Foreword
Miss Dani Kirby, Murray Centre and Library Manager
In this Reading List, you’ll find a curated selection of both Fiction and Non-Fiction texts chosen to challenge your thinking, deepen your understanding, and enhance your enjoyment of a particular subject. Each academic department has carefully recommended titles that will offer valuable insights and expand your knowledge, while the library team has selected a range of fiction books, grouped by genre, to inspire your imagination and love of storytelling.
We really encourage you to give these books a try! You might be surprised at how much fun it is to read more about a subject, and it can help you enjoy it even more. Additionally, it provides a valuable opportunity to build your confidence and demonstrate your knowledge in class.
At Downe House, we place great emphasis on Reading for Pleasure. In today’s fast-paced, screenheavy world, setting aside time has never been more important, to enjoy a good book. Reading offers the chance to escape, to reflect, and to recharge, helping you to develop empathy, creativity, mental wellbeing and strong language skills along the way.
We’d love to welcome you to visit the library, located above the Murray Centre, at any time during your day. Whether you'd like to recommend a favourite book, share your thoughts on something you’ve read, or simply get inspiration for what to try next, we’re here to help. There’s something for everyone to read on these shelves!
Take on the challenge: choose a few titles from this list (all available to borrow from the library unless otherwise specified) and read them throughout the year. Whether a book stays with you or doesn’t quite click, each one brings a fresh perspective. We’d love to hear what you think, so do drop by the library and share your thoughts with us!
A special thank you to our Graduate Library Assistant, Miss Vandenham, for putting this wonderful reading list together.
Happy reading!
UPPER SCHOOL
UIV, LV and UV - These books are recommended for ages 13+
Key
Title Titles in blue text are more challenging reads
Advisory note: This book contains more challenging themes that some readers may find upsetting. If you are unsure, please seek advice from a member of staff.
EDI This book is part of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion suggested Reading list.
Table of Contents
Fiction pg. 4
Non-Fiction pg. 13
Recommendations from the Geography Department pg. 13
Recommendations from the History Department pg. 13-14
Recommendations from the MFL Department pg. 14-15
Recommendations from the Music Department pg. 15
Recommendations from the PE Department pg. 15-16
Recommendations from the Performing Arts Department pg. 16-17
Recommendations from the Religious Studies Department pg. 17-18
Recommendations from the S.T.E.M. Departments pg. 18-21
FICTION – Sorted by Genre
GENERAL FICTION
Elizabeth Acevedo Clap When You Land (2021 Carnegie Medal shortlist) – a novel written in verse with a dual narrative. This is a powerful tale of Family, grief and rediscovering your roots. EDI
Nick Bradley Four Seasons In Japan - Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway. She starts to read.
Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being A Wallflower – A deeply affecting coming-ofage story about Charlie - shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years but socially awkward. He is a freshman trying to navigate his way through the world of first dates, dramas and new friends, but he can’t stay on the sidelines forever.
Sarah Crossan Where the Heart Should Be - This is a love story, and the story of a people being torn apart. This is a powerful and unforgettable novel from the phenomenally talented Sarah Crossan.
Kathleen Glasgow The Glass Girl - The story of a teenage girl on the brink, and the bumpy road back to recovery.
John Green The Fault in Our Stars – Hazel has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but when gorgeous Augustus Waters appears at the Cancer Kid Support Group, her life changes
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Christopher Boone, 15 years old has Asperger's syndrome. When he finds a neighbour's dog murdered, he begins a journey which will turn his whole world upside down. A murder mystery like no other. EDI
Samantha Harvey Orbital - A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space.
Patrice Lawrence Orangeboy – Sixteen-year-old Marlon has promised his widowed mum that he'll be good, and nothing like his gangleader brother Andre. But everything changes when Marlon's first date with the beautiful Sonya ends in tragedy; he becomes a hunted man, and he has no idea why. EDI
Ann Liang I Hope This Doesn’t Find You - Seventeen-year-old Sadie Wen is perfect on paper. It’s a reputation she’s fought hard to earn at the highly prestigious Woodvale Academy, and one she’s determined to maintain until graduation. Sadie never meant for these emails to get out ... but now her whole life is about to change... EDI
Krystal Marquis The Davenports - The year is 1910. This is the story of the Davenport daughters, their maid, and their best friend, as they try to navigate life and love in a rapidly changing country. EDI
Michael Morpurgo War Horse – In the deadly chaos of the First World War, one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. Bombarded by artillery, with bullets knocking riders from his back, Joey tells a powerful story of the truest friendships surviving in terrible times. One horse has the seen the best and the worst of humanity.
