The BEST Books and Movies of the Year chosen by students staff and some of the BEST writers in the country….
Welcome to our end of year Bookworm. I have to admit it has been a bit of a rush to put this together so apologies in advance if I’ve missed YOUR contribution out. I’ve tried hard not to but I suspect I’ve lost a few snippets anyway. Students, staff, authors and librarians have all contributed to these pages and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.
Over 80 students from all our year groups contributed to our book of the Year poll. Incredibly you chose over 70 different books! If that isn’t testament to the richness and diversity of reading at Swanshurst….I don’t know what is. I’ll try and get some extra detail on our blog after the holiday.
CONTENTS P4 - YOUR books of the Year P10 - Mia’s Year of Reading Dangerously P14 - Mr B’s YA books of the year P16 - Ms Yates’ YA books of the year P18 - Author’s books of the Year P24 - Films of the year P28 - Swanshurst Cultural highlights!
We love end of year lists in publications like The Guardian and Sight and Sound. If you want EVEN more recommendations than the ones we’ve given you here then you can check them out too: Guardian Best 50 films Guardian Best Fiction You can follow the links from there to loads more ‘Best of’ lists.
So many authors took time out to post their best books of the year on Twitter for us. Thank you so much for adding to the joy, enthusiasm and wonder in these pages. All the YA recommendations are to be found on pages 18-23. Where an author chose a more ‘adult’ title I’ve included them on a different page (9). Big Love to Emma Craigie, Sage Blackwood, James Smythe and Kit de Waal for your fantastic suggestions.
Year 7
Percy Jackson & the Titan’s Curse—Rick Riordan
Katy—Jacqueline Wilson
I knew You Were Trouble—Paige Toon
The Boy at the Top of the Mountain— John Boyne
You Killed Me—Keith Gray
Dork Diaries: Party Time—Rachel Renee Russell
Nerve—Jeanne Ryan
Best Friends—Jacqueline Wilson
Gangsta Granny—David Walliams
Evermore—Alyson Noel
Year 8
After Eden—Helen Douglas
Username: Evie—Joe Sugg
The Hollow Boy—Jonathan Stroud
Girl Online: On Tour—Zoe Sugg
Murder Most Unladylike—Robin Stevens
Dork Diaries: Frenemies Forever—Rachel
Renee Russell
Blink and You Die—Lauren Child
Vampire Diaries—Richelle Mead
Year 9
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling
These Shallow Graves—Jennifer Donnelly
Shiver—Maggie Stiefvater
Half Blood—Jennifer L Armentrout
Pure—Jennifer L Armentrout
Jet Black Hearts—Teresa Flavin
Possessed—Kate Cann
Demon Dentist—David Walliams
Knife– RJ Anderson
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—JK Rowling
Year 10
The Art of Being Normal—Lisa
Williamson
Am I Normal Yet? - Holly Bourne
The Secret Garden—Frances Hodgson
Burnett
The Crystal Star—Catherine Fisher
Lord of the Flies—William Golding
Vendetta (and Inferno) - Catherine Doyle
We Were Liars—E Lockhart
Girl Online—Zoe Sugg
The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins
Everything Everything—Nicola Yoon
Animal Farm—George Orwell
The List—Siobhan Vivian
Butterfly Lion—Michael Morpurgo
The Bone Sparrow—Zana Fraillon
Defender of the Realm—Nick Ostler &
Mark Huckerby
The Heir—Kiera Cass
Year 11
Every Day—David Levithan
Matched—Ally Condie
Hunting Lila—Sarah Alderson
The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins
Fallen—Lauren Kate
The Hunger Games—Suzanne Collins
The Rest of Us Just Live Here—Patrick Ness
Railhead—Philip Reeve
1984—George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling
Swift—RJ Anderson
Arsenic for Tea—Robin Stevens
Staff AND authors
Golden Hill—Francis Spufford
The Vegetarian—Han Kang
Autumn—Ali Smith
The Sunlight Pilgrims—Jenni Fagan
Days Without End—Sebastian Barry
Between the World and Me—TaNahesi Coates
The Underground Railway– Colson Whitehead
A Closed and Common Orbit- Becky Chambers
Weatherland– Alexandra Harris
The Wonder—Emma Donaghue
Mia K’s Year of Reading Dangerously 2016 has been a very strange year of reading for me. This has been for several reasons. Firstly, exams. Enough said. Secondly, years of purchasing hardbacks has left me broke. As in, can-only-affordratty-one-penny-plus-postage-mass-market-paperbacks broke. Hardbacks cost money. Therefore, very few of the books I read this year were new, or in fact, published in the last five years. Thirdly, this year has involved the reading of large amounts of fantasy and speculative fiction. For some strange, unfathomable reason, 2016 has caused me to be strongly drawn towards fictional realities in which cutting off the heads of tyrants is still an entirely legitimate enterprise. Can’t possibly imagine why that might be. Keeping those things in mind, it makes quite a lot of sense that January began with a Game of Thrones reading marathon, and in the following months I continued to read and love quite a lot of books in the epic fantasy vein: Robin Hobb (particularly her Liveship Traders trilogy); Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind; Scott Lynch’s ridiculously clever The Lies of Locke Lamora, just to name a few of the best.
