Spotlight 25-26

Ms Eldred’s Top Picks As it’s also Women’s History Month, I’ve chosen books that relate to this theme or have been written by women. My first pick is The Women’s History of the World by Rosalind Miles - a book I’ll be talking about next week for International Women’s Day! In brief, it is an epic non-fiction which takes the reader through history starting with cave women and travels all the way up to the present day. The Power by Naomi Alderman , is a great choice for sixth-form readers. In an alternate reality, teenage girls across the world suddenly develop the ability to shoot lightning from their hands, shifting the balance of power forever in a life where men are no longer the physically dominant sex. Some have drawn parallels between recent changes in the United States and the events that led to the dystopian world of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood making it an of-the-moment read. The TV series is good, but the novel’s stark, unsettling prose pulls you into Offred’s world in a way that makes every act of resistance feel urgent. Did you know the size of regular piano keys are designed to fit the span of man’s hand? This has led to vastly more famous male pianists throughout history and in part, the assumption that men are simply more uniquely suited to playing the piano than women! This fact and SO many more come from Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez who reveals how society has largely been designed and built by men, for men; she explore the often devastating consequences this has on the everyday live’s of women around the globe.

Mr Gormley’s Top Picks

North Woods by Daniel Mason is an engrossing historical novel about a single patch of land and its inhabitants in New England, from the early days of colonisation to the present day. Along the way we meet an eccentric apple farmer and his twin daughters, a lovelorn painter, a spiritualist, and a crime writer. The voices are all brilliantly distinct and well-rounded, but what’s even more fascinating is how Mason weaves together their lives as they resonate down the ages, influencing each other in strange and surprising ways. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay is among the most celebrated Australian novels of all time. On Valentine’s Day 1900, the privileged boarders of Appleyard College for Young Ladies set out for a picnic at the eponymous rock. In the blazing Australian heat, four of them set out to explore the ancient landmark, followed by their teacher. Only one girl returns. Otherworldly and haunting, the story is also a brilliant psychological study of a community as it begins to unravel faced with an unsolvable mystery. In 1952, Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado set out from Buenos Aires on a leaky Norton 500 motorcycle to explore their continent, an epic and eye-opening road trip that takes them from Argentina to Venezuela. The Motorcycle Diaries is Che Guevara ’s account of a journey that would profoundly transform his worldview and inspire his later revolutionary politics. This is a fascinating story of friendship, alternately thrilling and sobering as the young men confront poverty and corruption throughout Latin America. I highly recommend The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton if you’re on the hunt for a classic romance that’s also Set in the 1870s, it’s the story of Archer Newland, a rich young lawyer from one of New York’s most prestigious families, whose life is turned upside-down by the arrival of the beautiful and unconventional Countess Ellen Olenska. Torn between love and duty, Archer finds himself increasingly at odds with the stuffy social rules of American high society.