You should prepare yourself for the Lower Sixth by reading, for each of your AS Level subjects, one or more of the books on the following lists during the forthcoming summer holiday. They will give you a taste of what is to come. Some are available in departmental libraries.
Classics
|
Homer |
The Odyssey (translation, Rieu or Hammond) |
|
Virgil |
The Aeneid (translation, West) |
|
Mary Beard and John Henderson |
Classics : a very short introduction |
|
Peter Jones |
Classics in Translation |
|
Donna Tartt |
The Secret History |
|
Louis de Bernières |
Captain Corelli's Mandolin |
|
Tom Holt |
The Walled Orchard |
|
Peter France |
Greek as a Treat |
English
|
Jonathan Bate |
The Genius of Shakespeare |
|
James Joyce |
A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man |
|
Edna Longley (ed) |
The Bloodaxe book of Twentieth Century Poetry |
|
Rick Rylance (ed) |
Literature in Context |
|
Shakespeare |
Any of the major tragedies - Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello |
|
Bram Stoker |
Dracula |
Critical Thinking
|
Roy van den Brink-Budgen |
Critical Thinking for Students |
|
Anne Thomson |
Critical Reasoning: a practical introduction |
|
John Butterworth and Geoff Thwaites |
Thinking Skills |
CC has 15 copies of the Roy van den Brink-Budgen book to lend. The other two are available from the school library.
Geography
|
A. Goudie |
Environmental Change |
|
Al Gore |
Earth in Balance |
|
Bruce Chatwin |
In Patagonia |
|
Dava Sobel |
Longitude |
|
Richard Fortey |
The Hidden Landscape |
History
General :
|
N Davies |
Europe: A History |
|
K Morgan (ed) |
The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain |
|
M Howard |
War in European History |
|
Richard Evans |
In Defence of History |
Early Modern :
|
Keith Thomas |
Religion and the Decline of Magic |
|
E Cameron (ed) |
Early Modern Europe |
|
C Ross |
The Wars of the Roses |
Modern :
|
Alan Bullock |
Hitler and Stalin |
|
E J Hobsbawm |
The Age of Revolution and/or The Age of Empire and/or The Age of Capital |
French
|
Camus |
L'étranger and/or L'Exil et Le Royaume |
|
J Ardagh |
France in the New Century |
|
Guy de Maupassant |
Boule de suif et autre contes de la guerre |
|
Joseph Joffo |
Un Sac de billes |
|
Prévert |
Paroles |
|
Simenon |
Any Detective Novel |
|
Penguin Parallel Texts |
French Short Stories/Nouvelles Françaises Vol. 1. |
German
|
Frisch |
Biedermann und die Brandstifter |
|
Heinrich Böll |
Any Short Stories |
Spanish
|
John Hooper |
The Spaniards |
|
John Hooper |
Los Nuevos Españoles |
|
Ian Gibson |
Fire in the Blood |
|
E Hemingway |
For whom the Bell tolls |
|
García Márquez |
Chronicle of a death Foretold |
|
Giles Tremlett |
Ghosts of Spain |
|
Jason Webster |
'Guerra', 'Duende' and 'Andalus' |
Music
|
BBC Music Magazine |
|
|
Leonard Bernstein |
The Joy of Music |
|
Stanley Sadie (ed.) |
The Cambridge Music Guide |
|
Gunther Schuller |
Early Jazz |
|
Barry Kernfeld |
What to Listen for in Jazz |
|
Aaron Copland |
What to Listen for in Music |
|
Julian Rushton |
Classical Music: A Concise History from Gluck to Beethoven |
Religious Studies
|
Iris Murdoch |
The Nice and the Good |
|
Peter Vardy and Paul Grosch |
The Puzzle of Ethics |
|
Michael Palmer |
Moral Problems |
|
Gerd Theissen |
The Shadow of the Galilean |
|
E.P. Sanders |
The Historical Figure of Jesus |
Business Studies
The Business section of a quality Sunday newspaper (The Sunday Times, The Observer)
|
Des Dearlove |
Business The Bill Gates Way |
|
Des Dearlove |
Business The Richard Branson Way |
|
Ken Blanchard and Spencer |
|
|
Johnson |
The One Minute Manager |
|
Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul |
|
|
and Jon Christensen |
Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results |
|
Sir Alan Sugar |
The Apprentice: How to Get Hired Not Fired |
Economics
Relevant sections of a quality daily newspaper and the Business sections of the quality Sunday press e.g. The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday and The Sunday Telegraph.
