Transition Year English Evening 2018

The 25th annual TY English Evening was held in the BSR last night to round off the pupils' course. As usual the formula consisted of pupils reading out interesting pieces from their Work Portfolios, and a guest commenting on these and then on 'matters English'.

The guest speaker last night was the first 'graduate' of the TY programme itself, Sophie Grenham, journalist and Old Columban. She has an excellent series in The Gloss magazine called "Writers' Block", having interviewed writers such as Louise O'Neill, Dave Rudden, Sebastian Barry and Sarah Webb. The presenter, Mr Girdham, mentioned the many other guests who have spoken at the evening over the years, including: academics Professor Colin Graham of Maynooth (last year), Professor Terry Dolan, Professor Kevin Barry; English teachers John Fanagan, Colin Polden and Mary Milne; and journalists Trevor White and Tom Doorley.

Shannon Dent started, with a reading of her evocative piece 'My Secret Place of Wonder', about the lush nature of Ecuador. Sam Lawrence gave us 'Being Underwater', another but rather different world. Charlotte Klingmann, who the previous night had performed several pieces at the TY Music Concert, read out 'The Greatest Pleasure of My Life' (music, of course). Andrew Kim's piece was vivid about the early morning urban sprawl of Seoul in South Korea. Kathryn Kelly struck a recent note, since 'The Big Snow' was her most memorable event of the last 12 months, as she took the chance to reconnect with old friends. Frances Wilkinson was the only person to read a poem, "You", delicately examining the difficulty of saying those three words "I love you". Tania Stokes's garden piece about a day in the sunshine was fine with detail. Finally, Andrew Pollock ended things entertainingly with his quirkly essay 'Is Donald Trump Bald?'

Sophie Grenham then gave an account of her writing life, and of how well the College had prepared her for this. She said it was particularly important for young writers to 'find their own voice', and she made attentive comments about each piece she had heard.

She then made the annual announcement of Premier Awards winners. Congratulations go to Shannon Dent, Charlotte Klingmann, Sam Lawrence, Songyon Oh, Eliza Somerville and Tania Stokes.

Electric Picnic

Caoimhe Cleary was Commended in the recent Senior Poetry Prize for her portfolio, and indeed read one of these poems, Electric Picnic, at the Voices of Poetry event last night.  

Mr Canning comments: '"Caoimhe's body of poems on 'Wellness' sought to chronicle stages of recovering from mental illness and trauma.  Her poem 'Electric Picnic' was a strong, gritty assortment of images accentuated by jumpy alliteration. Her poem 'Bulb' echoed William Carlos Williams and imagist poems like 'This is Just to Say', while 'White Swans' evoked a very different take on Yeats's masterpiece 'The Wild Swans At Coole.'"

Electric Picnic

Strobe lights pound.

Sweat cascades.

Screams roughly grope me.

I’m a fish

jerking for water

through greasy air.

The bass jumps beneath

my skin.

I latch on

to your arm

Looking into your

endlessly cold

eye.

I’m hot.

I’m so burning

burning

Hot.

We twist away to twitch.

Bulb

My chore has always been

to put away the leftovers.

I slide the food

From box to box

Trying to find the right fit,

making a mess.

As I put away the food in the freezer,

steam swiftly seems to rise

and fill the space.

The fridge light flickers

And dies,

pneumatic suction hisses

A breath of frost grazes me

I sigh

and go to the shelf

For a new bulb.

White Swans

During my holidays

I go out by the lake,

and just sit for a while.

Below the Homeric waves

dance fatal weeds.

I rest on the little boardwalk

next to the two festering

white corpses;

candles and rotting flowers by their feet,

still getting used to the smell.

I look out.

A crowd of cows amble out,

and swimming through the reeds,

are two white Hallmark swans

gently touching heads.   

 

Voices of Poetry 2018

That excellent annual event, Voices of Poetry, took place last night in the BSR. Every year it seems the sun is shining outside as the darkened space, lit by a single spotlight, gives us an hour's treat of great poetry. As Mr Swift, the compère in black tie, pointed out, there was a '175' tinge this time.

Again there was the mixture of poems in English and other languages, and of pupils and staff reading. The first off was appropriately the Senior Prefect, Kitty Morris, with a poem she had studied in Irish class, followed by two pupils with their own poems - Emma Hinde, winner of the Junior Poetry Prize, with 'Eye of the Storm' and Caoimhe Cleary, Commended for the Peter Dix Memorial Prize, with 'Electric Picnic'.

