Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When I was in Year 9 my favourite band were a “progressive metal” band from Canada called Rush. My favourite song was called Xanadu. I found out that it was a reworking of a poem by an English poet called Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Even better, he was mates with William Wordsworth, lived in the Lake District and lived like a rock star. The poem on which the song Xanadu is based is called Kubla Khan. It’s my favourite of his poems, obviously. It was written in, shall we say, circumstances that might not be unknown to some modern rock stars. Words from the poem Frost at Midnight are carved into the steps where you hire rowing boats at Keswick. Read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner if you’ve got lots of time. (Iron Maiden did a song based on that!) Coleridge turned me into a Romantic (as opposed to romantic – there is a difference). And he’s my hero because he’s the first person recorded as descending Broad Stand on Scafell. He fell down it and lived to tell the tale.

INTRODUCING PHILOSOPHY: A Graphic Guide

I love this series of books. They use graphic art (a sort of comic book look) to break up the text. I can assure you that the ideas have not been dumbed down but they are easier to digest, especially if visual layout helps you to think more clearly.

Philosophy is important. It asks questions like “how can we know anything?” Like “what does it mean to exist?” Like “what does it mean to be good?”

These questions and more are covered along with the important thinkers who attempted to answer the questions.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

 

 

 

Read this book if you like a mystery.

 

 

Fancy being called Piscine Molitor Patel all the way through school! So he shortens his name to Pi. His parents run the local zoo in the French bit of India. They decide to sell up and move to Canada. The animals are loaded onto a boat (Noah’s Ark metaphor??). The boat sinks in a storm and Pi ends up in a lifeboat with a tiger. You know all that because you saw the film trailers. But what’s really going on? Is the story literal reality? Has he lied to cover up a horror? Is it that the trauma of bereavement and loneliness has messed with his mind? Is this really a book about religion? Is Pi a hero or a villain? The reason I loved it was because there are lots of questions! Please let me know if you understand it because my household wants answers...

 

 

Borrow it from the school library and read it. I dare you.