Meg Rosoff The Great Godden – This is the story of one family, one dreamy summer –the summer when everything changes. In a holiday house by the sea, in a big, messy family, one teenager watches as brothers and sisters, parents and older cousins fill hot days with wine and games and planning a wedding. Enter the Goddens – irresistible, charming, languidly sexy Kit and surly, silent Hugo. Suddenly there's a serpent in this paradise – and the consequences will be devastating. EDI
Benjamin Alire
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - The book Saenz follows two Mexican American teenagers exploring facets of their identity when grappling with cultural norms, social conformity, and hidden family secrets, amid the AIDS epidemic EDI
Dustin Thao You’ve Reached Sam - A heartfelt novel about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye. EDI
Angie Thomas The Hate U Give – A gripping and haunting debut novel, which draws the reader into Starr’s twin world of poor neighbourhood and exclusive posh school. In a world rife with prejudice and racism, where does she fit in? When a law officer kills her unarmed friend Khalil in front of Starr, she has hard choices to make. What Starr does next could get her killed. It could also destroy her community. EDI
Kate Weston Diary of A Confused Feminist - Meet Kat Evans: Feminist. Overthinker. Hot mess. A hilarious antidote to our Insta-perfect world, Diary of a Confused Feminist is for girls who want to do it right but always feel they're getting it wrong ...
Susan Vreeland Girl in Hyacinth Blue – The story of an imaginary painting by Vermeer, and the aspirations and the longings of those whose lives it illuminates and darkens. (Recommended by the Art Department)
Elizabeth Wein Codename Verity – A tale of war and adventure with friendship playing a key role.
Satoshi Yagisawa Days at the Morasaki Bookshop - The Japanese bestseller: a tale of love, new beginnings, and the comfort that can be found between the pages of a good book. EDI
SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY
Douglas Adams
Tomi Adeyemi
The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy and series – Arthur Dent’s mad journey through the Universe following the destruction of Earth to make way for an intergalactic highway
Children of Blood and Bone – Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orisha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie's Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were targeted and killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.. A fantasy based in African tradition. EDI
Victoria Aveyard Red Queen series – Fantasy series set in a world divided by blood – Red or Silver. A common Red girl, Mare, ends up working in the Silver elite and plots to bring down the regime.
Leigh Bardugo
Holly Black
Six of Crows – Fantasy novel that follows six teenagers living in Ketterdam, a city of slums and crime lords. Kaz Brekker is an infamous thief who is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, but he can’t pull it off alone. Fast moving with a plot full of twists and turns and really engaging characters that you won’t forget.
The Folk of the Air series – Follows Jude Duarte, a mortal girl who gets tangled in palace intrigues while trying to win a place in the treacherous High Court of Faerie where she and her sisters have lived for a decade.
Malorie Blackman Knife Edge, Checkmate and Double Cross – Follow up, Noughts and Crosses, with the rest of the series to discover the full impact of Stephy and Callum’s forbidden love. EDI
Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games Trilogy - Welcome to Panem: a harsh and brutal world ruled from afar by the ruthless Capitol. A world divided into twelve Districts, where the climax of each year is the savage Hunger Games – a bloody fight to the death on live TV. Twenty-four young contestants. One victor. It’s killed or be killed. But now a symbol of hope has arisen
Namina Forma The Gilded Ones – The must-read new bold and immersive West Africaninspired fantasy series. In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice, perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther EDI
Frances Hardinge
The Lie Tree – Faith, 14, is a perfect Victorian young lady on the surface but in reality, she is a rebel, she wants to be a scientist. When her family relocate to a remote island and her father is murdered, it is Faith who fights to uncover his murderer. A dark modern Gothic mystery mixing the supernatural with natural science.
Lauren James The Quiet At The End of The World – A post-apocalyptic novel with a twist. Lowrie and Shen are the youngest people on the planet after a virus caused global infertility. Doted upon by their ageing community in London, they spend their days mudlarking and looking for treasure – until a secret is uncovered that threatens their entire existence.