Mr Swift was proud to have unearthed possibly the most obscure yet in the history of the event, as Shannon Dent read a poem from a native pre-Columbian Ecuadorian language. This was followed i by Latin (JiWoo Park), Italian (Sveva Ciofani), French (Georg Mueller-Methling), Korean (JiWoo Park again) and Vietnamese (Florian Zitzmann). Tiernan Mullane read in 'American' Raymond Carver's 'My Death', and then there were Swedish (Gioia Doenhoff), German (Carla Ladanyi) and Swahili (Akin Babajide).

Poetry has featured throughout the Columban year, and Jasmine Williams read a piece from the 'Poem in Your Pocket' initiative on Ireland Poetry Day (and in Mental Health Week), Walt Whitman's 'I Dreamed in a Dream'. Poetry Aloud was represented by national finalist Harry Oke-Osanyintolu, who recited Thomas McCarthy's 'State Funeral'. Next Mr Swift sprang a surprise: a €10 tuck-shop voucher with a poem was taped to the bottom of one chair, and Polina Grakhovskaia had it. She sportingly came into the spotlight to read our 'The Dead' by Billy Collins (and retain the voucher). There was a bravura performance by Mr Swift himself of his own 'Poetry Slam' piece, written as lyrics for one of his songs. Next was Kate Higgins with another Irish poem.

Four teachers were next. Mr Girdham read 'Breaking-up Night', a poem from The Columban magazine of 1890 nostalgically recalling the old pre-Christmas tradition; it is reproduced in the new book Floreat Columba. The founder of Voices of Poetry, retired Head of English Mr John Fanagan, had written his own poem marking the College's 175 years, and read it out. You can see it at the bottom of this post. The Warden followed, impressively reciting from memory Rudyard Kipling's famous 'If' (written for Kipling's only son, who died in the Great War: this is marked in Wellington College, where the Warden previously taught). Mr Finn followed, also reciting from memory, this time Yeats's 'September 1913', which he had learned when studying for the Leaving Certificate (it is still often on the course).

Frank Meng's reading of a poem Mandarin was dramatic, as was Katie Lam's in Cantonese, and then Éile Ní Chianáin read the third Irish poem of the evening.


 Rounding off, as is traditional, was the recent winner of the Peter Dix Senior Prize for Poetry, Tania Stokes, with her 'Death of A Moth' (she is pictured above with Mr Swift and Mr Fanagan), and then Manuela Sanchez from Primary with Yeats's 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.'

And so the final whole-school BSR event of the year came to a lovely close.

SCC 175, by John Fanagan

May in 1843 saw
St Columba's on its way.
From the plains of County Meath
To Whitechurch where we are today.

Wardens, teachers, pupils all
Have given of their very best.
We celebrate 175
Moving forward with new zest.

So much has changed, yet much remains
Of what has made us what we are:
Our friendships and our memories
Now span the world both near and far.

Next weekend it's party time,
With sports, a barbeque and ball.
Tonight, as one who loves this place,
I say happy birthday to us all.


27 May 2018

Second Form Public Speaking Competition, 2018

The annual Second Form public speaking competition was held in the Cadogan last night, and showcased a great variety of topics and eight speakers who really engaged their audience of junior pupils. Much of the material was based on the recent Classroom-Based Assessments done in English class. Mr Brett and last year’s winner Charlotte Moffitt were the judges, and Mr Girdham compèred. (Mr Brett’s judging comments are incorporated below).

Peter Taylor opened with an account of his life in Bangladesh, a talk which was clear and well-paced – exactly right). Caleb Swanepoel spoke about bias of various kinds; Mr Brett liked the way he provoked the audience. Franz Schmucker spoke on the topic of fake news, and engaged with audience well with sensible content. Fourth came Donald Thomson, whose talk opened with the famous Johnny Sexton drop-goal against France in opening up the subject of the Butterfly Effect; there were many good examples. Georgina Stewart tackled sexism, with good examples and her point of view coming across in a reasonably way. Emma Hinde spoke on a complicate subject, the tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), making a difficult topic interesting, with fascinating ideas. Poppy Somerville spoke on a very current topic, social media and teenagers, with very good points and sound judgment. Finally, Wolfgang Romanowski’s piece on vampires much amused the audience, being very funny. Mr Brett then announced that the top places went to Donald Thompson (1st), Emma Hinde (2nd), and Georgina Stewart (3rd). Well done to all eight speakers on their polished and confident performances.

