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Library and Information Resources
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Author comes to school - Carmen Reid
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L4 were treated to a wonderful hour in the company of Carmen Reid who talked to them about her journey to becoming a writer. She is currently working on a series of books for teenagers, set in a girls’ boarding school called ‘St Jude’s’. The fourth book is due out in June. Carmen read an extract from one of the books to give the girls a quick taster, although many have already discovered the series, followed by a lively and exhaustive question and answer session and book signing. It was lovely to listen to someone to whom books and reading have always been an integral part of her life. I hope the girls will be motivated to follow her example. She has promised to put together a list of her best reads for the girls which I will publish on the library site. The library has purchased 2 copies of the first 3 books in the St Jude's series which should be on the shelves by the end of the week!
To give you a flavour of Carmen I have reproduced below some quotes from her website which show her wonderful common sense views on very relevant teenage issues and life in general.
Boarding School
‘Four of my crucial teen years were spent boarding at a school just like St J’s - it was St G’s. Now the first two years were hell. No other word for it. I was miserably homesick. I missed my Mum, my Dad, my little sisters, my dog, having my own room, the countryside, everything… just miserably. Those were two of the worst years of my life. I found the girls at St G’s mainly snobby and unfriendly and the school so cold, bossy and uninspiring compared with the (somewhat Hogwarts like) school I’d been to before.
But then I got older, I came out of my shell, I got used to boarding school, made some great friends and the last two years were much better.’
Reading as a teenager
I was Miss Artsy-Boho as a teenager and a bookaholic. My favourite reads were: Tess of the D’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy, On The Road by Jack Kerouac, Hamlet (yes, I know it was for school but I loved that play), The Wasteland by TS Elliot (ditto), La Chateau De Ma Mere by Marcel Pagnol and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I read my way right through the complete works of Herman Hesse, Ernest Hemingway, most of Heinrich Boll, plus some Thomas Mann and Proust. I mean, I was serious! (Although I did find time to read Vogue, Elle and Just Seventeen every month too.)
Eating
For my St Jude’s fans.
There is an eating problem in the new book and I wanted talk about that a little.
Just like lots of my school friends, I under-ate when I was a teenager. I remember lasting a whole day on a handful of strawberries. Yes, the result was I was thin, but I didn’t have much energy to do anything and I often fainted. I gave up doing any kind of sport at about 15. So then I was unfit as well as unenergetic.
It probably took a full 10 years before I saw the light and got really healthy. At 25-ish, I joined a gym, started eating really well and finally gave up the dreaded cigarettes. Eating well and exercising are the only way to go. Please put all the faddy diet books down right now.
Nowadays, I’m pretty Californian about my health! It’s 3 square meals with lots of fruit and vegetables, hardly any junk and some vigorous exercise every day: tennis, the gym, the treadmill, long dog walks, even running up and down the stairs. Usually I’m full of energy and although I’m not underweight like I was, I’m not overweight either.
It’s a good guideline to know your recommended BMI: body mass index (you can look up tables on-line) and try to keep well within in. Don’t get too underweight, don’t get too over weight.
If sport is uninspiring at school, I really urge you to join something with your friends: a gym, a dance class, a netball or athletics club. It’s always much more fun and motivating to go together with pals and the people running sports and athletics clubs are usually great. They always want to help more people into the sport. Yes, even if you are a beginner or rubbish!
My favourite eating tip: if you are craving something unhealthy, eat a good thing first. So before you tackle that packet of biscuits, have a big banana first. Or a crunchy apple before the crisps. It will concentrate your mind on what you are putting into your precious body.
Drink loads of water every day. Loads…. glasses and glasses of the stuff. Tea, coffee and fizzy drinks do nothing for you or your skin. Water is the thing. I drink it from the tap, I’m not fussy.
If you think you have an under- or over- weight problem, you need to speak to your doctor and get really good advice. The only diet book I’d ever recommend is French Women Don’t Get Fat which is packed with truly sensible advice from a woman you will think of as your surrogate French Maman. Plus Mirelle is so cool. She’s a champagne ambassador and splits her life between New York and Provence. Just how jealous-making is that?
Love
‘Age 16 I finally, after months of frenzied speculation, started going out with The One. My ginormous, huge, red with a big red ribbon tied around it First Love. For the next five years, while everyone around me was on the emotional roller coaster of falling in and out of love, I had my wonderful boyfriend who was my best friend and all-round soul mate. All through A Levels, my year out and university… until… rrrrrrrrrrrrrrip, crash, smash… we both made a horrible mess of breaking up: the first time… and the second time. Ouch, ouch, owwwwww. Heart-break is just the absolute pits. It’s the uncertainty (will you or won’t you get together again?) and the rejection (you know me completely and utterly and you’re still walking away!) that make it such torture. And take my advice here, stay away from the hairdresser’s until you are feeling better.
However… as (Woody Allen?) once said: the heart is a very resilient little muscle. And there was this cute, funny, spec-wearing guy on my journalism course. He was my friend for months… then the course ended and we were about to go our separate ways to different parts of the country and suddenly that seemed like a terrible idea! I have been very happily in love with that cute, funny, spec-wearing guy for 17 whole years so far…
Everyone is so dismissive about ‘teen love’ these days, now that everyone waits until they’re about 54 to get their joint mortgage and consider having babies.
But people used to get married in their teens and base the rest of their lives on that decision. My Mum was 16 when she first set eyes on my Dad. And my sis was 14 when she started going out with this boy in her class… they (finally!) got married eight years ago. How romantic is that?!
You can be just as in love at 16 as at 38, in fact at 16 you’re more likely to love with all your heart and nothing in reserve… so treat your feelings and your hearts with care.’
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Royal Society Longlist now available in the library
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The age of wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes, published by Harperpress ISBN: 9780007149520
Bad science by Ben Goldacre, published by Fourth Estate ISBN: 9780007240197
Decoding the heavens: Solving the mystery of the world's first computer by Jo Marchant, published by William Heinemann ISBN: 9780099519768
The age of wonder: How the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science by Richard Holmes, published by Harperpress ISBN: 9780007149520
The drunkard's walk: How randomness rules our lives by Leonard Mlodinow, published by Allen Lane, Penguin Press ISBN: 9780141026473
What the nose knows: The science of scent in everyday life by Avery Gilbert, published by Crown Publishers ISBN: 9781400082346
Your inner fish: The amazing discovery of our 375-million-year-old ancestor by Neil Shubin, published by Allen Lane, Penguin Press ISBN: 9780141027586
Ice, mud and blood: Lessons from climates past by Chris Turney, published by Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9780230553828
Living with Enza: The forgotten story of Britain and the great flu pandemic of 1918 by Mark Honigsbaum, published by Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9780230217744
Microcosm: E. coli and the new science of life by Carl Zimmer, published by William Heinemann ISBN: 9780434016242
Physics for future presidents: The science behind the headlines by Richard A Muller, published by WW Norton ISBN: 9780393066272
Quantum: Einstein. Bohr and the great debate about the nature of reality by Manjit Kumar, published by Icon Books ISBN: 9781848310353
Strange fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate by Kenan Malik, published by Oneworld Publications ISBN: 978 185168 665 0
The universe in a mirror : The saga of the Hubble Space Telescope and the visionaries who built it by Robert Zimmerman, published by Princeton University Press ISBN: 9780691132976
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