Ella McLeod
The Map that Led to You - A long time ago, a witch burst into flames. A pirate and a mermaid fell in love. A map was marked with a glowing X. And a Republic was born. In the present day, two girls are given a history assignment: to try and piece together the rise and fall of the famous and corrupt pirate Republic, which once formed their island home. EDI
Erin Morgenstern The Night Circus – A coming-of-age story set in a mysterious circus that appears without warning – magical realism at its best.
Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go – Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in a constant overwhelming noise. There is no privacy or silence. Then Todd Hewitt discovers a spot of complete silence. Impossible. This thrilling award-winning trilogy is about loyalty, love, survival, power and the devastating realities of war. Join Todd and Viola in their fight against evil in a world where everyone lies.
The Ask and the Answer (2010 Carnegie Medal Shortlist) – Second in trilogy.
Monsters of Men (2011 Carnegie Medal Winner) – Third in trilogy.
Veronica Roth Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant – A series of sci-fi adventure novels set in a post-apocalyptic dystopian Chicago. Beatrice (Tris), a 16-year-old girl, is part of a world where people live in Factions divided on the basis of their dominant human virtue or personality trait. At sixteen, they must choose their faction, but Beatrice’s tests are inconclusive, and she is marked as ‘Divergent’. But it is not safe to be Divergent and Tris must conceal it as there are dark forces at work. Fast paced and immersive – this is a series that you won’t be able to put down.
Victoria Schwab A Darker Shade of Magic – Most people only know one London; but what if there were several? There's Grey London, dirty and crowded and without magic, home to the mad King George III. There's Red London, where life and magic are revered. Then, White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. But once upon a time, there was Black London.
Neal Shusterman
Scythe - In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed by professional scythes. In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional scythes.
Mary Watson
Blood to Poison - Blood to Poison is a furious and mesmerising story about discovering magic, historical rage and love in all its guises. EDI
CRIME/HORROR/THRILLER
Faridah Where Sleeping Girls Lie - A girl new to boarding school discovers dark Àbíké-Íyímídé secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears. EDI
Jennifer Barnes The Inheritance Games series – An addictive thriller, full of dark family secrets and deadly stakes – perfect for fans of One of Us Is Lying
Channelle
Desamour
s
Ravena Guron
Will Hill
E Lockhart
Tim Lott
Dave Shelton
Needy Little Things - Sariyah is determined not to let her missing friend become just another statistic, one of many vanished Black girls. But despite her talent for ESP, Sariyah is struggling, even when the clues point surprisingly close to home. EDI
Mondays are Murder - Murder, mystery and mind-blowing twists: the deadly new YA thriller from bestselling breakout sensation, Ravena Guron, perfect for fans of Holly Jackson and Karen M. McManus.
After the Fire – Inspired by the 1993 Waco siege in America but not about Waco, Hill imagines what life would be like if you survived after the cult, you were a member of ended in disaster. Moonbeam, 16, the oldest survivor, refuses to talk. She had begun to doubt Father John but if her rescuers find out her secret, they will lock her up for ever. A tense gripping thriller that you cannot put down
We Were Liars – A brilliant modern American reworking of classic tales containing both the beautiful and the damned.
Fearless – A chilling fable and thriller about a heroic girl prepared to risk everything in the pursuit of justice for the inmates of the City Community Faith School. Little Fearless is a heroine who is an inspiration to all who read about her. Haunting and powerful
Thirteen Chairs – A thrilling ghostly tale which will keep you deliciously terrified!
Courtney Summers Sadie - A missing girl on a journey of revenge. A Serial-like podcast following the clues she's left behind. And an ending you won't be able to stop talking about.
Krystal Sutherland House of Hollow - A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.
CLASSICS
Jane Austen Northanger Abbey – A lively parody of the Gothic novels popular during Jane Austen’s youth. Follow the naïve heroine from a loving home, to the constraints of Bath society & gothic Northanger Abbey
R D Blackmore
Lorna Doone – Not as popular as it once was or indeed should be, this classic is well worth a read. First published in 1869 and set in 1685, Lorna Doone is a powerful and moving love story that follows the life of the young farmer John Ridd, as he grows to manhood determined to right the wrongs in his land and win the heart and hand of the beautiful Lorna Doone.
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre – Jane grows up in her heartless aunt’s home before being sent to Lockwood school. She becomes a governess and falls in love with her employer Mr Rochester but he has a terrible secret.
