GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11 The English Department and the Library
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GCSE READING LIST
YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
The English Department
and the LibraryENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
Before you browse this booklist ...
All students studying GCSE English will be expected to read at least five
books from this list, or their equivalent, over the two years of the course
as well as the texts set for the examinations.
Reading for pleasure improves writing and comprehension skills and has
been proven to help performance in exams as well as being a lifelong
source of enjoyment.
Some of the books have been starred* to show that they are more suited
to Year 9 students or are more accessible than the other titles. Others have
been marked with a cross+ to indicate that the events they depict may be
distressing and require maturity of understanding: parental guidance may
be needed in these cases.
The list is not intended to be prescriptive and you may choose other books
under the guidance of your English teachers, but it is hoped you will pick
writers who are challenging and who will expand your experience, under-
standing and enjoyment of the written word.
Mr N. Abbey
Head of English
List last updated May 2015
2ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
ADVENTURE
BUCHAN John SIMPSON Joe
The Thirty-Nine Steps Touching the Void
A classic thriller that has An astonishing and
remained popular since gripping true story of a
its publication in 1915. mountaineering incident.
CORMIER Robert LEE Laurie
After the First Death* Cider with Rosie
This tense story, told A beautiful description
from different view- of growing up in a small
points, is set aboard a Gloucestershire village
bus full of schoolchildren just after the First World
that has been hijacked War.
by terrorists.
McCOURT Frank
SEDGWICK Marcus Angela’s Ashes
Revolver* Growing up in
Sig is guarding his extreme poverty, Frank
father’s corpse in their McCourt’s childhood in
cabin in the Arctic when America and Ireland was
a frightening stranger very different to the one
comes to the door. portrayed in Cider with
Rosie.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
DAHL Roald
CLASSICS
Boy* COLLINS Wilkie
Going Solo The Moonstone
Two volumes of Roald This tale of a stolen dia-
Dahl’s autobiography mond, the Moonstone
written in his inimitable of the title, is generally
style. considered to be the first
detective novel in the
FRY Stephen English language.
Moab is my Washpot +
The Fry Chronicles + GOLDING William
Stephen Fry’s school- Lord of the Flies
days, his partnership A group of boys sur-
with Hugh Laurie and his vive a plane crash but
rise to fame, all told with can they survive living
great honesty. together on a deserted
island?
3ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
CLASSICS ORWELL George
GREENE Graham Animal Farm
Brighton Rock When animals take over
A story of gangsters and their farm from the tyran-
murder set in the seedy nical farmer they believe
underworld of 1930s life will be better, but are
Brighton. all animals as equal as
they have been led to
HARTLEY L.P. believe?
The Go-Between
Thirteen-year-old Leo Nineteen Eighty Four
is the go-between, car- Winston Smith lives in
rying secret messages a harsh and grim future
between aristocratic where everyone is under
Marian and Ted, a tenant the control of the original
farmer. Big Brother.
HEMINGWAY Ernest SALINGER J.D.
The Old Man and the The Catcher in the Rye
Sea Holden Caulfield is
The story of an aged confused and alienated
fisherman called San- after being expelled from
tiago and his battle to school so he takes a
catch a large marlin. train to New York and
wanders around
aimlessly describing his
JOYCE James encounters in his unique
The Dubliners style.
A collection of short
stories of Dublin life. STEVENSON Robert
Louis
The Strange Case of Dr
KEROUAC Jack Jekyll and Mr Hyde
On the Road Dr Jekyll experiments
A group of friends with a potion that has
make road trips across horrific consequences.
America in the 1940s.
TWAIN Mark
LEE Harper The Adventures of Tom
To Kill a Mockingbird Sawyer
Eight-year old Scout’s The colourful and lively
father is a lawyer in a adventures of Tom Saw-
court case that splits a yer and Huckleberry Finn
small community in the as they journey down
American Deep South. 4
the Mississippi river.ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
WAUGH Evelyn DONOGHUE Emma
Brideshead Revisited Room +
Charles Ryder, a student The disturbing narrative
at Oxford, gets involved of Jack who is five and a
with the aristocratic prisoner, along with his
and wealthy Marchmain mother, in an under-
family. ground room.
