Walworth Academy Reading List Contents: Why We Read Page 2 Classics Page 4 Science Fiction Page 6 Humour/Horror Page 8 Crime/Thriller/War/Adventure Page 9 Romance/Autobiography/Travel Page 10 Sports Fiction Page 11 You can find these books at the school library or your local library. East Street Library 68-170 Old Kent Road London SE1 5TY Opening times Monday 2pm to 7pm Tuesday 2pm to 7pm Wednesday Closed Thursday 10am to 3pm Friday 2pm to 7pm Saturday 10am to 5pm Sunday closed 1
Why We Read Reading is extremely important in developing academically, socially and personally. At Walworth Academy we expect all students to read for at least 30 minutes per day and below are some of the reasons we take this reading so seriously (sourced from whytoread.com): 1. To Develop Your Verbal Abilities Although it doesn t always make you a better communicator, those who read tend to have a more varied range of words to express how they feel and to get their point across. This increases exponentially with the more volumes you consume, giving you a higher level of vocabulary to use in everyday life. 2. Improves Your Focus and Concentration Unlike blog posts and news articles, sitting down with a book takes long periods of focus and concentration, which at first is hard to do. Being fully engaged in a book involves closing off the outside world and immersing yourself into the text, which over time will strengthen your attention span. 3. Readers Enjoy The Arts and Improve The World A study done by the NEA explains that people who read for pleasure are many times more likely than those who do not to visit museums and attend concerts, and almost three times as likely to perform volunteer and charity work. Readers are active participants in the world around them, and that engagement is critical to individual and social well-being. 4. It Improves Your Imagination You are only limited by what you can imagine, and the worlds described in books, as well as other people s views and opinions, will help you expand your understanding of what is possible. By reading a written description of an event or a place, your mind is responsible for creating that image in your head, instead of having the image placed in front of you when you watch television. 5. Reading Makes You More Intelligent Books offer an outstanding wealth of learning and at a much cheaper price than taking a course. Reading gives you a chance to consume huge amount of research in a relatively short amount of time. Anne E. Cunningham and Keith E. Stanovich s What Reading Does for the Mind also noted that heavy readers tend to display greater knowledge of how things work and who or what people were. Books at home have been strongly linked to academic 2
achievement. If you are looking for a list of great books to read, check out 10 Easy To Read Books That Make You Smarter. 6. It Makes You Interesting and Attractive This goes hand in hand with reading to become smarter. Having a library of information that you have picked up from non-fiction reading will come in handy in any academic or scholarly conversation. You will be able to hold your own and add to the conversation instead of having to make your excuses and leave. You will be able to engage a wider variety of people in conversation and in turn improve your knowledge and conversation skills. 7. It Reduces Stress A study by consultancy firm Mindlab International at the University of Sussex showed that reading reduces stress. Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started. 8. It Improves Your Memory In their book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf explains that Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language when you watch a film or listen to a tape, you don t press pause. The benefits of this increased activity keeps your memory sharp and your learning capacity nimble. This reading list should give you lots of ideas based around genres you enjoy. If you re not sure which books are suitable for you ask your English teacher to help you choose a book that s appropriately challenging. 9. To Discover and Create Yourself In his book How to Read and Why, Harold Bloom says that we should read slowly, with love, openness, and with our inner ear cocked. He explains we should read to increase our wit and imagination, our sense of intimacy in short, our entire consciousness and also to heal our pain. Until you become yourself, what benefit can you be to others. With the endless amount of perspectives and lives we can read about, books can give us an opportunity to have experiences that we haven t had the opportunity to, and still allow us to learn the life skills they entail. Books are a fast track to creating yourself. 