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights – Haunting, complex and tragic, this is the tale of Heathcliff and his all-consuming love for Cathy. But mostly it is about the vengeance and the ruin Heathcliff visits on two families when Cathy marries another
Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby – Nick Carraway tells of the glittering life in the houses on Long Island Sound, of beautiful Daisy and her true love. Compare with the film.
William Golding Lord of the Flies – The classic tale of a group of boys stranded on a desert island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves.
Thomas Hardy Far From The Madding Crowd – The story of shepherd, Gabriel Oak and his love for the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy and true love, the most pastoral of Hardy’s Wessex novels.
Susan Hill The Woman in Black – A classic English ghost story. Arthur Kipps is summoned to attend the funeral of Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House. At the funeral, he glimpses a wasted woman, dressed in black and a creeping sense of unease begins to take hold.
Aldous Huxley Brave New World – Written in 1932, this classic dystopian novel presents a nightmarish vision of a future society which expects maximum pleasure and accepts complete surveillance – no matter what the cost.
Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird – An all-time favourite and one to re-read; explores with humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South EDI
Joan Lindsay Picnic at Hanging Rock – The classic Australian gothic novel. Set in the 1900s it follows the events after three girls go missing whilst on a school picnic. Whether it is fact or fiction, the reader must decide for themselves.
Daphne du Maurier Rebecca – A downtrodden orphan thinks her life has changed for the better after meeting Maxim de Winter in a whirlwind romance in the south of France. But moving to Cornwall reveals an unexpected ghost from the past and a nemesis in the mysterious housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. A classic and atmospheric thriller.
George Orwell 1984 - A challenging story of a nightmare world – but it will enable you to understand the real significance of ‘Big Brother’
Animal Farm – When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another.
Erich M. Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front – A moving and chilling first-person account about the realities of war. A story that perfectly illustrates the pointlessness of conflict.
J.D.Salinger Catcher in the Rye – A timeless classic coming-of-age story: an elegy to teenage alienation and the sense of loss we feel as we leave childhood behind.
Mary Shelley Frankenstein – Since being published in 1818, this book, with its story of a monstrous creature, has scared and terrified generations of readers
Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle – A classic coming of age story told by a charismatic and witty narrator
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men – George Milton and Lennie Small are two displaced migrant ranch workers who search for new job opportunities during the Great Depression in America. Tackling universal themes of friendship and shared vision, this novel gives voice to the lonely and dispossessed.
Bram Stoker Dracula – A novel derived from vampire legends, published in 1897, that inspired an entire genre of literature and film.
J. R.R Tolkien The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – A political allegory, darker and more sophisticated than The Hobbit.
Ivan Turgenev Fathers and Sons – A literary masterpiece about the conflict between generations, and perhaps one of the most compelling, extraordinary and famous heroes in literature, Bazarov, the ‘nihilist’ or ‘new man’. The novel shocked Russian society when it was first published in 1862 and still has the power to shock today.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Laurie H. Anderson
Speak – When Melinda tries to do the right thing, she finds herself shunned by friends and on the street. Nothing she does makes a difference. Cleverly written so we only find out exactly what she did at the end.
Yoshitoki Oima A Silent Voice - A thought-provoking, dramatic story of a deaf student and the boy who bullies her. EDI
Philiip Reeve Oxygen Mask – A unique and memorable graphic novel which encapsulates the thoughts, aspirations and fears of a generation lurching from discrimination to COVID and beyond.
Brian K Vaughan Paper Girls - In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood.
ADULT FICTION (16+)
Margaret Atwood Penelopiad – Through Atwood’s ingenious imagination, Penelope evolves from her mythical role as Odysseus’s faithful wife into an unforgettable and gloriously irreverent heroine.
Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code – Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes.
Paulo Coelho The Alchemist – The bestselling story about a boy’s mystical journey to understand the nature of the Universe. Coelho has since written many more thought-provoking shortish stories, but The Alchemist is by far the best known.
Abi Daré
Matt Haig
The Girl With The Louding Voice – The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl, Adunni, who grows up in a Nigerian village, is married off at 14 years of age, but who longs to get an education so that she can find her ‘louding voice’ and speak up for herself. A simultaneously heart-breaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams. EDI
The Midnight Library – Between life and death there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the midnight library, she has the chance to put things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But the books in the midnight library enable Nora to live her life as if she had done things differently.
