SUMMER READING
FOR THE 6TH
FORM
Time to catch up on your reading at last! Try some books from the selection below—
some old favourites and some new titles. All available in the library for loan over
the summer holidays.
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? Life After Life
follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With
wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, the Gallipoli campaign and the subsequent
bitter struggle between Greeks and Turks, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have coexisted peacefully for centuries.
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
Like a Greek drama, The Perfect Storm builds slowly and inexorably to its tragic climax. The book
weaves the history of the fishing industry and the science of predicting storms into the quotidian lives of
those aboard the Andrea Gail and of others who would soon find themselves in the fury of the storm.
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
Winner of the 2016 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction
In Cork, the local gangsters, drug dealers, drunks and prostitutes ply their trades while children who
never asked to be born survive somehow, albeit damaged and vulnerable. The glimpses of redemption
come not from the hypocrisy of the church, which seems in part to be largely to blame for the dysfunctional society, but from the instinctive humanity struggling nevertheless to break through the fetters of
the terror perpetrated by the primitive rigour of Catholic Ireland.
‘Any Human Heart’ William Boyd
The story of Logan Mountstuart told through his intimate diaries.
‘On Beauty’ Zadie Smith
Family life, marriage, the collision of the personal and the political and people’s self-deceptions.
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat
remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the
surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra, a female orangutan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16-year-old
Indian boy.
Saturday Ian McEwan
A day in the life of successful neurosurgeon Henry Perowne,
and what a day! Amazing attention to detail in this brilliant
book.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Hailed as a masterpiece from its first publication, Revolutionary Road is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright
young couple who are bored by the banalities of suburban
life and long to be extraordinary. With heartbreaking compassion and clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April's decision to change their lives for the
better leads to betrayal and tragedy.
All my Puny Sorrows by Miriam Towes
Elf and Yoli are two smart, loving sisters. Elf is a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily
married: she wants to die. Yoli is divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men: she desperately wants
to keep her older sister alive. When Elf's latest suicide attempt leaves her hospitalised weeks before her
highly anticipated world tour, Yoli is forced to confront the impossible question of whether it is better to
let a loved one go.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story about the wild and poignant
roller-coaster days known as growing up.
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
This tragicomedy shows Coupland in his most mature form yet, writing with all his customary powers
of acute observation, but turning his attention away from the surface of modern life to the dynamics
of modern relationships. Karen, an attractive, popular student, goes into a coma one night in 1979.
Whilst in it, she gives birth to a healthy baby daughter; once out of it, a mere eighteen years later,
she finds herself, Rip van Winkle-like, a middle-aged mother whose friends have all gone through all
the normal marital, social and political traumas and back again.
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
It's July 1976. In London, it hasn't rained for months, gardens are filled with aphids, water comes
from a standpipe, and Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a
newspaper. He doesn't come back.
The Plot Against America Philip Roth
When Charles Lindbergh won the 1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in
America. He publicly blamed the Jews for pushing America towards a pointless war with Nazi Germany.
The Big Sleep’Raymond Chandler
Classic detective fiction.