ENRICHMENT
Reading lists and anthologies
Reading is such an important part of living an examined life. It will, of course, help you with your assessments in English, but it’s far more important than just that. More than any other form of media, reading helps us to understand how other people think and feel. When we watch TV or film, we look at things happening to other people; we see them from the outside. But when we read, we look out at the world through the eyes of other people; we see them from the inside. We read their minds. And this mind-reading superpower that books have helps us to understand our own minds better too. When we read, we encounter thoughts and feelings that we had thought unique to us but which we find set down by someone else. And those thoughts and feelings will be expressed better than we could ever have expressed them ourselves, so we see ourselves more clearly than we did before — and we feel less alone. This is the magic of reading.
Literature Playlists
The first part of this page is a collection of what we call Literature Playlists. Each playlist contains a manageable number of texts that you can look up and try out, like the songs in a music playlist. We’ve singled out a few in each playlist as ‘recommended reads’ for secondary school students, but you could try any of the texts in these lists that you like the sound of. You can also use them to help you find worthwhile books or writers to investigate for your super-curricular English Literature research in Year 9 and at GCSE. Just look out for the underlined writers in each playlist.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The playlists are ordered chronologically by publication date — they’re not ranked.
WARNING: Before you read any of the books in these playlists, you should have a look at a synopsis and see if you think it’s appropriate to your age and reading ability.
“I have written you down now — you will live forever. And all the world will read you and you will live forever. In eyes not yet created, on tongues that are not yet born. I have written you down now — you will live forever.”
Downloadable anthologies
The remainder of the page contains a selection of downloadable anthologies, all in PDF format, which contain short stories, poems and non-fiction pieces which you can read to help you get a sense of how to write in these forms, especially non-fiction, but also so you can discover new writers to explore and new poems outside the ones you’ll study in class — poems that speak to you. Too often students say, “I don’t like poetry,” in way they would never say, “I don’t like music.” Would you say that based solely on the music you study at school? No. So maybe you just haven’t read the right poems yet.
Anthologies of short stories
These collections of short stories were collated by SHSG English with our students in mind. They’re all short, easily digestible and enjoyable. They’re intended to be printed out in A5-size (e.g. 2 pages to each A4 page). WARNING: Several of the stories in these collections contain adult themes. They’re not intended for students in Year 7.
Anthologies of poetry
These are collections of extra-curricular poems that have been chosen to introduce students to a variety of different poets and poetic forms. They should be read and enjoyed, first and foremost. However, they may also be useful for students preparing for unseen poetry at both GCSE and A Level.
Anthologies of non-fiction
This anthology was created to help GCSE students familiarise themselves with different non-fiction forms. It will be updated with more example texts over time.