Senior Poetry Prize, 2018

The Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry (the trophy is displayed above) has been awarded to Tania Stokes, with a Commendation going to Caoimhe Cleary.

Mr Canning comments: "'Death of a Moth' is delicately atmospheric and loaded with subtle colouring, movement and sound. The evocative language and imagery masks the undercurrent of a desperate struggle for life in a spiritual place. 'Signs of Life' is again full of sounds at every level with the poem linked effectively and simply by two isolated sprung lines. Both her pieces show that Tania is mature beyond her years, a precocious talent."

Commended Caoimhe Cleary's "body of poems on 'Wellness' sought to chronicle stages of recovering from mental illness and trauma.  Her poem 'Electric Picnic' was a strong, gritty assortment of images accentuated by jumpy alliteration. Her poems 'Bulb' echoed William Carlos Williams and imagist poems like 'This is Just to Say', while 'White Swans' evoked a very different take on Yeats's masterpiece 'The Wild Swans At Coole.'

These poems will be published in the coming days. 
First, 'Death of a Moth' by Tania Stokes.


Someone was dimly aware
Of a pair of fluttering wings.
In the half-light of the morning,
A moth scattered tiny shadows
On the chapel pews,
Illuminated faintly
By the stained-glass panes.

Floating abreast with the dust
On a bed of hushed voices,
The moth rose above the drone
Of sleeping psalms. The wan light glowed
In the windows,
Dappling colour
On a faded red floor.

Lost in a garden of stone
And regarding the windows,
The moth flitted to this crowd
Of glass flowers. The sunlight welled
From their petals,
Bright, golden nectar
For insectile eyes.

Nothing could prise it away
Though it tired of seeking its prize –
The moth’s instincts were a sorry guide.
Not once was the thing alighting
While it chased the light.
At last still, the husk rested
On the window sill.

Someone was dimly aware
Of an emptiness filling the room.
Some sixth sense of quiet mourning
Touched maybe one
For this faint struggle –
Begun, continued and ended
And noticed by none.

Reading Leaflet

As part of our entry for the PDST WellRead Initiative, and our ongoing determination for St Columba's to be 'A Reading School', here is a leaflet on reading in the school, put together by the Librarian, Ms Kent-Sutton, and Department teacher Mr Jameson. In it you can find what the most popular books are in the junior school, a list of new books arriving this summer, lists of books which have been discussed in both the pupils' and staff book clubs, and recommendations for books supporting academic subjects. A reading illustration by Tania Stokes completes the document.

Department Vacancy

We're hiring. To cover a leave of absence, we are looking for a full-time temporary English teacher for the 2018-19 academic year (September 2018 to June 2019 inclusive). The successful candidate will teach the full range of classes across the Junior and Senior Cycles, including Transition Year, the JCSA course, and Leaving Certificate.

This site is the best place to learn more about our Department. It is close-knit and supportive, as well as being forward-looking and innovative. If you would like a pre-application chat, just email sccenglish@stcolumbas.ie. 

The vacancy is now being advertised on the College site, and on EducationPosts.ie. Applications must be returned by 5pm on Friday 1st June.

WellRead Award

This year, St Columba's College has been taking part in the WellRead Award, a national initiative designed and organised by the Professional Development Service for Teachers (PDST). It aims to create heightened awareness about the importance of creating a culture of reading in school communities for young people as part of their personal and academic development.  The initiative seeks to involve all relevant stakeholders who impact on student learning including pupils, teachers, ancillary staff, parents, board of management and the wider community in a range of reading and associated activities. We hope to achieve 'WellRead' status by May 2019 and thus far, we have had a productive first six months.

In February, we had our first ever Book Week. Along with library-based competitions, there were activities such as Book Speed Dating and Drop Everything And Read. There was also a Chapel talk in which pupils enthused about books and the doors of classrooms and the walls of the buttery passage were decorated with posters featuring pictures of staff members and their favourite books.  More recently, we celebrated World Book Day with free book tokens for all pupils and  on Poetry Day, every pupil was given an individual poem as part of the 'poem in your pocket' scheme. We have also had author visits from novelists Claire Keegan (for V and VI pupils) and Ruth Frances Long (for junior pupils).