10. For Entertainment All the benefits of reading mentioned so far are a bonus result of the most important benefit of reading; Its entertainment value. If it were not for the entertainment value, reading would be a chore but it needn t be. Reading is not only fun, but it has all the added benefits that we have discussed so far. Much more enthralling than watching a movie or a TV show (although they have their many benefits as well), a good book can keep us amused while developing our life skills. 3
The following reading list should help you choose appropriate texts in a genre you like. If you re not sure whether a book will be suitably challenging, ask your English teacher to help you pick the right book for you. Classics (A big challenge) Author Alcott, Louisa May Austen, Jane Baum, L Frank Bronte, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Caroll, Lewis Doyle, Arthur Conan Dickens, Charles Selection of titles Little Women Emma; Sense and Sensibility; Mansfield Park; Northanger Abbey; Persuasion; Pride and Prejudice Wizard of Oz Jane Eyre Wuthering Heights Alice in Wonderland Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Casebook of Sherlock Holmes; Redheaded League; Speckled Band Oliver Twist; Great Expectations Eliot, George Middlemarch; Mill on the Floss Du Maurier, Daphne Fitzgerald, F Scott Flaubert, Gustav Grahame, Kenneth Hardy, Thomas Kipling, Rudyard L Engle, Madeleine Lewis, C S Stevenson, Robert Louis Verne, Jules Jamaica Inn The Great Gatsby Madame Bovary The Wind in the Willows Far from the Madding Crowd; Tess of the d Urbervilles The Jungle Book A Wrinkle in Time The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Treasure Island; Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Kidnapped Journey to the Centre of the Earth 4
Modern Classics/Challenging Reads Boyne, John Dahl, Roald De Foe, Daniel Golding, William Martel, Yann The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Robinson Crusoe Lord of the Flies The Life of Pi Orwell, George Animal Farm; 1984 Ransome, Arthur Salinger, J. D. Steinbeck, John Tolkein, J. R. R. Wells, H. G. Wyndham, John Swallows and Amazons The Catcher in the Rye Of Mice and Men The Hobbit; Lord of the Rings Complete Short Stories; Time Machine Day of the Triffids; Chocky; The Chrysallids Modern/Current Issues Almond, David Skelig; Blackman, Malorie Brooks, Kevin Burgess,Melvin Chambers, Aidan Cormier, Robert Cross, Gillian Doherty, Bertie Gibbons, Alan Gray, Keith Haddon, Mark Holm, Anne Almond Eyes; Kit s Wilderness Noughts and Crosses; Tell Me No Lies Martyn Pig Junk; Bloodtide Postcards From No Man s Land Chocolate War; Other Bells For Us To Ring; We All Fall Down Tightrope Dear Nobody The Lost Boys Appreciation Society From Blood Two Brothers The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time I am David 5
Hooper, Mary Amy; Megan; Megan 2 Hornby, Nick Newbery, Linda Pielichaty Helena Rai, Bali Sachar, Louis Swindells, Robert Syal, Meera Westall, Robert Wilson, Jacqueline Wooding, Chris Whyman, Matt Zephaniah, Benjamin About a Boy; Fever Pitch; High Fidelity The Shell House; Sisterland Jade s Story; Getting Rid of Karenna; Never Ever The Crew; Rani and Sukh; (Un)arranged marriage Holes Dosh; Stone Cold; Smash Anita and Me Love Match; Machine Gunners Bad Girls; The Illustrated Mum; Falling Apart Crashing; Endgame; Kerosene Boy Kills Man Face; Gangsta Rap; Refugee Boy Science Fiction/Fantasy Adams, Douglas Clarke, Arthur C. Colfer, Eoin Suzanne Collins Crichton, Michael Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy (series) 2001: a Space Odyssey; Artemis Fowl series; The Wish List The Hunger Games (trilogy) Jurassic Park; Lost World; Prey; Next Curley, Marianne Dashner, James Donaldson, Stephen Dickinson, John Eddings, David Gaiman, Neil Grant, Michael Grant, Rob Guardians of Time The Maze Runner (series) Lord Foul s Bane; The Illearth War The Cup of the World Belgarath the Sorcerer; Polgara the Sorceress Neverwhere Gone (series) Backwards; Colony 6
