Bookworm winter 2016

The BEST Books and Movies of the Year chosen by students staff and some of the BEST writers in the country….

Welcome to our end of year Bookworm.

I have to admit it has been a bit of a rush to put this together so apologies in advance if I’ve missed YOUR contribution out.

I’ve tried hard not to but I suspect I’ve lost a few snippets anyway.

Students, staff, authors and librarians have all contributed to these pages and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.

Over 80 students from all our year groups contributed to our book of the Year poll. Incredibly you chose over 70 different books! If that isn’t testament to the richness and diversity of reading at Swanshurst….I don’t know what is.

I’ll try and get some extra detail on our blog after the holiday.

CONTENTS P4 - YOUR books of the Year P10 - Mia’s Year of Reading Dangerously P14 - Mr B’s YA books of the year P16 - Ms Yates’ YA books of the year P18 - Author’s books of the Year P24 - Films of the year P28 - Swanshurst Cultural highlights!

We love end of year lists in publications like The Guardian and Sight and Sound. If you want EVEN more recommendations than the ones we’ve given you here then you can check them out too:  Guardian Best 50 films  Guardian Best Fiction You can follow the links from there to loads more ‘Best of’ lists.

So many authors took time out to post their best books of the year on Twitter for us.

Thank you so much for adding to the joy, enthusiasm and wonder in these pages.

All the YA recommendations are to be found on pages 18-23. Where an author chose a more ‘adult’ title I’ve included them on a different page (9).

Big Love to Emma Craigie, Sage Blackwood, James Smythe and Kit de Waal for your fantastic suggestions.

Year 7 

Percy Jackson & the Titan’s Curse—Rick Riordan

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Katy—Jacqueline Wilson

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I knew You Were Trouble—Paige Toon

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The Boy at the Top of the Mountain— John Boyne

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You Killed Me—Keith Gray

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Dork Diaries: Party Time—Rachel Renee Russell

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Nerve—Jeanne Ryan

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Best Friends—Jacqueline Wilson

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Gangsta Granny—David Walliams

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Evermore—Alyson Noel

Year 8 

After Eden—Helen Douglas

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Username: Evie—Joe Sugg

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The Hollow Boy—Jonathan Stroud

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Girl Online: On Tour—Zoe Sugg

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Murder Most Unladylike—Robin Stevens

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Dork Diaries: Frenemies Forever—Rachel

Renee Russell 

Blink and You Die—Lauren Child

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Vampire Diaries—Richelle Mead

Year 9 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling

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These Shallow Graves—Jennifer Donnelly

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Shiver—Maggie Stiefvater

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Half Blood—Jennifer L Armentrout

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Pure—Jennifer L Armentrout

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Jet Black Hearts—Teresa Flavin

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Possessed—Kate Cann

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Demon Dentist—David Walliams

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Knife– RJ Anderson

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—JK Rowling

Year 10 

The Art of Being Normal—Lisa

Williamson 

Am I Normal Yet? - Holly Bourne

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The Secret Garden—Frances Hodgson

Burnett 

The Crystal Star—Catherine Fisher

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Lord of the Flies—William Golding

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Vendetta (and Inferno) - Catherine Doyle

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We Were Liars—E Lockhart

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Girl Online—Zoe Sugg

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The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins

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Everything Everything—Nicola Yoon

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Animal Farm—George Orwell

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The List—Siobhan Vivian

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Butterfly Lion—Michael Morpurgo

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The Bone Sparrow—Zana Fraillon

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Defender of the Realm—Nick Ostler &

Mark Huckerby 

The Heir—Kiera Cass

Year 11 

Every Day—David Levithan

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Matched—Ally Condie

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Hunting Lila—Sarah Alderson

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The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins

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Fallen—Lauren Kate

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The Hunger Games—Suzanne Collins

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The Rest of Us Just Live Here—Patrick Ness

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Railhead—Philip Reeve

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1984—George Orwell

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling

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Swift—RJ Anderson

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Arsenic for Tea—Robin Stevens

Staff AND authors 

Golden Hill—Francis Spufford

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The Vegetarian—Han Kang

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Autumn—Ali Smith

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The Sunlight Pilgrims—Jenni Fagan

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Days Without End—Sebastian Barry

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Between the World and Me—TaNahesi Coates



The Underground Railway– Colson Whitehead



A Closed and Common Orbit- Becky Chambers

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Weatherland– Alexandra Harris



The Wonder—Emma Donaghue

Mia K’s Year of Reading Dangerously 2016 has been a very strange year of reading for me. This has been for several reasons.