DOYLE Arthur Conan
CRIME & DETECTIVE Sherlock Holmes
ATKINSON Kate stories
One Good Turn: A Jolly Encounter the famous
Murder Mystery intellect and crime-
Jackson Brodie is a solving abilities of
private investigator in Sherlock Holmes.
Edinburgh who investi-
gates crimes involving HANNAH Sophie
a bizarre cast of char- Lasting Damage+
acters. When Connie Bowskill
takes a virtual tour of
CHANDLER Raymond a house for sale on a
The Big Sleep + property website she
The first in the series sees the dead body of
about hardboiled Los a woman, but when her
Angeles detective Philip husband logs on, it has
Marlowe. vanished.
COLLINS Wilkie HIGHSMITH Patricia
The Moonstone The Talented Mr
This tale of a stolen dia- Ripley+
mond, the Moonstone Tom Ripley has been
of the title, is generally described as ‘charming,
considered to be the first literate and a monster’ –
detective novel in the find out why.
English language.
HILL Reginald
DEXTER Colin An April Shroud (Book
The Remorseful Day+ 4 in the Dalziel and
The Dead of Jericho+ Pascoe series)+
The Wench is Dead+ Andy Dalziel and Peter
Three books from a Pascoe are two no-non-
series which features the sense Yorkshire detec-
Jaguar-driving, real-ale tives.
drinking, music-loving
Inspector Morse. 5ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
MARTEL Yann
RENDELL Ruth The Life of Pi
The Monster in the Fantasy adventure
Box (Chief Inspector which describes how
Wexford series)+ Pi survives aboard a
Inspector Reginald raft with a tiger.
Wexford re-encounters
a man he suspected of
committing unsolved NESS Patrick
murders many years Chaos Walking trilogy
ago. (The Knife of Never
Letting Go, The Ask
WINGFIELD R.D. and the Answer, Mon-
Frost at Christmas- sters of Men) *
Book 1 in the Detective Todd Hewitt lives in a
Inspector Jack Frost world inhabited only
series)+ by men who can hear
Detective Inspector one another’s thoughts.
Frost is characterized as One day he discovers a
‘hopeless with paper- patch of silence and so
work but unmatched at begins a heart-stopping
solving mysteries.’ adventure.
FA N TA S Y PULLMAN Philip
His Dark Materials tril-
CONNOLLY John ogy (Northern Lights;
The Book of Lost The Subtle Knife; The
Things Amber Spyglass) *
Twelve-year old David Exciting plots dealing
enters a sinister fantasy with big ideas: these
world that rivals anything books are modern clas-
created by the Brothers sics.
HORROR
Grimm.
HEARN Lian & GHOST STORIES
Across the Nightingale
Floor JAMES Henry
The inhabitants of To- The Turn of the Screw
masu’s village, in a ficti- A governess is hired to
tious and ancient Japan, look after two children in
have been massacred, a lonely country house.
but he is rescued by the Are the unexplained
Otori people who train events that happen there
him in the art of combat. the result of the super-
natural or of an overac-
tive imagination?
6ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
JAMES M.R. NEWBERY Linda
Collected Ghost The Shell House
Stories Graveney Hall links the
Some of the best ghost present-day story of
stories ever written. Greg to that of Edmund,
the heir to the Hall who
PAVER Michelle disappeared during the
Dark Matter * First World War.
Tense and atmospheric
tale of strange hap- REEVE Philip
penings on an Arctic Here Lies Arthur *
expedition. Ingenious re-working of
the myth of King Arthur.
POE Edgar Allan
Tales of Mystery and SANSOM C.J.
Imagination Dissolution+
Tales of terror and Matthew Shardlake
Gothic horror. is a sixteenth-century
lawyer who investigates
a murder at Scarnsea
HISTORICAL monastery.
HARRIS Robert
Fatherland SCHLINK Bernard
A thriller set in an alter- The Reader +
native world where the Michael Berg remembers
Nazis won World War II. the year he was fifteen
and fell in love with an
older woman. He later
KINGSOLVER Barbara discovers that Hanna
The Poisonwood Bible was hiding a painful
A missionary and his secret.
family move to the Bel-
gian Congo in 1959 and SUTCLIFF Rosemary
find their expectations Eagle of the Ninth *
completely overturned. Marcus Flavius Aquila
wants to know the truth
about his father’s disap-
McEWAN Ian pearance along with the
Atonement + rest of the Ninth Legion
During the summer of in the wilds of Northern
1935, thirteen-year old Britain.