Mohsin Hamid The Reluctant Fundamentalist – At a café table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting. EDI
Khalid Hosseini The Kite Runner – A contemporary classic – the unforgettable story of an unlikely friendship between two boys caught up in the tragic history of Afghanistan
Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day – Winner of the Booker Prize 1989, this contemporary classic is a beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a great English house, of lost causes and lost love.
R.F Kuang Babel - A historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire
Maja Lunde The History of Bees – In the spirit of Station Eleven and Never Let Me Go, this dazzling and ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, and future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees – and to their children and one another – against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis.
Toni Morrison The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom, Pecola's life does change - in painful, devastating ways. EDI
Kate Morton The Secret Keeper –This is a heart-breaking novel, a story of mysteries and secrets, murder and enduring love moving between the 1930s, the 1960s and present day.
Jojo Moyes Me Before You – A compelling novel of life and death decisions and unlikely affections.
Deborah Rodriguez The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul – After hard luck and heartbreak, Sunny finally finds a place to call home in the middle of an Afghanistan war zone. In this gorgeous first novel, New York Times bestselling author Deborah Rodriguez paints a stirring portrait of a faraway place where, even in the fog of political and social conflict, friendship, passion, and hope still exist. EDI
Alice Winn In Memoriam - An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip EDI
NON-FICTION – Sorted by Department
Recommendations from the Geography Department
Rory Allen Oman Under Arabian Skies - Embark on a magical and mystical Arabian Odyssey with one man and his traveller's tales through this land that time has all but forgot.
Mike Berners-Lee How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything – From a text message to a war, from a Valentine's rose to a flight or even having a child, How Bad are Bananas? gives us the carbon answers we need and provides plenty of revelations. By talking through a hundred or so items, Mike Berners-Lee sets out to give us a carbon instinct for the footprint of literally anything we do, buy and think about. He helps us pick our battles by laying out the orders of magnitude.
Stacey Dooley On the Frontline with the Women Who Fight Back – Through her documentaries, Stacey has covered a variety of topics from sex trafficking in Cambodia to Yazidi women fighting in Syria. At the core of her reporting are incredible women in both extraordinary and scarily ordinary circumstances. In this book, Stacey draws on her encounters with these brave and wonderful women, using their experiences as a vehicle to explore issues at the centre of female experience. EDI
Caroline Hamilton South Pole 2000: five women in search of adventure - In 1997 a group of determined women walked to the North Pole, and now, they are walking into history as they round off their achievement by also walking to the South Pole. This book tells the story of their struggle with the elements and the sheer grit that has led to success as a team.
Charlie Walker On Roads That Echo – An account of a two-and-a-half-year bicycle journey spanning the mountains and deserts of former Soviet Republics, Afghanistan on the fearful bring of foreign withdrawal, and the remote corners of the Congolese Jungle.
Recommendations from the History Department
Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything – A quirky and enjoyable approach to all things historical.
Alan Bullock Hitler, A Study in Tyranny - The book covers the whole of Hitler's life, from his obscure beginnings through his advance to supreme absolute power and then his final decline and suicide in the bunker as Russian shells fell around him.
Martin Bunton The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict – a very short introduction – Adopting a fresh and original approach, Bunton explores the Palestinian-Israeli dispute in twenty-year segments to highlight the historical complexity of the conflict.
Anna Geifman Russia Under the Last Tsar: opposition and subversion, 1894-1817 - This collection provides scholars and students with a wide-ranging overview of the issues, events and personalities of the two turbulent decades before the 1917 revolution in Russia.
Martin McCauley The Cold War 1949-2016 - Providing a wide-ranging overview of the main turning points of the conflict and illustrated throughout with photographs and maps, this is essential reading for all students of the Cold War and its lasting global impact.
Sathnam Sanghera Stolen History: The Truth About the British Empire and How It Shaped Us – This book will answer all the important questions about Britain’s empire, how it made Britain the most powerful nation on earth and how it still affects us today.
Simon Schama Citizens: A chronicle of the French Revolution - One of the great landmarks of modern history writing, Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is the most authoritative social, cultural and narrative history of the French Revolution ever produced.
