reading material and other resources to help prepare you for university or for your leisure time. We are here to help you in all sorts of ways – we can help you find relevant information, assist with accessing online resources, or recommend good books to read. We can provide a quiet place for you to study or sit and read. We are looking forward to seeing you as you join the Sixth Form! Mrs. Helen Norris School Librarian Mrs. Ann Cohen Library Assistant June 2018 Sixth Form Reading List
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