Briony misunderstands
what she sees and hears
and changes the lives of
those around her forever.
7ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
TREMAIN Rose BRYSON Bill
Restoration The Lost Continent;
The Plague, the Great Neither Here Nor
Fire of London and the There; Notes from a
reign of King Charles II Small Island; A Walk in
seen through the eyes the Woods;
of Robert Merivel, a Notes from a Big
veterinarian in the King’s Country;
household. Down Under
Bill Bryson travels the
WALLACE Jason world and recounts his
Out of Shadows + experiences in a decep-
Powerful story of bul- tively dry and relaxed
lying and racism in a style which is always
boarding school in Zim- informative and often
babwe in the 1980s. hilarious
HUMOUR
GIBBONS Stella
Cold Comfort Farm
ADAMS Douglas Stella Gibbons created
The Hitchhiker’s Guide this classic parody of
to the Galaxy gloomy, melodramatic
“Space is big. You won’t portrayals of rural life.
believe how vastly,
hugely, mind-bogglingly GROSSMITH George
big it is. I mean, you and Weedon
may think it’s a long way The Diary of a Nobody
down the road to the Mr Pooter is a self-
chemist’s, but that’s just important, bumbling,
peanuts to space.” Victorian bank clerk who
keeps a diary.
BATES H.E.
The Darling Buds of HADDON Mark
May The Curious Incident of
The Larkin family, Ma the Dog in the Night-
and Pop and their six Time *
children, don’t have a Christopher wants to
care in the world until, solve the mystery of the
one day, they come death of his neighbour’s
home to find a man from dog by using the meth-
the tax office waiting to ods of his hero, Sherlock
speak to Pop. Holmes.
8ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
JEROME Jerome K. Scars Upon My Heart:
Three Men in a Boat Women’s Poetry and
This was an instant suc- Verse of the First World
cess when it was first War (edited by Catherine
published in 1889. W. Reilly)
NICHOLLS David Up the Line to Death:
Starter for Ten War Poets, 1914-18
Brian Jackson thinks (edited by Brian Gardner)
appearing on University
Challenge in his first year HUGHES Ted
at university is a sure-fire Collected Poems of
way to impress a girl. Ted Hughes
Crow
WODEHOUSE P.G. What is the Truth?
The Code of the
Woosters (or other HUGHES Ted and
Jeeves and Wooster HEANEY Seamus
stories) (editors)
Bertie Wooster is young, The Rattle Bag
wealthy and idiotic, and
Jeeves is his brilliant HUGHES Ted and
valet who has to get him HEANEY Seamus
out of trouble. (editors)
The School Bag
POETRY ZEPHANIAH Benjamin
DUFFY Carol Ann Propa Propaganda
New Selected Poems Talking Turkeys
1984-2004 Wicked World!
The World’s Wife
FIRST WORLD WAR
poets like Vera Brittain,
Ivor Gurney, Wilfred
REAL LIFE IN FICTION
Owen and Siegfried Sas- ATKINSON Kate
soon found in antholo- Behind the Scenes at
gies such as: the Museum
In Time of War (edited Ruby Lennox tells the
by Anne Harvey) story of her ordinary
family in an extraordinary
The Penguin Book of way.
First World War Poetry
9ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
BATES H.E. HILL Susan
Love for Lydia I’m the King of the
Lydia Aspen is not the Castle
shy girl she seems at Charles’ mother takes
first, but someone who on the job of house-
creates havoc amongst keeper for Joseph
the young men who Hooper and his son
admire her. Edmund, a mean and
menacing bully.
BROOKS Kevin
Lucas * HINES Barry
The appearance of a A Kestrel for a
mysterious boy in a Knave
small town creates ten- Billy finds an escape
sion and ill-feeling. from a life of poverty
and neglect by rear-
COE Jonathan ing a wild kestrel.
The Rotters’ Club
The friendships of a HOSSEINI Khaled
group of boys in a gram- The Kite Runner
mar school in the 1970s. The friendship of
two boys growing up
FAULKS Sebastian together in Kabul.