Robert Service A History of Modern Russia: From Nicolas II to Putin - A comprehensive overview of twentieth-century Russian history that treats the years from 1917 to 2000 as a single period and analyses the peculiar mixture of political, economic and social ingredients that made up the Soviet compound.
Louie Stowell et al Usborne Politics for Beginners – A really good guide to Politics for the younger reader.
A.J.P. Taylor The Origins of the Second World War - Fiercely attacked for vindicating Hitler, A.J.P. Taylor's stringent re-examination of the events preceding the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1st September 1939 opened up new debate and is now recognized as a brilliant and classic piece of scholarly research.
Shashi Tharoor Inglorious Empire – A relatively easy read for anyone interested in Empire.
Recommendations from the Modern Foreign Languages Department
Roald Dahl La Potion magique de georges bouillon – George’s Marvellous Medicine translated into French.
Fabio Geda In the sea there are crocodiles – In a book based on a true story, we read about young Enaiatollah's remarkable five-year journey from Afghanistan to Italy where he finally managed to claim political asylum. EDI
J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter et la Chambre des Secrets – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets translated into French.
Leila Silmani Chanson Douce (The Perfect Nanny or Lullaby) - A compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood, and madness
Recommendations from the Music Department
Nicholas Cook Music: A Very Short Introduction - This stimulating Very Short Introduction to music invites us to really think about music and the values and qualities we ascribe to it.
Paul Harris Rock and Pop Theory: The Essential Guide - Offers musicians of all ages and levels a practical and relevant guide to music theory today. With a special focus on popular music, this indispensable guide
Kathryn Kalinak Film Music: A Very Short Introduction - This accessible book not only entertains with the fascinating stories of the composers and performers who have shaped film music across the globe but also gives readers a broad sense of the key questions in film music studies today.
John Kenrick Musical Theatre: A History - A new revised edition of a proven core text for college and secondary school students and an insightful and accessible celebration of twenty-five centuries of great theatrical entertainment.
Lawrence Sherman Every Brain Needs Music - Written for both musical and non-musical people, including newcomers to brain science, this book is a lively and easyto-read exploration of the neuroscience of music and its significance in our lives.
Sara Leila Sherman Resonant Minds - Invites readers to reimagine music as a dynamic, interactive force that reshapes how we live, learn, and connect.
Sadie Stanley Classical Music Encyclopaedia - Written by many of the world's leading experts in the field, this invaluable encyclopaedia is comprehensive, easy-to-use and highly informative – an essential guide for readers of all levels.
Recommendations from the PE Department
Daniel James Brown The Boys in the Boat - From the Great Depression to Nazi Germany, The Boys in the Boat is the astonishing true story of the 1936 American men's eight rowing team on their quest for Olympic gold.
Vivien Cherry Woman of Steel - This is the compelling story of Vivien Cherry, the only female skipper in the British Steel Challenge. The book details the nine months around the globe voyage with an amateur crew battling the elements.
Mo Farah Twin Ambitions – Is much more than an autobiography by a great Olympic champion. It's a moving human story of a man who grew up in difficult circumstances, separated from his family at an early age, who struggled to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become Britain's most decorated Olympic track-and-field athlete ever. EDI
Lauren Fleshman
James Kerr
Ellen MacArthur
Good For A Girl: My Life Running in a Man’s World – This is a joyful love letter to the running life, a raw personal narrative of growth and change, and gives voice to the often-silent experience of the female athlete.
Legacy: What the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life - Goes deep into the heart of the world's most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business.
Taking on the world – When Ellen finished the Vendee Globe, yachting's toughest race aged just 24 the nation took her to its heart. The depth of the affection for Ellen is extraordinary - she makes people feel like they can do anything!
Sam Walker The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams – The sixteen most dominant teams in sports history had one thing in common. Each employed the same type of captain – a singular leader with an unconventional set of skills and tendencies. This book will challenge your assumptions of what inspired leadership looks like.
Recommendations from the Performing Arts Department
PLAYS
Bertolt Brecht
Euripides
Frances Goodrich
Willy Russell
Jessica Swale
Mother Courage and Her Children – One of Brecht’s most famous plays.
Medea – A Greek tragedy, with a powerful female lead, that explores the themes of murder and revenge.
The Diary of Anne Frank: In Two Acts - "The Diary of Anne Frank" is a stage adaptation of the book "The Diary of a Young Girl."