Another genre with a surplus of vanquished tyrants and lots of beheading is, of course, historical fiction. Between Plantagenet royalty, revolutionary Scotsmen and castrated opera singers, I read far too much of the stuff to count, but I couldn’t fail to mention the incomparable Dorothy Dunnett, whom nobody seems to have heard of despite her undeniable (and often entirely perplexing) brilliance. I read the first two books of her Lymond Chronicles and am now powering through book one of her eight-book House of Niccolò series (again, the words perplexing and brilliant are all too applicable). Speaking of blockbuster historical eight-book series, the revolutionary themes of Outlander, while not exactly high literature, served to cheer me up no end. But sometimes the sheer misery of this cursed year made it necessary to resort to books so light that, while reading them, you can kid yourself that your heart is actually still in your chest and not being trampled under the feet of stampeding politicians trying to escape the political vacuum that now encompasses most of the Western World. P.G. Wodehouse burst onto the scene on November 9th and, with a few select Jeeves and Wooster novels, reminded me why he is one of my favourite comfort authors ever (the Code of the Woosters single-handedly restored my faith in the human race). I also adored the wonderful Diana Wynne Jones’ Derkholm duology, two of my favourites from her.
The truly lovely Among Others by Jo Walton got me reading several of the books mentioned within its pages: I particularly loved The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and Plato’s Republic, and the dragons in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels got me ridiculously excited. While we’re on the topic of sci-fi, I finally got around to reading Fever Crumb and Railhead by Philip Reeve, who was as brilliant and weird as I remembered, and China Mieville’s Embassytown, which was incredible and quite possibly my favourite from him yet. Claire North’s Touch was another novel I’d been meaning to read for ages, along with Lirael by Garth Nix, and both exceeded my ever-high expectations. Jenni Fagan’s new novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims, came out this year, and made me just as much of an emotional wreck as her brilliant debut, which in itself is quite a feat. Frost in May by Antonia White was an unexpectedly perfect winter read, and it made me feel much happier about the comparatively merciful tests and challenges I face at my own school. Another book to tug at the heartstrings was the beautiful, tragic phantasmagoria that was Catherynne M. Valente’s retelling of Russian folklore, Deathless; by the end I was practically sobbing (and yet I still have almost no idea what happened). Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series was incredible and the series protagonist, Eugenides, might be my favourite character ever. (And book 5 is coming out in a few months… only seven years after the last one.) Finally, I cannot finish without talking about Theophile Gautier’s fantastic Mademoiselle de Maupin. If I was forced to choose a favourite book of this year, it would probably be this one—not because I liked it more than the others, but because it exists on a scale which is exclusively its own. Published in 1835 and inspired by the exploits of the real-life Mademoiselle de Maupin, it is at once a wickedly funny satire of French society, a treatise on the existence of beauty that would do Socrates proud, and the earliest LGBT+ novel I have ever read. And nobody has heard of it. But I loved it with a passion, and am going to stop talking now because this could realistically go on all day.
See overleaf!
Love Fantasy? Then let Mia provide you with inspiration for those long
A special shout out for these books by Non Pratt and Anne Cassidy that went down a storm with our Young Editor’s group.
