WINTER 2014

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Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year from the OCR English team

Introducing the OCR English Specialists

and their top reads for Christmas

INTRODUCTION

Michelle North

My ‘guilty pleasure’ this year has been the latest in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series: Written in my Own Heart’s Blood. It’s a fantastic series, and I love the fact that the novels are long enough that I can really immerse myself in both the world of the American Revolution and modern Scotland, finding both times portrayed equally convincingly. I try to take my time and stretch out the experience to make it last, but it’s always

over too quickly! Historical and time-slip novels are my preferred choice for a bit of escapism, and I’ve got a long list of books to read in 2015 – including the final instalment of Deborah Harkness’s All Souls trilogy: The Book of Life. I try to keep on top of all the new texts we’ve been considering for our English qualifications, so when I read for pleasure, I stray into the world of light reading, and love it!

Kate Newton

I read Doris Lessing’s first published novel The Grass is Singing earlier in the year – found it a totally absorbing, at times claustrophobic read that stayed with me for ages. It’s a pretty unflinching and savage indictment of South Africa’s apartheid system, pivoting on the slow psychological disintegration of the main character, Mary Turner, a white farmer’s wife. Told in flashback, it opens with news of Mary’s murder on the Turners’ farm, with the houseboy Moses seemingly the perpetrator. Not so much a whodunnit, Lessing pulls you in to how we got there.

Bit of a rogue entry, I know, but I always hint heavily for a new cook book at Christmas and birthday, and top of

my list is Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest, Plenty More. His vegetarian food is always fresh and inventive (but definitely for meat-eaters, too!). I was recently recommended We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. It sounds really funny and intriguing, have been forewarned that there’s a massive twist! I’m also going to pre-order Kate Gross’s book, Late Fragments: Everything I want to tell you (about this magnificent life). The Amazon blurb states ‘not an average cancer memoir… but a book about how to live’; reading my friend’s blog this year has been testimony to her amazing writing – painful, humorous, always thought provoking.

Hester Glass

I recently read Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and it didn’t disappoint! I’ve enjoyed all of her novels over the years; this one got mixed reviews, but I thought it lived up to expectations. An absorbing and gripping read.

I also enjoyed Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed, which my book club chose. It’s perhaps a bit clichéd in parts, but no doubt Hosseini’s a great story-

teller. He expertly interweaves several stories over a long period in Afghanistan’s history – a really interesting and moving novel.

On my Christmas list is Colm Toibin’s Nora Webster, because everything he writes is brilliant. And I haven’t read the latest Rebus yet (Ian Rankin, Saints of the Shadow Bible) so that will be a real treat!

Mary Seddon

Having this year returned from the Middle East and feeling rather nostalgic for the light, the sand dunes, the aroma of cardamom-infused coffee, it was an enormous pleasure to read The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah. It is both funny and serious, about the modern and the medieval, reason and superstition and the west meeting the east. It evokes vividly the place, and some eccentric characters, and it was a joy to read. One day I will visit Shah’s

neighbourhood and who knows, maybe even stay in his lovingly restored Caliph’s house!

I do love memoirs and there have been such great ones recently. On my ‘wish list’ is Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, a neurosurgeon reflecting on his eventful career. I heard the book reviewed on the radio and I have wanted to get a copy for months.

In case you’re still rushing around Christmas shopping or looking for last minute literary inspiration

for presents, here’s a few thoughts from the OCR English team about books they’ve enjoyed in 2014

(definitely not restricted to set texts!) and ones that are on their personal Christmas wish lists.

The Word Winter 2014The Word Winter 201422

This year I’ve been catching up on books that I’ve been meaning to read for a while and one of my favourite reads has to be the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, translated from the Swedish originals. The trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest) really encapsulates the Scandinavian noir genre with the bleak description of Sweden providing the perfect setting for a story that begins with the unsolved disappearance of a teenage girl. The subject matter is dark and doesn’t make for easy reading at times, but the realistic settings and complex characters really get you hooked. The relationship

between investigative journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, and computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, is compulsive, with the characters in conflict both with themselves and each other. Lisbeth Salander is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read in a long time. All three novels were page turners from beginning to end!

On my Christmas wish list this year is Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, a thriller that follows Nick Dunne as the main suspect in his wife’s disappearance. I’ve heard mixed reviews about this one, but given the hype surrounding the recent film adaptation, hopefully it won’t disappoint!

Keeley Nolan

Tony Fahy

I’ve taken to re-reading novels that I enjoyed over 20 years ago, just to re-enjoy and question my critical faculties. Over the summer I re-read 100 Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Márquez) which has, light-heartedly I feel, claimed the English translation is better than the original Spanish!) and The Great Gatsby and thoroughly enjoyed them again as well as bringing a different perspective for myself – realising how sad Gatsby is to be written by a 25-year-old.

I’ve just re-read The Big Sleep to see whether my struggle to be ‘some kind of a man’ when I was younger was right to place its faith in Raymond Chandler. It was. I loved

Chandler’s wit (“Tall aren’t you – I didn’t mean to be”), his use of rich descriptive metaphors and similes to create atmosphere and the brilliant ruminations at the end of the novel on who sleeps the ‘Big Sleep’ and why – all inspired by the gallant but pointless death of a small and small-time gangster.

Next stop – Chandler’s Farewell My Lovely. I’m also interested in reading le Carré’s A Delicate Truth as le Carré is a modern day Chandler – prepared to structure a thriller around a consideration of contemporary values.

Sophie Maloney

Most recently I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid which is ostensibly a ‘September 11 novel’ however, it is more complex than that and really, interrogates the fractured relationship between America and the East post 9-11 through the eyes of the Pakistani narrator. The novel offers a cynical view of the modern American Dream and is definitely well worth a read.

On my Christmas wish list is Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, the latest of his novels to be translated into English. Zafón wrote The Shadow of the Wind which I loved – his Gothic portrayal of old town Barcelona is captivating and he really manages to capture the charm and essence of the city.

OCR English team’s 2014 Top Reads: All I want (to read) for Christmas…

Outlander series – Diana Gabaldon All Souls Trilogy – Deborah Harkness

The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing Plenty More – Yotam Ottolenghi

The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves – Karen Joy Fowler

And the Mountains Echoed – Khaled HosseiniLate Fragments: Everything I want to tell you (about this magnificent life) – Kate Gross

The Caliph’s House: A Year in Casablanca – Tahir Shah Nora Webster – Colm Toibin

100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Márquez Saints of the Shadow Bible – Ian Rankin

The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald Do No Harm – Henry Marsh

The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler Farewell my Lovely – Raymond Chandler

The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid A Delicate Truth – John le Carré

Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson Marina – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Millennium Trilogy: The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Millennium Trilogy: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest – Stieg Larsson Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

The Word Winter 20143

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