Educating Rita (student edition) – A comedic play that follows Rita as she tries to change her social circumstances by studying for an Open University degree.
Blue Stockings - This glorious play is a moving, comical and eye-opening story of four young women fighting for education and self-determination against the larger backdrop of women's suffrage.
REFERENCE
Lola Cohen
John Fuegi
Howard Kissel
John A. Leonard
The Lee Strasberg Notes – This book reproduces the original teachings of a unique voice in actor training, for the very first time
Bertolt Brecht: Chaos According to Plan – This is the first full-length study in any language of Bertolt Brecht's day-to-day work as a theatre director
Stella Adler: The Art of Acting – Stella Adler’s decades of experience and teaching have been brilliantly caught and encapsulated by Howard Kissel in the twenty-two lessons in this book.
Theatre Sound - A brief history of the use of sound in the theatre, discussions of musicals, sound effects, and the recording studio, and even an introduction to the physics and math of sound design.
Louise McConnell Exit, pursued by a Bear - This guide to Shakespeare's plays, poems, and characters provides historical context for his works and catalogues every Shakespearean play with a full synopsis and listing of characters, including those with nonspeaking walk-on parts.
Viola Spolin
Theatre Games for Rehearsal: A Director’s Handbook - Gives advice on selecting a play, auditioning a cast, and creating a stage space, shows how to conduct acting workshops, and demonstrates rehearsal techniques.
Recommendations from the RS Department
Andrea Debbink
Jostein Gardner
Nick Page
Think for Yourself - This unique and timely book won't tell you what to think―that's up to you! ―but it will show you how to think more deeply about your own life and current events.
Sophie’s World - The international bestseller about life, the universe and everything.
The Badly Behaved Bible - In his honest and accessible style, Nick Page urges us to re-discover a fresh look at the Bible as the scriptural bedrock of the Christian faith, to learn how we can undo unhelpful ways of reading it and demystifying its purpose and scope. (Available from the R.S. Department)
FICTION
Frances Hardinge The Lie Tree - When Faith's father is found dead under mysterious circumstances, she is determined to untangle the truth from the lies. Searching through his belongings for clues, she discovers a strange tree. A tree that feeds off whispered lies and bears fruit that reveals hidden secrets.
Ruth Ozeki The Book of Form and Emptiness - A brilliantly inventive new novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things.
A Tale for the Time Being - An extraordinary novel about our shared humanity and the search for home.
William P. Young The Shack - An international bestseller that explores life's toughest questions through the gripping story of one man's struggle to find answers to his suffering.
Recommendations from the S.T.E.M. Departments
BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Bill Bryson The Body: A Guide for Occupants – Prize-winning author, Bryson, explores the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. It will have you celebrating the genius of your existence over and over again!
Chloe Dalton Raising Hare - A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.
Sy Montgomery The Soul of an Octopus - Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s colour-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusc as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.
Charles Murray Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race and Class – All people are equal but all groups of people are not the same –a fascinating investigation of the genetics and neuroscience of human differences.
Alice Roberts Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials – Using new advances in genetics, Professor Alice Roberts explores the ancestry of Britain through seven burial sites that help us to better understand the human experience that binds us all together.
CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT
John Emsley Chemistry at Home: exploring the ingredients in everyday products - This accessible book aims to de-mystify the part chemicals play in the products we have in our home and what benefits they bring.
Molecules at an Exhibition – What is it in chocolate that makes us feel good when we eat it? What's the secret of CocaCola? In this fascinating book, John Emsley takes us on a guided tour through a rogue's gallery of molecules, some harmful, some pleasant, showing how they affect our lives.
The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison – Written by a leading science writer, famous for his knowledge of the elements and their curious and colourful histories, The Elements of Murder offers an enticing combination of true crime tales and curious science that adds up to an addictive read.
Tom Jackson The Periodic Table Book - Packed with more than 1,000 incredible images and full of fascinating facts, this children's book takes you on a visual and vibrant journey of all the chemical elements that make up our world.
Tim James Elemental - Whether you're studying the periodic table for the first time or are simply interested in the fundamental building blocks of the universefrom the core of the sun to the networks in our brains - Elemental is the perfect guide.
Sam Kean The Disappearing Spoon – Follow carbon, neon, silicon and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
Derek B. Lowe The Chemistry Book - From atoms and fluorescent pigments to sulfa drug synthesis and buckyballs, this authoritative chronology presents 250 milestones in the world of chemistry.
