Book reviews and recommendations

These are books I enthused about, found interesting, want to recommend. I read a lot more books than are here, but I don’t write about ones I don’t like or find dull (this isn’t a professional reviewing site). Individual short story section at the end.

A

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi: Notes on Grief [personal memoir].

• Agbabi, Patience: Telling Tales [poetry - update of The Canterbury Tales].

• Allen-Paisant, Jason: Self-Portrait as Othello [poetry].

• Ashman, Greg: Cognitive Load Theory: a little guide for teachers.

• Atherton, Andrew: Experiencing English Literature: shaping authentic student response in thinking and writing.

• Atherton, Carol: Reading Lessons: the books we read at school, the conversations they spark and why they matter.

• Atkins, Ros: The Art of Explanation: how to communicate with clarity and confidence.

B

• Bate, Jonathan: Bright Star, Green Light: the beautiful works and damned lives of John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

• Baume, Sara: handiwork [non-fiction].

• Bell, Julia: Radical Attention [essay].

• Bennett, Tom: Running the Room: the teacher’s guide to behaviour.

• Bianchi, Martha Dickinson: Emily Dickinson Face to Face [memoir].

• Boland, Eavan: The Historians [poems].

• Boyle, Elizabeth: Fierce Appetites [memoir and literature].

• Bradshaw, Graham: The Connell Guide to Shakespeare’s Othello.

C

• Cahill, Kevin and Dennehy, Niamh: Perspectives on the Teaching of English in Post-Primary Education.

• Carr, J.L.: A Month in the Country [novel].

• Children’s Books Ireland: Free To Be Me: the diversity, inclusion and representation reading guide.

• Children’s Books Ireland: Pride Reading Guide.

• Christodoulou, Daisy: I Can’t Stop Thinking About VAR [football].

• Christodoulou, Daisy: Teachers vs Tech? the case for an ed tech revolution.

• Christofides, R.M.: Othello’s Secret: the Cyprus Problem [critical analysis, and personal history].

• Cox Gurdon, Meghan: The Enchanted Hour: the Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction.

• Cumming, Laura: Thunderclap: a memoir of art and life & sudden death.

• Curran, Kevin: Youth [novel].

D

• DeBhairduin, Oein: Why the moon travels [stories from Traveller folklore].

• Dench, Judi and O’Hea, Brendan: Shakespeare: the man who pays the rent.

• Dickinson, Emily; Bervin, Jan (editor); Werner, Marta (editor): Emily Dickinson: the Gorgeous Nothings.

• Didau, David: Making Meaning in English: exploring the role of knowledge in the English curriculum.

• Dillon, Brian: Suppose a Sentence [essays].

• Doyle, Martin: Dirty Linen: The Troubles in my Home Place.

• Duncan, Sophie: Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare’s First Tragic Heroine

E

• Enser, Zoe: Bringing Forth the Bard: a guide to teaching Shakespeare in the English classroom.

• Ernaux, Annie: The Years [memoir]. And brief comments on Simple Passion.

• Evaristo, Bernardine: Girl, Woman, Other [novel].

• Evaristo, Bernardine: Manifesto: on never giving up [autobiography].

• Evaristo, Bernardine: Mr Loverman [novel].

F

• Foster, R.F.: On Seamus Heaney [criticism, biography].

• Freyne, Patrick: OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea [personal essays].

G

• Goddard, Roy: Morant [novel].

• Gornick, Vivian: Unfinished Business: notes of a chronic re-reader [chapter on A Month in the Country].

• Greenblatt, Stephen: Tyrant: Shakespeare on Power.

• Gurnah, Abdulrazak: Afterlives [novel].

H

• Haidt, Jonathan: The Anxiety Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

• Harpur, James: The Examined Life [poetry collection].

• Headley, Maria Dahvana: Beowulf: a new translation.

• Heti, Sheila: Alphabetical Diaries.

• Hickson-Lovence, Ashley: Your Show [novel].

J

• Jones, Kate (editor): The researchED Guide to Cognitive Science.

• Joseph, Anthony: Sonnets for Albert [poetry collection].

• Josipovici, Gabriel: Hamlet: Fold on Fold [literary criticism].

• Josipovici, Gabriel: 100 Days [memoir, essays].

K

• Kara, Bennie: Diversity in Schools: a little guide for teachers.

• Karim-Cooper, Farah: The Great White Bard: Shakespeare, race and the future.

• Keegan, Claire: Small Things Like These [short novel]. Also in comparison to Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves. And a piece on the cover, selected from Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s ‘Winter’. Plus a series of teaching notes.

• Kennefick, Victoria: egg/shell [poetry].

L

• Lemov, Doug, et al: Teaching in the Online Classroom: surviving and thriving in the new normal.

• Leon, Donna: Wandering Through Life: a memoir.

• Levy, Deborah: August Blue [novel].

• Levy, Deborah: Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living, Real Estate [memoirs].

• Lock, Stuart (editor): The researchED Guide to Leadership: an evidence-informed guide for teachers.