The pupils' book club and the staff book club have continued to meet regularly throughout the year and it is hoped that we will be able to extend and expand these activities next year. At the moment, we are compiling a list of junior pupils' favourite books, as well as a list of books read and discussed at both book clubs. We intend to circulate this document among parents.

The WellRead Committee 2017/2018: Ms J. Kent-Sutton (Librarian), Mr E. Jameson, Shannon Dent,  Rory Flanagan.

Junior Poetry Prize 2

Two more good entries for this year's Junior Poetry Prize:

'Life's Sound' by Mariola Guemes 

I like the sound of
The breaking waves

I like to listen to
The rain falling

I like your breathing deep and calm,
It doesn’t matter the place nor when

I like the sound riding in the sand,
As well as those steps in chain

I like the singing of the birds
The living of the trees and
The feeling of the life

The only sound I can not stand

Is the sound of this world
And its great sorrow.

'The Sound of Pain' by Edna Johnston

The silent night, shines so bright

As I try and cope with the pain

I'll try to fight, and bury my plight

But my blood will start the rain

I have no faith; I'm filled with hate

While I stare at the midnight sky

I've had enough of your lies, and heard enough of your cries

I'll move on without wondering why

I guess I'll wish you well, but I hope you burn in hell

So you could feel what you made me feel

Till death do us part? Well now I’ll break your heart

This night just feels so surreal

I look into your eyes, and remember the lies

While my heart is filled with disdain

Your love was just lust, and I’m filled with disgust

Because your lust brought me nothing but pain

And now, with a gun to my heart, this is where we’ll part

In the overwhelming weight of the rain

So I’ll leave with this scar, and I’ll forget who you are,

Because I’m tired of coping with the pain.

Junior Poetry Prize 2018

Congratulations to Emma Hinde, who has won this year's Junior Poetry Prize. Below are two from her winning portfolio. More by other good entrants will be posted in the coming days.


Echo

What is that?
I wonder.
I’m beginning to ponder
It really seems rooted in place.
It mimics my scream
So I tell it
"Ice cream"
And it says
"I scream. You scream."
I ask it
"What are you"
But it doesn’t reply
So I leave it.


The Eye of the Storm

A hurricane.
His thunderous challenge
Calling across the crashing sea
To an island.

Hidden gulls, dive bombing the waves
Pick up the rumble
This unearthly tremble
And understand;
They flee.

Whales, dolphins, sharks and fish
All know what it portends.
They head for shelter
In deeper waters;
They flee.

‘The kraken sleepeth’ they say;
But where?
The question they’re too scared to ask,
Afraid to know the answer.
Where indeed; and here they wink.

There is an explanation for earthquakes
More obvious than you’d think
The kraken snoreth...

And when he wakes, a noise...
Gnab gib.
The seas boil,
The whales dead,
And by no human means.

Global warming is eradicated
No more pollution in our air
No more us.

The kraken taketh flight;
The Earth is no more fun.
Perhaps the moon Europa next
But a snack before he’s gone.

Surely the opposite of our Big Bang.

Senior Poetry Prize

This is the term when entries for the Senior Poetry Prize are encouraged.  All entries are to be typed and sent to Mr. Canning by the evening of Monday 14th   May at the latest.

Entries should contain a portfolio of  between two and five poems based on or inspired by the idea of either :-‘Poetry Tells' or 'Feeling'.

Poems should be at least ten lines long, and typed.  The winning entry will be based on the overall standard of the entrant’s body of poems. There will also be a prize for the best poem if it is not in the winner’s selection. Other strong entries will be posted on here.

The English Department will also give smaller book tokens to strong entries that do not win the Prize. 

You can treat the ideas, of ‘Telling', or 'Feeling' in a free way: any connection is fine, as long as the poems are clearly connected by image, inspiration, theme, form, situation, context …

The Peter Dix Memorial Prize for Poetry was presented by the Dix family in memory of Peter, who died in the Lockerbie tragedy in 1988.  The Memorial (pictured), by sculptor Joe Sloan, is kept in the Library and inscribed with the names of past winners.

