Teach-Secondary-14.1

Off the Shelves Brilliant titles for you and your students to explore Dickens:TheFunnyBits (Cruickshank (Ed.) andNickHornby (Foreword),Bodleian,£16.99) Asmost people will know, a great many of Dickens’ imaginative characters have entered the popular imagination – from Oliver Twist, toMrMicawber and, of course, Scrooge. But howmany have read the original works fromwhence those characters came? This book provides a potentially helpful way in. In line with the English Programme of Study’s requirement that students be encouraged to choose and read books independently for challenge, interest and enjoyment, this compendiumpulls together some of Dickens’more humorous passages, in a way that maywell compel students to seek out the original works. If nothing else, these extracts are still worth reading in their own right, as some remain consistently funny, even well over a century after theywere written. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman (see bit.ly/Eclecticismformore details) Hitler’sPeople–TheFacesofthe ThirdReich (RichardJ.Evans,AllenLane,£35) Nearly a hundred years after the rise of Nazism, people still are asking that key question – how could such apparently ordinary, and sometimes even highly cultured people commit such terrible crimes? Evans draws on previous studies into Nazism’s origins and subsequent growth,while pulling in additional material and insights that have come to light since, to produce a highly readable, extremely detailed andwell-organised set of character studies that can be examined in any order. Said studies pertain to Hitler himself, his paladins, Nazism’s enforcers and its instruments,with Evans appearing to argue that even themost sophisticated people can becomemonsters if influenced bymalign attitudes, in an era when acting upon those attitudes is actively encouraged.That said, he also notes howmany of those involvedwere additionallymotivated by personal ambition and greed, as well as blind adherence to a fanatic. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman LiteraryJourneys:Mapping FictionalTravelsacrosstheWorld ofLiterature (JohnMcMurtrie (Ed),Princeton,£25) Over the course of 75 separate essays, this sumptuous book serves as a beautifully illustrated guide to the worlds and social backgrounds presented by a wide variety of books. Divided into several sections – ‘Quests and explorations’, ‘The age of travel’, ‘Postmodernmovements’ and ‘Contemporary crossings – the featuredworks span 725 BCE to the present day. Each essay presents an overview of the book in question,with biographical details concerning the author. Each entry is only a fewpages long, sometimes with accompanying illustrations, but they still succeed as being good introductions to some seminal texts, and stimulating springboards for classroom discussion. Given the wealth of knowledge it contains, the book represents great value for money, and fully deserves a place on every English department’s bookshelves. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman 34 teachwire.net/secondary