Firstly, exams. Enough said.

Secondly, years of purchasing hardbacks has left me broke. As in, can-only-affordratty-one-penny-plus-postage-mass-market-paperbacks broke. Hardbacks cost money. Therefore, very few of the books I read this year were new, or in fact, published in the last five years.

Thirdly, this year has involved the reading of large amounts of fantasy and speculative fiction. For some strange, unfathomable reason, 2016 has caused me to be strongly drawn towards fictional realities in which cutting off the heads of tyrants is still an entirely legitimate enterprise.

Can’t possibly imagine why that might be.

Keeping those things in mind, it makes quite a lot of sense that January began with a Game of Thrones reading marathon, and in the following months I continued to read and love quite a lot of books in the epic fantasy vein: Robin Hobb (particularly her Liveship Traders trilogy); Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind; Scott Lynch’s ridiculously clever The Lies of Locke Lamora, just to name a few of the best.

Another genre with a surplus of vanquished tyrants and lots of beheading is, of course, historical fiction. Between Plantagenet royalty, revolutionary Scotsmen and castrated opera singers, I read far too much of the stuff to count, but I couldn’t fail to mention the incomparable Dorothy Dunnett, whom nobody seems to have heard of despite her undeniable (and often entirely perplexing) brilliance. I read the first two books of her Lymond Chronicles and am now powering through book one of her eight-book House of Niccolò series (again, the words perplexing and brilliant are all too applicable). Speaking of blockbuster historical eight-book series, the revolutionary themes of Outlander, while not exactly high literature, served to cheer me up no end.

But sometimes the sheer misery of this cursed year made it necessary to resort to books so light that, while reading them, you can kid yourself that your heart is actually still in your chest and not being trampled under the feet of stampeding politicians trying to escape the political vacuum that now encompasses most of the Western World. P.G. Wodehouse burst onto the scene on November 9th and, with a few select Jeeves and Wooster novels, reminded me why he is one of my favourite comfort authors ever (the Code of the Woosters single-handedly restored my faith in the human race). I also adored the wonderful Diana Wynne Jones’ Derkholm duology, two of my favourites from her.

The truly lovely Among Others by Jo Walton got me reading several of the books mentioned within its pages: I particularly loved The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and Plato’s Republic, and the dragons in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels got me ridiculously excited. While we’re on the topic of sci-fi, I finally got around to reading Fever Crumb and Railhead by Philip Reeve, who was as brilliant and weird as I remembered, and China Mieville’s Embassytown, which was incredible and quite possibly my favourite from him yet. Claire North’s Touch was another novel I’d been meaning to read for ages, along with Lirael by Garth Nix, and both exceeded my ever-high expectations.

Jenni Fagan’s new novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims, came out this year, and made me just as much of an emotional wreck as her brilliant debut, which in itself is quite a feat. Frost in May by Antonia White was an unexpectedly perfect winter read, and it made me feel much happier about the comparatively merciful tests and challenges I face at my own school. Another book to tug at the heartstrings was the beautiful, tragic phantasmagoria that was Catherynne M. Valente’s retelling of Russian folklore, Deathless; by the end I was practically sobbing (and yet I still have almost no idea what happened).

Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series was incredible and the series protagonist, Eugenides, might be my favourite character ever. (And book 5 is coming out in a few months… only seven years after the last one.)

Finally, I cannot finish without talking about Theophile Gautier’s fantastic Mademoiselle de Maupin. If I was forced to choose a favourite book of this year, it would probably be this one—not because I liked it more than the others, but because it exists on a scale which is exclusively its own. Published in 1835 and inspired by the exploits of the real-life Mademoiselle de Maupin, it is at once a wickedly funny satire of French society, a treatise on the existence of beauty that would do Socrates proud, and the earliest LGBT+ novel I have ever read. And nobody has heard of it. But I loved it with a passion, and am going to stop talking now because this could realistically go on all day.

See overleaf!

Love Fantasy? Then let Mia provide you with inspiration for those long

A special shout out for these books

by Non Pratt and Anne Cassidy that went down a storm with our Young Editor’s group.

Thanks to all the brilliant authors who responded to Ms Yates’ call on Twitter. We’re really proud that so many of you are willing to take time out for Swanshurst.

