When I was asked to produce an introduction to myself for this website, I had no idea what to write. I couldn’t think of a particular moment when I realised that English was for me; there was no particular book that created my love of literature - I can’t even remember learning to read!

 

By the time I began my GCSEs, I knew that I wanted to study English at university, even though I found the GCSE course itself a little dry. I reacted by reading as many books as I could that were not on the syllabus.  My reading interests remained as perverse throughout my time in the Sixth Form, eventually prompting my exasperated A Level Literature teacher to write ‘Rachael certainly has a flair for the unusual’ on my final report.

 

When I arrived at university, I was finally free to study the texts that I wanted to, mainly literature of the Renaissance, Romantic and Victorian periods.

 

I’ve listed a few of my favourite books here, but my advice to anyone would be to read anything and everything they find interesting!

 

FOR YOUNGER READERS:

 

Helen Cresswell – Moondial

Susan Cooper – The Dark is Rising Sequence

Jenny Nimmo – The Snow Spider

Robert Swindells – Stone Cold

 

 

FOR OLDER READERS:

 

Jerome K Jerome – Three Men in a Boat

Matthew Lewis – The Monk

Wilkie Collins – The Woman in White

Alan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

John Donne - poetry