William Trevor: A Celebration

The RTÉ Radio programme 'William Trevor: a celebration', broadcast last night, can be heard on the RTE Player here (after the News etc at about 5:20).

An excellent hour's listening, it includes sections by Christine Dwyer Hickey on My House in Umbria, John Banville on Mrs Eckdorf at O'Neill's Hotel, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne on Reading Turgenev, and Dolores McKenna on The Old Boys, as well as clips from Trevor himself in the RTÉ archives.

The Submarine, March 2018

The latest edition of the pupils' magazine, The Submarine, is out now, and you can read it below via Issuu (use arrows to navigate, and click to zoom in). You can listen to a clip of Rocket to Friday via Soundcloud at the bottom; James O'Connor is interviewed on pages 6 and 7, and Nevin McCone and Marcus O'Connor are also in the group.

Junior Poetry Prize, 2018

The theme for  the Junior Poetry Prize this year is SOUND

(music… the sound of silence… booming … quiet… birdsong… noise… peace… voices… overhearing… ‘sounds like’... onomatopoeia… shhh...)

Any interpretation of the above theme is welcome.

Poems should be fourteen lines or more. Entrants can enter as many poems as they wish. 

Please email your poem(s) to Ms Smith, or hand them to your English teacher by Wednesday 21st March 2017.

Book Week 2018

We've just started out first-ever Book Week, to highlight the importance of reading and of course simply to emphasise the sheer enjoyment of reading.  Mr Jameson is assisted by an organising committee of Ms Smith, Ms Kent-Sutton, Shannon Dent and Rory Flanagan. You can see the Flickr album of photos here.

On Wednesday Mr Jameson introduced the idea in Chapel, and Shannon Dent (The Secret Garden) and Tiernan Mullane (Andre Agassis's Open) spoke passionately about their favourite books. Yesterday we had our Drop Everything and Read Day. All pupils and staff carried a reading book around for the day, and then at mid-day had uninterrupted reading time. This was an excellent idea - lots of interesting conversations were prompted. 

And there's also-

• Book speed-dating for the junior Forms.
• A Library treasure hunt.
• A 'guess the book in the bottle' competition in the Library.
• Posters all around the school of staff favourite books.
• A lovely Book Tree in the Junior Reading Room.

 
 

English Prizes 2018

Congratulations to the following, and thanks to the many pupils who entered for the prize. Papers will be returned by your English teacher, with brief comments.

Senior English Prize

Winner
André Stokes

Form Distinctions go to:
VI: Nyla Jamieson, Adaeze Mbafeno
V: Catherine Butt, Caoimbhe Cleary, Isabelle Townshend
IV: Shannon Dent


Junior English Prize

Winner
Eile Ni Chianáin

Form Distinctions go to:
III: Imogen Casey, Aurora Higgins Jennings, Charlotte Moffitt
I: Tadgh Rane O Cianáin
P: Elizabeth Hart

Junior Poetry Prize
Details of the Junior Prize will be posted soon.

Senior Poetry Prize
This will take place next term.

Willis Memorial Shakespeare Prize
This will be held early next term.

Books of 2017

And here's our annual popular post of books of the year as they feature in the press (excluding papers and articles with pay-walls, such as the London Times and most of the Financial Times) and on some blogs. This is a selective list of what we judge the highest-quality lists: if you want almost everything that moves, check out Largehearted Boy.

Most recent update: 7.1.2018.


Here are the SCC English Books of 2017.

Previous lists are here: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.

