“See you all LATER!”
In normal times the Psychotronic Book Club is open to all pupils in Year 9-13. However, due to the bubble system brought on by Covid-19, it temporarily morphed into a Year 11 activity. We chose this group as the girls in the attached photo (Esme, Emily, Maddie, Freya and Lucy) were very keen to keep the club going with half-termly meetings on the book of our choice. All five are also horror fanatics and I have geared many of our selections to their particular taste.
Psychotronic Book Club is one of the school’s oldest clubs which does not involve any of the key areas of sport, drama or music and although numbers are often low, it always attracts teens who love reading, particularly ‘weird’ books! Over the years, we have read a plethora of horror, science fiction, cult fiction and both modern and all-time classics. We pride ourselves on keeping up to date and many of the titles we read are brand new or have gone onto to become huge smashes long after we have discussed them, with Josh Malerman’s Birdbox being a great example.
In between their various Year 11 assessments, Esme, Emily, Maddie, Freya and Lucy found the time to squeeze in one final book before half-term – Stephen King’s brand new novel Later. The girls generally enjoyed it, loved the coming-of-age narration and the skillful introduction of the supernatural, but hated the ending with a passion (I tended to agree).
For a summer treat I was delighted to present them all with a copy of Gabriel Bergmoser’s The Hunted which is a brand new Australian Outback horror novel and might be a title we discuss next autumn when the Psychotronic Book Club will be recruiting new members.
Mr Jones (Senior Librarian)