Hawking, Lucy & Prof Hearn, Lian Higson, Charlie Robin Hobb Hoffman, Mary Horowitz, Anthony Howarth, Lesley Jaques, Brian George s Secret key to the Universe Across the Nightingale Floor; Grass for his Pillow The Enemy (series); Young Bond series Assassin s Apprentice (trilogy) Stravaganza (series) Power of 5 series Carwash; Maphead; Paulina; The Pits Redwall series McCaughrean, Geraldine Kite Rider; The Stones are Hatching McKenzie, Sophie Meyer, Stephenie Ness, Patrick Nicholson, William Nix, Garth Paolini, Christopher Pascal, Francine Patterson, James Paver, Michelle Pratchett, Terry Pullman, Philip Rees, Celia Reeve, Philip Rowling, J. K Sedgwick, Marcus Stroud, Jonathan Thompson, Kate Wells, H. G. Medusa Project (series); Sister, Missing (series) Twilight (series) The Knife of Never Letting Go (trilogy) Wind on Fire series Mister Monday series; Sabriel (trilogy) Eragon (trilogy) Fearless series Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Jingo; Mort; Sourcery; Small Gods; Johnny and the Bomb Northern Lights series; Clockwork The Bailey Game; Blood Sinister; Sorceress; the Vanished Mortal Engines, etc Harry Potter series The Dark Horse Bartimaeus Trilogy The Switchers trilogy; Origins series Time Machine 7
Humour Abdel-Fattah, Randa Asquith, Ros Andy Griffiths Morris Gleitzman, Cabot, Meg Davidson, Gina Fielding, Helen Gleitzman, Morris Gray, Keith Green, Julia Jennings, Paul Kinney, Jeff Rennison, Louise Does My Head Look Big In This? I Was a Teenage Worrier; The Teenage Worrier s Guide to Life Zombie Bums from Uranus Blabber Mouth Princess Diaries series What Treasure Did Next Bridget Jones Diary Two Weeks With the Queen Malarkey Blue Moon Uncanny!; Unseen! Diary of a Wimpy kid (series) Geogia Nicholson series Rushton, Rosie How Could You Do this To Me Mum? Just Don t Make a Scene Mum; Best Friends Getting Sorted; Jessica Townsend, Sue Whytock, Cherry Adrian Mole series Angel: Haggis Horrors and Heavenly Bodies Horror Cole, Stephen The Wereling series Herbert, James Ghosts of Sleath; 48 King, Stephen Pike, Christopher Sedgewick, Marcus Shan, Darren Westall Robert, Shearer, Alex Stine, R L Bag of Bones; Christine; Dolores Claiborne; Rose Madder Last Vampire series My Swordhand is singing Saga of Darren Shan (series); Zom-B (series Shades of Darkness The Hunted; The Lost Goosebumps series 8
Crime/Thriller/War/Adventure Christie, Agatha Clancy, Tom Clark, Mary Cornwell, Bernard Cussler, Clive Dexter, Colin Doyle, Arthur Conan Francis, Dick Gilman, David Gleitzman, Morris Grisham, John Guterson, David Harris, Robert Harris, Thomas Higson, Charlie Horowitz, Anthony James, P. D. Kacer, Kathy Rose, Malcolm Ryan, Chris Seymour, Gerald Shearer, Alex Pullman, Philip Various Clear & Present Danger; End Game; Hunt for the Red October Higgins Remember Me; We ll Meet Again Sharpe series Flood Tide; Iceberg; Inca Gold; Pacific Vortex Daughters of Cain; The Dead of Jericho; Last Seen Wearing The Mystery of Cloomber Banker; Bolt; Come to Grief; Field of 113; High Stakes Ice Claw Gone (series) The Brethren; The Chamber; The Client; Rainmaker; Time to Kill Snow Falling on Cedars Enigma; Fatherland Hannibal; Red Dragon; Silence of the Lambs Young Bond series Alex Rider series Various The Underground Reporters Concrete Evidence; Breathing Fear; Lawless and Tilley Alpha-Force; the Hit List; Agent 21 (series) Traitor s Kiss; Rat run Bootleg various 9
Romance Dunbar, Fiona Esquivel, Laura Freer, Echo Rayban, Chloë Rennison, Louise Rix, Jamie Shepard, Sara Ure, Jean The Truth Cookie Like Water for Chocolate Blaggers Terminal Chic Georgia Nicholson series Johnny Casanova series Pretty little Liars Just Sixteen; Love is Forever Autobiography Dahl, Roald Durrell, Gerald Frank, Anne Holmes, Kelly Khan, Amir Mandela, Nelson McCourt, Frank Panesar, Monty Pelzer, Dave Lampard, Frank Gerrard, Steven Boy: Tales of Childhood My Family and Other Animals Diary of Anne Frank Black, White & Gold A Boy from Bolton Long Walk to Freedom Angela s Ashes; Tis Monty s Turn A Child Called it (series) Totally Frank Gerrard My Autobiography Travel Bryson, Bill Palin, Michael Lost Continent; Neither Here Nor There; Notes from a Small Island Pole to Pole; Full Circle 10
Sports Fiction Barker, Dominic Bowler, Tim Dhami, Narinder Flint, Helen Forde, Catherine Hornby, Nick Maekawa, Takeshi Paul, Bette Peet, Mal Redmond, Diane Riordan, James Rushton, Rosie Voigt, Cynthia Sharp Shot Shadows Bend it like Beckham Not Just Dancing Fat Boy Swim Fever Pitch Kung Fu Boy Becca s Race Keeper United! Young Oxford Book of Football Stories Break Point The Runner 11