Oliver Sacks Uncle Tungsten Memories of a Chemical Boyhood – In Uncle Tungsten, Oliver Sacks evokes, with warmth and wit, his upbringing in wartime England. He tells of the large science-steeped family who fostered his early fascination with chemistry. There follow his years at boarding school where, though unhappy, he developed the intellectual curiosity that would shape his later life. And we hear of his return to London, an emotionally bereft tenyear-old who found solace in his passion for learning.
COMPUTING DEPARTMENT
Chris Bernhardt Quantum Computing for Everyone - An accessible introduction to an exciting new area in computation, explaining such topics as qubits, entanglement, and quantum teleportation for the general reader.
Andrea Gonzales Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral and Getting It Done – A look inside the tech industry, the power of coding and some of the amazing women who are shaping our world – with bonus content to help you start coding!
Jeremy Kubica
John MacCormick
Computational Fairy Tales - The goal of this book is not to provide comprehensive coverage of each topic, but rather to provide a high-level overview of the breadth and excitement of computer science. It’s a quest that will take you from learning the basics of programming in a blacksmith’s forge to fighting curses with recursion.
Nine Algorithms that Changed the Future - How do our computers perform these tasks with such ease? John MacCormick answers this question in language anyone can understand, using vivid examples to explain the fundamental tricks behind nine computer algorithms that power our PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
Clive Thompson Coders: who they are, what they think and how they are changing our world - To understand the world today, we need to understand code and its consequences. With Coders, Thompson offers a crucial insight into the heart of the machine.
MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot
The Tiger That Isn’t – Numbers have become the all-powerful language of public argument. Too often, that power is abused and the numbers bamboozle. This book shows how to see straight through them - and how to seize the power for yourself. This book is written by the team who created and present the hugely popular BBC Radio 4 series, More or Less
Marcus Du Sautoy The Music of Primes - A story of eccentric and brilliant men, last minute escapes from death, strange journeys, dangerous ideas and the unquenchable thirst for knowledge that drove some men mad and others to unparalleled glory.
G.H. Hardy A Mathematician’s Apology - This 'apology', written in 1940, offers a brilliant and engaging account of mathematics as very much more than a science
Theonie Parker
Matt Parker
Ian Stewart
Mathematical Scandals - In this highly readable volume of vignettes of mathematical scandals and gossip, Theoni Pappas assembles 29 fascinating stories of intrigue and the bizarre
Humble Pi: a comedy of maths errors - The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, "When am I ever going to use this in the real world?"
Seventeen Equations that Changed the World - From Newton's Law of Gravity to the Black-Scholes model used by bankers to predict the markets, equations, are everywhere and they are fundamental to everyday life .Seventeen Equations that Changed the World examines seventeen ground-breaking equations that have altered the course of human history
Simon Singh
Steven Strogatz
The Code Book. The Secret History of Codes and Code-Breaking – The Code Book is a history of man’s urge to uncover the secrets of codes, from Egyptian puzzles to modern day computer encryptions.
The joy of X - A world-class mathematician and regular contributor to the New York Times hosts a delightful tour of the greatest ideas of math, revealing how it connects to literature, philosophy, law, medicine, art, business, even pop culture in ways we never imagined.
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Jim Al-Khalili
Neil de Grasse Tyson
Carlo Rovelli
Chad Orzel
The Physics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained – Seven themed chapters examine the history and developments in areas such as energy and matter, electricity and magnetism as well as quantum, nuclear and particle physics.
Astrophysics for people in a hurry – This is a comprehensive account of our present understanding of what the Universe (and galaxies and stars and black holes and neutrinos and…) really are, how we know about them and how all this evolves over billions of years of time.
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Exquisitely written, this is an introduction to the really significant topics of modern Physics including General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology. Rovelli writes like no other physicist and the book feels too short!
How to teach Relativity to your dog – A charmingly presented and highly readable introduction to Einstein’s twin theories of Relativity. Orzel’s canine friend can cope with these pretty amazing but difficult ideas – can you?
How to teach Quantum Physics to your dog – Quantum Physics challenges our ‘obvious’ and common-sense ideas about reality. Orzel shows us enough of these mind-bending concepts and explanations to take the engaged reader into a completely new way to view themselves in the world. Worth doing!