|
'The Economist' magazine |
Economics & Business sections |
|
Evan Davies |
Made in Britain |
|
George Buckley & Sumeet Desai |
What you need to know about Economics |
|
John Kay |
Everlasting Light Bulbs: how economics illuminates the world |
|
Tim Harford |
The Undercover Economist (3rd edition, 2011) |
|
Tim Harford |
The Logic of Life |
|
Robert Frank |
Economic Naturalist |
|
Robert Frank |
The Return of the Economic Naturalist |
|
Edmund Conway |
50 Economic Ideas you really need to know |
Politics
Relevant sections of a quality newspaper
|
'The Economist' |
leaders, a well as sections on Britain, Europe and America in particular |
|
Jonathan Maitland |
Vote for ... who? |
|
Andrew Rawnsley |
Servants of the People |
|
Anthony Seldon |
Blair |
|
Bob Woodward |
Plan of Attack: The Road to War |
|
Michael Moore |
Dude, Where's My Country? |
Design Technology
|
Alan Goodier |
Product Design: Resistant Materials Technology |
|
Jim Lesko |
Industrial Design |
|
James Dyson |
Against the Odds |
Mathematics
|
Douglas Hofstadter |
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid |
|
Simon Singh |
The Code Book / Fermat's Last Theorem |
|
Martin Gardner |
Various titles (Penguin) |
|
D. Wells |
The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Numbers |
Science
|
Bill Bryson |
A Short History of Nearly Everything |
Chemistry
|
Philip Ball |
The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Elements |
|
Philip Ball |
Stones of the Invisible - A Guided Tour of Molecules |
|
Philip Ball |
Made to Measure: New Materials for the 21st Century |
|
Peter Atkins |
Galileo's Finger - The Ten Great Ideas of Science |
|
Peter Atkins |
The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements |
|
John Emsley |
Nature's Building Blocks: An A - Z Guide |
|
John Emsley |
Molecules at an Exhibition |
|
Paul Strathern |
Mendeleyev's Dream - The Quest for the Elements |
Physics
|
Websites |
www.nasa.gov and www.particleadventure.org |
|
Scientific American |
|
|
Larry Gonick & Art Huffman |
Cartoon Guide to Physics |
|
Frank Close |
The Particle Explosion (OUP) |
|
Jay Ingram |
The barmaids Brain (Aurum Press) |
|
John Fauvel |
Le Newton Be! |
|
Day and Catlow |
The Candle Revisited |
|
John Gribbin |
In Search of Schrödinger's Cat |
|
Hawking |
The Universe in a Nutshell |
|
Feynman |
The Character of Physical Law |
|
Gleick |
Genius (Biography of Richard Feynman) |
|
Gleick |
Chaos |
|
Icon Books |
Introducing Newton; Introducing Quantum Theory; Introducing Einstein; |
|
Introducing Relativity; Introducing Chaos; Introducing Hawking |
Biology
|
Richard Dawkins |
River out of Eden |
|
Steve Jones |
'Y' |
|
Oliver Sacks |
The Island of the Colour |
|
Paul Colinvaux |
Why Big, Fierce Animals are Rare |
|
Matt Ridley |
Genome |
|
Christopher McGowan |
Diatoms to Dinosaurs |
|
Susan Greenfield |
The Human Brain |
|
Brian Sykes |
The Seven Daughters of Eve / Adam's Curse |
|
Laurence Wright |
Twins |
|
Christopher Zimmer |
Parasite Rex |
|
John Colapinto |
As Nature Made Him |
Art
|
E.H. Gombrich |
The Story of Art |
|
Richard Rogers |
Cities for a Small Planet |
|
Robert Hughes |
The Shock of the New |
|
Matthew Collings |
This is Modern Art |
|
Ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright |
The Penguin Book of Art History Writing |
Computing
|
Jon Bentley (US edition) |
Programming Pearls |
|
Thomas Cormen et al |
Introduction to Algorithms |
|
Steven Pinker |
How the Mind Works |
|
Roger Penrose |
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind |
|
Brian Greene (UK or US edition) |
The Elegant Universe |
|
Ray Kurzweil (paperback or cloth) |
The Age of Intelligent Machines |
|
Ray Kurzweil (US edition) |
The Age of Spiritual Machines |
If you are serious about Computer Science and advanced programming in particular, you may wish to look at the recommended Computer Science literature for the International Olympiad in Informatics at http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/study/books.html
Theatre
|
Peter Brook |
Empty Space |
|
Konstantin Stanislavski |
An Actor Prepares |
|
Antonin Artaud |
The Theatre and its Double |
|
Timberlake Wertenbaker |
Our Country's Good |
|
Harold Pinter |
The Homecoming |
|
Bertholt Brecht |
Mother Courage and her Children |
|
Henrik Ibsen |
A Doll's House |
|
Alexkis Sierz |
In yer Face Theatre |
|
E. Braun |
The Director and the Stage |
|
A. Sher |
Year of the King |
|
Martin McDonagh |
The Pillowman |
|
Sarah Kane |
Collected Plays |