• The Irish Times this year has a Books of the Year feature in The Ticket, mentioning Old Columban Elske Rahill whose first book of short stories, White Ink, came out recently. Readers chosen Roddy Doyle's novel Smile as their Book of the Year. Declan Burke and Declan Hughes give us the 20 best crime books of the year, including the ever-excellent Michael Connelly's excellent start to a new series, The Late Show. Plenty of contributors and authors give their personal favourites here; our Finance Minister, Paschal Donohue seems to be a regular and thoughtful reader, and goes for Bernard MacLaverty's Midwinter Break, set in Amsterdam.
• Readers' favourites in the Irish Times are listed separately, with quite a turn-out for Lisa Harding's Harvesting, with Mary O'Sullivan writing that "the ending haunted me, as it should. Harvesting moved me in a way that very few books do."
• The Irish Independent in Part One has lots of categorised suggestions, such as in the short story section Nuala O'Connor's Joyride and Jupiter, and in biography/memoir, Ruth Fitzmaurice's much-noticed I Found My Tribe. In Part Two there are non-fiction choices, with Kim Bielenberg choosing Tim Shipman's follow-up to his brilliant Brexit account, Fall Out: a year of political mayhem.
• The New York Times has its critics' Top Books of 2017: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie will be a big success - "a bold retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone, it begins with the airport interrogation of a young Muslim woman who has come to the United States to study, and Shamsie dilates throughout on Sophocles’ themes: civil disobedience, fidelity and the law, especially as regards burial rights." There are also best photography books of the year.
• The ever-excellent School Library Journal has a series of lists which are helpful to parents, teachers and indeed children themselves. They are grouped: picture books / chapter books / middle grade / young adult / non-fiction. In the latter, Eyes of the World, about the photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, looks attractive.
• The Times Literary Supplement is always suitably high-brow in its choices. However, Hilary Mantel keeps her feet on the ground, choosing the novelist Adam Thorpe and the poet Sinéad Morrissey, "an inspiration".
• The Financial Times has a list of critics picking their best books, with the Editor Lionel Barber rightly praising East West Street by the lawyer Philippe Sands, "a beautifully written story about legal theory (crimes against humanity and genocide in the Nazi era), the city of Lviv in western Ukraine and an intimate family history."
• The Guardian has its annual double serving from well-known authors: In Part One the great John Banville, author of the excellent Mrs Osmond, goes for Michael Longley's latest collection, Angel Hill (Longley has maintained very high standards for so long). Part Two sees Elizabeth Strout's new novel Anything is Possible repeatedly recommended, as is Irish novelist Sebastian Barry's latest, Days Without End.
• In other Guardian lists in an enormous collection, there are best sport books; best biographies recommended by Tim Adams (including the fine literary biographer Claire Tomalin's own autobiography A Life of My Own); Robin McKie on science; many riches in history from Anthony Sattin; the poet Carol Rumens on poetry ("Leontia Flynn’s The Radio sparkles with 21st-century chutzpah, sometimes offset by maternal angst. “Every time my daughter cried, I came / barrelling out like some semi-deranged / trainee barista: friendly but perplexed, / and in the dark of night, Lo! I was there, / perplexed – and ratty –when she cried again.” (Yellow Lullaby)"; best children's books by Imogen Russell Williams; art books from the distinguished critic Peter Conrad; architecture from Rowan Moore (including lovely photos from Taschen's Entryways of Milan; graphic novels from Rachel Cooke; Mark Lawson on crime fiction (Jane Harper in The Dry "slowly but thrillingly reveals where the truth lies").
• The Guardian also has its annual readers' recommendations (why don't more papers do this?)
• An excellent annual feature from the Guardian is 'the hits and misses of the publishing year', in which publishers reveal books that made their year, books that deserved to do better, and books that they wished they had published. Lots of mentions again of Sally Rooney here.
• The Globe and Mail from Toronto has its 100 books of the year beautifully displayed with the covers displayed prominently. In the poetry section, Lynn Crosbie's collection about her father's dementia, The Corpses of the Future, looks interesting.
• The Library Journal has its Top Ten Books of 2017, including the Man Booker-winning Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, and also its Notable Books of the year.
• The LA Times non-fiction books of the year include the outstanding Ta-Nehisi Coates's collection We Were Eight Years in Power: an American tragedy. In fiction, they have Naomi Alderman's The Power, which we thought was so-so, and the much better Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. And there's a handy children's list, divided into Young Adult, Middle Grade and Picture Books. They also have favourite books of the year from their Critics at Large: Susan Straight astonishingly writes "You might not believe it. I read or reread more than 500 novels this year, to make an epic interactive map of our literary nation with regional fiction. There are 737 novels on that map, which I made for Granta."
• Sleek has some gorgeous art books of the year, such as David Hockney.
