Monthly Archives: April 2018

The Secret Keepers

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The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart

Book of the Week: 29 April 2018

Illustration by Karl James Mountford

Our book this week has been chosen by Dan, who has been a student library assistant since 2016. This is his introduction to the plot:

“It’s the summer holiday in the lower downs of New Umbra and 11-year-old Reuben doesn’t have a lot to do while his mom is at one of her jobs in the city. He’s a loner who likes to sneak around town like a spy and find ways not to be noticed. One day, he finds himself in a very narrow alley avoiding the attention of mafia-like enforcers called ‘the directions’ and decides to climb as high as he can to try and escape. Up on a ledge he finds a mysterious package and nearly falls trying to bring it down. A watch is inside, but it’s not like any watch he’s ever seen – beyond the strange metal, it only has one hand. It also has a secret power: invisibility.”

Trenton Lee Stewart is best known for his Mysterious Benedict Society series that feature clever children solving puzzles in stories that are a mix of mystery and adventure. If you would like to read more, his publisher’s page is here.

 

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The Choice Factory

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The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton

Book of the Week: 22 April 2018

Cover design by Christopher Parker

In 1990 … Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist at Stanford University … split participants into two groups: tappers and listeners. The first group chose a song and then, without revealing its name, they tapped out the rhythm for the listeners to guess. The tappers estimated the probability of the song being recognised at 50%. They were wildly wrong. Of the 120 songs in the experiment on 2.5% were identified correctly. What causes the gap between prediction and reality? Well, when the tapper beats out their tune they can’t help but hear the song play through their head. However, all the listener hears, in the words of the psychologist Chip Heath, ‘is a bunch of disconnected taps, like a kind of bizarre Morse Code’.

This is an example of how we fall victim to ‘the curse of knowledge’ and find it difficult to imagine not knowing something that we know.

The Choice Factory has 25 short chapters that relate a named behavioural bias to fictional incidents in a working day. Each one is illuminated by academic case studies that provide evidence along with suggestions for practical applications. Richard Shotton’s approach is conversational and accessible rather than ‘dry textbook’ and it is a book that can be dipped in and out of because each chapter is self-contained. A fascinating book for anyone who studies business, marketing or behavioural economics but psychology students, and anyone interested in how we make consumer choices, will find it an entertaining read.

Outwalkers

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Outwalkers by Fiona Shaw

Book of the Week: 15 April 2018

Cover illustration by Levi Pinfold

Outwalkers are the opposite of ‘bona fides’ and have four main rules:
1. No technology
2. Be outside
3. Be hidden
4. Obedience to the gang

If you are a bona fide citizen of England you live by the Coalition government’s rules. Everyone has a chip implanted at birth and the country is a police state with ‘hubbers’ enforcing the law. Food banks are common, there is a wall between England and Scotland and travel is for a small number of the rich and government officials. Jake is an orphan, therefore his fate was to be educated in an academy, a place run more like a prison than a school. He manages to escape because he is worried about his beloved dog, Jet, who is being cared for by neighbours. Whilst on the run he teams up unwillingly with a gang of outwalkers: Poacher, Swift, Martha, Cass, Davie and Ollie and they set out to walk to Scotland and freedom.

The plot is packed with incident and there are some extremely tense set pieces, mostly involving climbing.  Alongside the tension and excitement is the story of Jake’s grief, longing for home and his parents, and love for his faithful dog.

If you enjoyed The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness this is definitely a book to try.

 

The Warwickshire Book Award 2018

The final week of last term saw us attend the Warwickshire Book Award. There were some excellent books on the shortlist: The Hypnotist by Laurence Anholt, Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean, Lie Kill Walk Away by Matt Dickinson, A Dangerous Crossing by Jane Mitchell, 928 Miles From Home by Kim Slater and The Haunting of Jessop Rise by Danny Weston.

These are all available to borrow from the Library.

The winning author was Matt Dickinson with Lie Kill Walk Away which was Book of the Week back in February.