• Lovell, Oliver: Tools for Teachers: how to teach, lead and learn like the world’s best educators.

• Lynskey, Dorian: The Ministry of Truth: a biography of George Orwell’s 1984.

M

• MacLaverty, Bernard: Blank Pages and other stories.

• Maguire, Laurie: Othello - Language and Writing.

• Maroo, Chetna: Western Lane [novel].

• Mccrea, Peps: Motivated Teaching.

• Morrison, Toni: Desdemona [play].

• Mukasonga, Scholastique: Our Lady of the Nile [novel].

N

• Needham, Tom: Explicit English Teaching.

• Nelson, Caleb Azumah: Open Water [novel].

• Newkirk, Thomas: Minds Made for Stories: how we really read and write informational and persuasive texts.

• Newstok, Scott: How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education.

• Ní Ghríofa, Doireann: A Ghost in the Throat [prose].

O

• O’Callaghan, Billy: The Paper Man [novel].

• O’Connor, Joseph: My Father’s House [novel].

• O’Farrell, Maggie: Hamnet [novel].

• Okwonga, Musa: In The End, It Was All About Love [novel?]

• Okwonga, Musa: One of Them: an Eton College memoir.

• Olsberg, Nicholas: The Masterbuilder: William Butterfield and his times.

• O’Toole, Fintan: We Don’t Know Ourselves: a personal history of Ireland since 1958 [in comparison to Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These].

P

• Pearce, Jade and Moore, Isaac: Bjork & Bjork’s Desirable Difficulties in Action.

• Post, Jonathan F.S.: Elizabeth Bishop - a very short introduction.

• Pryke, Stuart and Staniforth, Amy: 100 for 100 Macbeth. 100 Days. 100 Revision Activities.

Q

• Quigley, Alex: Closing the Reading Gap.

• Quigley, Alex: Closing the Writing Gap.

• Quigley, Alex: Why Learning Fails (and what to do about it).

R

• Robinson, Roger: A Portable Paradise [poetry].

• Royle, Nicholas: White Spines: confessions of a book collector.

• Rubenhold, Hallie: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper [history, biography].

• Rundell, Katherine: Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne.

• Rutherford, Adam: How to Argue with a Racist: history, science, race and reality.

• Ryan, Kiernan: Shakespearean Tragedy [essay on Othello].

S

• Saunders, George: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (in which four Russians give a master class on writing, reading and life) [short story analysis].

• Schindler, Meriel: The Lost Café Schindler: one family, two wars and the search for truth [memoir, history].

• Sentance, Neil: Ridge & Furrow: voices from the winter fields [personal history].

• Sentance, Neil: Water and Sky: voices from the riverside [personal history].

• Shapiro, James: 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear [criticism, history].

• Shapiro, James: Shakespeare in a Divided America [criticism, history].

• Shakespeare: The RSC Complete Works, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen.

• Shepherd, Nan: The Living Mountain [memoir, nature].

• Sherriff, R.C.: The Fortnight in September [novel].

• Sherrington, Tom and Caviglioli, Oliver: Teaching Walkthrus: Five-Step Guides for Instructional Coaching.

• Smith, Ali: Spring [novel].

• Smith, Emma: This is Shakespeare [chapter on Othello, chapter on Macbeth, chapter on Hamlet, chapter on King Lear].

• Smith, Jonathan: Being Betjeman(n) [biography, poetry].

• Smith, Zadie: Intimations: six essays.

• Smith, Zadie: The Wife of Willesden [dramatisation of Chaucer].

T

• Thompson, Sonia: Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence in Action [teaching].

• Turner, Marion: The Wife of Bath: a biography.

• Twomey, Molly: Raised Among Vultures [poetry].

U

• Usborne Complete Shakespeare: stories from all the plays.

Y

• Youles, Christopher: Sentence models for creative writing.

W

• Wall, William: Empty Bed Blues [novel].

• Wall, William: Smugglers in the Underground Hug Trade: a journal in the plague year [poetry].

• Webb, Jennifer and Giovanelli, Marcello: Essential Grammar: the resource book every English teacher will need.

• Whitehead, Colson: The Nickel Boys [novel].

• Wills, Clair: Missing Persons, or My Grandmother’s Secrets [history, memoir].

• Winn, Alice: In Memoriam [fiction].

• Winton, Tim: The Boy Behind the Curtain: notes from an Australian life [essays].

• Wolf, Marianne: Reader, Come Home: the Reading Brain in a Digital World [neuroscience].

Individual Short Stories

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi: ‘Zikora’.

• Berlin, Lucia: ‘A Manual for Cleaning Women’.

• Hemingway, Ernest: ‘Cat in the Rain’.

• Keegan, Claire: ‘So Late in the Day.’

• Mansfield, Katherine: ‘Daughters of the Late Colonel’.

• Morrison, Toni: ‘Recitatif’ (with an introductory essay by Zadie Smith).

• Trevor, William: ‘The Piano Tuner’s Wives’.