A Week in December
The events of a week HORNBY Nick
before Christmas in High Fidelity +
2007 told by very differ- Rob wonders why
ent characters who all his girlfriend left him,
live in London. so decides to get in
touch with the ex-
FRAYN Michael girlfriends on his ‘top
Spies five break ups of all
Keith and Stephen live in time’ list.
a quiet London suburb
at the time of World War KNOWLES John
II, but Keith believes his A Separate Peace
mother is a German spy. Gene remembers his
The two boys set out to friend Finny and their
discover the truth. time at school during
World War II.
10ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
LE CARRE John NICHOLLS David
The Constant Gar- One Day
dener + Emma and Dexter meet
A British diplomat tries on the night before their
to uncover the truth graduation in 1988.
about his wife’s murder. What will they be doing
on that day next year?
McCARTHY Cormac And the year after that?
The Border trilogy (All And twenty years from
the Pretty Horses; The then?
Crossing; Cities of the
Plain) + SMILEY Jane
Three young American A Thousand Acres
men cross the border The plot of King Lear
between Mexico and the transplanted to rural
USA to seek a better life. America in the twentieth
The Road + century.
Spare, bleak tale of a fa-
ther and son journeying SMITH Zadie
through an apocalyptic White Teeth
landscape. This follows the friend-
ship of two wartime
McEWAN Ian friends: one English, the
Saturday other Bangladeshi, and
A fateful day in the life of their families, in present-
Henry Perowne, a suc- day London.
cessful surgeon.
TREMAIN Rose
MITCHELL David The Road Home
Black Swan Green Lev arrives in London
Jason is thirteen, has from Eastern Europe
a stammer and lives in with little money and
a dull English village in no prospects, only the
the 1980s, but his life is determination to start a
about to change. new life.
MURDOCH Iris WAUGH Evelyn
The Sandcastle The Loved One
The quiet life of teacher, A cruelly witty satire on
William Mor, is disturbed the funeral industry in
when a young painter Hollywood.
visits his school to paint
a portrait of the head-
master.
11ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
SCIENCE FICTION ISHIGURO Kazuo
ADAMS Douglas Never Let Me Go
The Hitchhiker’s Guide Three friends appear
to the Galaxy to have a happy life at
“Space is big. You won’t boarding school until
believe how vastly, they discover a horrify-
hugely, mind-bogglingly ing truth about their
big it is. I mean, you existence.
may think it’s a long way
down the road to the WYNDHAM John
chemist’s, but that’s just The Day of the Triffids
peanuts to space.” Bill Masen was one of
the few people not to
ASIMOV Isaac be blinded by a me-
I, Robot teor shower, but now
A classic collection of he discovers that giant
stories upon which the flesh-eating plants called
film was based. ‘triffids’ are wreaking
havoc on Earth.
BLACKMAN Malorie
Noughts and Crosses*
A Romeo-and-Juliet- WAR
style love story set in a BALLARD J.G.
racist dystopia. The Empire of the Sun
The experiences of a
BRADBURY Ray young boy at the hands
Farenheit 451 of his Japanese captors
In a futuristic America during World War II.
books are illegal and
firemen start fires rather FAULKS Sebastian
than put them out. Birdsong +
Stephen Wraysford’s
HUXLEY Aldous life in France,described
Brave New World before and during World
The ‘brave new world’ War I, is gruelling but
of the title is a place unforgettable.
where there is no war
or sadness, but where Charlotte Gray +
human beings are grown The adventures of a
in laboratories and have young woman who was
their lives controlled. part of the French resist-
ance during the Second
World War.
12ENGLISH DEPARTMENT - GCSE READING LIST - YEAR 9, YEAR 10 and YEAR 11
MORPURGO Michael
Private Peaceful*
The poignant story of
two brothers before and
during the First World
War.
PEET Mal
Tamar *
Two young Dutchmen,
who have been trained
in England as spies,
are parachuted into the
Netherlands to help with
the war effort during
World War II.
REMARQUE Erich Maria
All Quiet on the West-
ern Front
World War I from the
point of view of the
Germans as written by a
German war veteran.
ZUSAK Marcus
The Book Thief
A story narrated by
Death and set in Nazi
Germany.
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