Making Meaning in English
David Didau’s new book is a welcome and rare analysis of the history and current state of English as it is taught as a subject in schools.
Read MoreThe researchED Guide to Leadership
Brief notes on a collection of essays on school leadership, edited by Stuart Lock.
Read MoreTelling Tales
Patience Agbabi’s 2014 Telling Tales is a vibrant updating of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and itself a masterclass in poetic form and tone.
Read MoreSimple Passion
Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux was first published in France in 1991, but now arrives in English from Fitzcarraldo Editions in an immaculate translation by Tanya Leslie, perhaps to coincide with a film version.
It can be read it in 30 minutes (note: opens with 'strong material'). It's intense and honest, as always with Ernaux. So this post is extremely short, too.
Here are my thoughts on the longer, brilliant, more complex The Years.
The Boy Behind the Curtain
Tim Winton's The Boy Behind the Curtain: notes from an Australian life is an outstanding book of essays, both personal and cultural.
Read MoreHow to Argue with a Racist
Adam Rutherford’s How to Argue with a Racist has a morally important purpose. It is also a brilliant example of how to write about complex ideas in an accessible way.
Read MoreSuppose a Sentence
Brian Dillon’s close readings of 28 sentences by authors ranging from Joan Didion to James Baldwin to John Donne are a real pleasure.
Read MoreMinds Made for Stories
Thomas Newkirk is one of the best writers on education today. His book Minds Made for Stories examines the ways non-fiction texts have narratives at their cores, and how these can be used to teach them.
Read MoreOpen Water
Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel, Open Water, is a lyrical story set in contemporary London, charting the tentative journey towards love of two young people. It is a novel about intimacy, dancing, music, and racism.
Read MoreBeing Betjeman(n) by Jonathan Smith
Jonathan Smith’s enormously enjoyable Being Betjeman(n) is an unclassifiable and highly personal book about the poet, but also about mental health, teaching, parenting and friendship.
Read MoreBooks of the Year, 2020
An annual personal choice of books of the year.
Read MoreRadical Attention
Julia Bell’s pocket-sized essay, Radical Attention examines the ways our attention has become a commodity and how an industry has developed out of our distractions.
Read MoreBooks of the Year lists, 2020
A compilation of the best Books of the Year lists in the media.
Read MoreDiversity in Schools
Bennie Kara’s new book Diversity in Schools: a little guide for teachers is small in format, big in ambition. It is just what schools and individual teachers need right now to navigate these issues.
Read MoreHow to Think Like Shakespeare
The tagline for this site is Thinking, Writing, Reading, Teaching, and you may have spotted that Shakespeare features regularly. So it’s exciting to come across a book which combines all five elements.
Read MoreA Ghost in the Throat
Doireann Ní Ghríofa's remarkable first prose work, as befits a poet, is itself a weaving, as it braids to and fro in its consideration of female bodies, erasures and absences, texts and textures, rooms, ghosts.
Read MoreClaire Keegan on 'Foster'
Claire Keegan’s novella Foster is one of the outstanding pieces of writing by an Irish author in recent years (and a fine option for class study). Some years ago she came to my school, read from the work, and was asked questions by the pupils.
Read MoreEmma Smith on 'Othello'
Emma Smith’s This is Shakespeare is one of the best books of recent times to examine the plays (20 of them). This post looks at her chapter on Othello.
Read MoreRunning the Room
Tom Bennett’s new book Running the Room: the teacher’s guide to behaviour is a rich source of advice on the most fundamental thing for all learning. If behaviour is poor in a classroom, all pupils’ learning suffers.
Read MoreWhy the Moon Travels
Oein DeBhairduin’s collection Why the Moon Travels is a trove of fresh stories and reflections from a tradition hardly present in Irish literature so far.
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