Tanya Landman

The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Jane Elson

Binny Keeps a Secret by Hilary McKay

Helen Dennis

My Brother is a Superhero by David Solomons

Gill Lewis Unfeathered Bird by Katrina von Grouw

Sufiya Ahmed Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence

Hilary McKay

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell Swimming to the Moon by Jane Elson

Melinda Salisbury

The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner

Emma Carroll

The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock Lydia: The Wild Girl of Pride & Prejudice by Natasha Farrant

Non Pratt

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Kathryn Evans

One by Sarah Crossan Instructions for a Second Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray The Island by Olivia Levez Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D Schmidt Book of Lies by Teri Terry

Lara Williamson

One by Sarah Crossan Instructions for a Second Hand Heart by Tamsyn Murray The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aitken

Karen McCombie

Little Bits of Sky by SE Durrant

Jeff Zentner The First Time she Drowned by Kerry Kletter

Chris Priestley

The Double Axe by Philip Womack

David Solomans

Who Let the Gods Out by Mary Evans

Cathy Cassidy One by Sarah Crossan

Katherine Rundell

Perijee & Me by Ross Montgomery

K Millwood Hargrave

Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff The Sleeping Prince by Melinda Salisbury Furthermore by Tahereh Mafif

Holly Bourne

When We Collided by Emery Lord

Alwyn Hamilton

The Winner’s Kiss by Narie Rutkoski

Anne Cassidy

Twenty Questions for Gloria by Martin Bedford

Chris Riddell

Geis -A Matter of Life And Death by Alexis Deacon.

Ruth Eastham

Time Travelling with a Hamster by Ross Welford

Narinder Dhami

Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes

Natasha Farrant

The Secret of Nightingale Wood by Lucy Strange

Robin Talley

You Know Me Well by by Nina LaCour & David Levithan

Keris Stainton

Cuckoo by Keren David

Mary Hooper

Blade and Bone by Catherine Johnson No Virgin by Anne Cassidy

Matt Whyman Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

A Colleen Jones

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

Jo Cotterill

Lockwood & Co: The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud

Ally Sherrick

Black Arts by Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil

Tamsyn Murray

The One We Fell In Love With by Paige Toon

Pretty Good Year. Overleaf you’ll find a slightly more friendly selection of films - the favourites of students and staff. BUT...if you want the definitive BEST OF 2016 LIST here it is! Perhaps I’m yelling into the void but I do it in the hope a NEW Khadija will step forward to take on her mantle.

Twelve great films - 2 family films, 2 horror films, 2 documentaries and six others that will take you from Turkey to China, from small-town USA to Auschwitz in 1944 and from the Amazon river to the American wilderness in 1823.

Try watching Fire at Sea, an amazing film about the island of Lampedusa where thousands of refugees land each year or 13th, a brilliant film about the USA’s racist prison system.

I saw The Witch back in March but I can still recall images from this brilliant, unsettling feminist horror. I love a good family film and Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the best I’ve seen for many years. It’s a very funny and moving tale about a wayward boy who meets his match in a misanthropic mountain man. It becomes a crazy adventure as the two find companionship and a measure of peace together. [Mr B]

Fair play Swanshurst—this is a great selection of films too. I enjoyed most of them so I won’t be grumpy AT ALL. Room and Spotlight are the most challenging films and are both 15 certificates. If you’re old enough however you’ll see why they did well at the Oscars. In many years Queen of Katwe and Kubo and the Two Strings might have reached my top 12. We also want to give a little shout-out for The Edge of Seventeen. A good teen comedy drama is hard to find in any year but this does the job. Every body I’ve spoken to loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and many of you are looking forward to Rogue One. Crossing my fingers for that AND Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt out next week.

Mr B saw Grimes, Beyonce and Rihanna within the space of a fortnight and Ms Marsden saw Bruce Springsteen!

Ms Dickenson recommends the book and others liked the film!

What did you listen to this year? Frank Ocean? The Weeknd?

Solange?

Radiohead?

Check out The Guardian’s Best Music of the Year for some new ideas.

People LOVED the Beyond Carravaggio exhibition in London (finishes 15th Jan)

Mr Allberry loved Stranger Things on Netflix and is giddy with anticipation and excitement over Rogue One.

Mr Black enjoyed SF old and new: Arrival and Helliconia.