Thanks to all the brilliant authors who responded to Ms Yates’ call on Twitter. We’re really proud that so many of you are willing to take time out for Swanshurst. Tanya Landman
The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Jane Elson
Binny Keeps a Secret by Hilary McKay
Helen Dennis
My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons
Gill Lewis Unfeathered Bird by Katrina von Grouw
Sufiya Ahmed Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence
Hilary McKay
Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell Swimming to the Moon by Jane Elson
Melinda Salisbury
The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
Emma Carroll
The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Lydia: The Wild Girl of Pride & Prejudice by Natasha Farrant
Non Pratt
Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
Kathryn Evans
One by Sarah Crossan Instructions for a Second Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray The Island by Olivia Levez Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D Schmidt Book of Lies by Teri Terry
Lara Williamson
One by Sarah Crossan Instructions for a Second Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aitken
Karen McCombie
Little Bits of Sky by SE Durrant
Jeff Zentner The First Time she Drowned by Kerry Kletter
Chris Priestley
The Double Axe by Philip Womack
David Solomans
Who Let the Gods Out by Mary Evans
Cathy Cassidy One by Sarah Crossan
Katherine Rundell
Perijee & Me by Ross Montgomery
K Millwood Hargrave
Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff The Sleeping Prince by Melinda Salisbury Furthermore by Tahereh Mafif
Holly Bourne
When We Collided by Emery Lord
Alwyn Hamilton
The Winner’s Kiss by Narie Rutkoski
Anne Cassidy
Twenty Questions for Gloria by Martin Bedford
Chris Riddell
Geis -A Matter of Life And Death by Alexis Deacon.
Ruth Eastham
Time Travelling with a Hamster by Ross Welford
Narinder Dhami
Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes
Natasha Farrant
The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange
Robin Talley
You Know Me Well by by Nina LaCour & David Levithan
Keris Stainton
Cuckoo by Keren David
Mary Hooper
Blade and Bone by Catherine Johnson No Virgin by Anne Cassidy
Matt Whyman Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
A Colleen Jones
The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
Jo Cotterill
Lockwood & Co: The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud
Ally Sherrick
Black Arts by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil
Tamsyn Murray
The One We Fell In Love With by Paige Toon
Pretty Good Year. Overleaf you’ll find a slightly more friendly selection of films - the favourites of students and staff. BUT...if you want the definitive BEST OF 2016 LIST here it is! Perhaps I’m yelling into the void but I do it in the hope a NEW Khadija will step forward to take on her mantle. Twelve great films - 2 family films, 2 horror films, 2 documentaries and six others that will take you from Turkey to China, from small-town USA to Auschwitz in 1944 and from the Amazon river to the American wilderness in 1823.
Try watching Fire at Sea, an amazing film about the island of Lampedusa where thousands of refugees land each year or 13th, a brilliant film about the USA’s racist prison system. I saw The Witch back in March but I can still recall images from this brilliant, unsettling feminist horror. I love a good family film and Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the best I’ve seen for many years. It’s a very funny and moving tale about a wayward boy who meets his match in a misanthropic mountain man. It becomes a crazy adventure as the two find companionship and a measure of peace together. [Mr B]
Fair play Swanshurst—this is a great selection of films too. I enjoyed most of them so I won’t be grumpy AT ALL. Room and Spotlight are the most challenging films and are both 15 certificates. If you’re old enough however you’ll see why they did well at the Oscars. In many years Queen of Katwe and Kubo and the Two Strings might have reached my top 12. We also want to give a little shout-out for The Edge of Seventeen. A good teen comedy drama is hard to find in any year but this does the job. Every body I’ve spoken to loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and many of you are looking forward to Rogue One. Crossing my fingers for that AND Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt out next week.
Mr B saw Grimes, Beyonce and Rihanna within the space of a fortnight and Ms Marsden saw Bruce Springsteen!
Ms Dickenson recommends the book and others liked the film! What did you listen to this year? Frank Ocean? The Weeknd? Solange? Radiohead? Check out The Guardian’s Best Music of the Year for some new ideas.
People LOVED the Beyond Carravaggio exhibition in London (finishes 15th Jan)
Mr Allberry loved Stranger Things on Netflix and is giddy with anticipation and excitement over Rogue One.
Mr Black enjoyed SF old and new: Arrival and Helliconia.