• The Washington Independent Review of Books favourites include some regular names (Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, Mohsin Hamid). Jessica Shattuck's The Women in the Castle could be good. 
• The Evening Standard in London has 24 Best Books of 2017. Deaths of the Poets by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Harley looks like it's up our street.
• The Millions Year in Reading is always worth following, with many contributors building up the list over the weeks.
• Esquire magazine starts with Heather, the Totality by the creator of Mad Men, Matthew Weiner, and also has Celeste Ng's new novel Little Fires Everywhere (her earlier Everything I Never Told You was well-worth reading).
• The Spectator's reviewers present a selection of the best and (always a welcome feature) most overrated books of 2017. Frances Wilson: "Molly Keane, Sally Phipps’s life of her mother, is as fresh and true and eccentric as any of Keane’s novels, and shows just how good biography can be in the hands of a natural writer. A further selection has Daniel Swift go for an option that immediately struck us: "Preti Taneja’s We That Are Young's is big, beautiful, and most of all bold: a rewriting of King Lear, transplanted to modern day Delhi, which is both a dazzlingly original reading of the play and a full novel in its own right. A masterpiece, and by a long way my book of the year." 
• Library Journal has a huge number of lists, including their Top Ten, and you can get a PDF of some of their other lists, too.The New Statesman divides its recommendations into three; in part one, East West Street gets another deserved mention, and the tremendous Rebecca Solnit is recommended by Robert Macfarlane (see our illustration above) for her latest collection of essays, The Mother of all Questions; in part two Susan Hill goes for David Walliams's Bad Dad, "a blast. Kids will adore it. So did I." Finally, in part three Melvyn Bragg goes for Ian McEwan's Nutshell, set in Hamlet's mother's womb (should have been right up our street, but it was so-so).The bookseller Barnes and Noble has a categorised list of best books of 2017 here.  
• The San Francisco Chronicle's 2017 holiday books gift guide includes Kurt Vonnegut's Collected Stories, and a well-chosen selection from genres like art and architecture. 
• iNews has Best Books, including the much-noticed first novel from Irish writer Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends. 
• The excellent Five Books, which we highly recommend, has Arifa Akbar selecting the best novels of 2017, with Fiona Mozley's Emlet at the head of the list, and best poetry books, including the much-noticed Tara Bergin's The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx, as well as Best Tween books.
• In the Chicago Tribune: Heidi Stevens on 10 books she loved, all written by women: Real American: a memoir by Julie Lythcott-Haims looks interesting.
• On Quartzy: tables of the best books when aggregating choices from 21 other lists: Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing beats George Saunders to the top fiction spot.
• The Economist says its best books are 'about music, nicotine and the tsunami in Japan': the latter is Richard Lloyd Parry's Ghost of the Tsunami: death and life in Japan's disaster zone, 'the finest work of narrative non-fiction to be published this year'. And we can endorse the choice of The Undoing Project, about the intellectual relationship between Daniel Kahnemann and Amos Tversky.
• The Sydney Morning Herald has 'The year in reading: these are the books we loved'. It's great to hear that Tim Winton, author of one of our own books of the year, The Boy Behind the Curtain, has written a 'searing masterpiece', The Shepherd's Hut, which is published in March.
• The English and Media Centre have an excellent list of Christmas Reads; we've recommended Thomas Harding's Berlin-based The House by the Lake before.
• The Huffington Post has the best fiction books of 2017, includes a book of short stories, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado: "Prickly yet hypnotic, familiar yet alien".
• Paste Magazine gives us the 30 Best Young Adult Books of the year, with Dear Martin (Luther King) by Nic Stone standing out.
• The Root has 16 of the best books by black authors, with some very strong names - Coates, Adichie, Ward and Gay among them. 
• Vogue's best books provided 'much-needed solace' (a common note this year). Bridget Read is "obsessed with Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls’s perfect, short, bizarre, heartfelt, insane 1982 novel about a woman and a lizard, reprinted this year from New Directions.”
• The London Independent has Best Art Books selected by Michael Glover, with lots of gorgeous options.
• The Chicago Review of Books has Best Fiction Books (great cover for Kathleen Rooney's Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk), Best Non-Fiction (including the anthology Who Reads Poetry, and Best Poetry.
• Darcy Moore has a 'baker's dozen' in his most enjoyable reads of the year, including in his 13, like us, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Ali Smith's Autumn. 
• The National Post's choice of 99 includes the best Canadian writing of the year.
• The Faber blog doesn't confine itself to Faber publications, with contributors answering questions about what they will read for Christmas, what books they will give as presents, and their book of the year. Sarah Ward goes for Christopher Fowler's The Book of Forgotten Authors, which sounds promising.
• Go to Lithub for the best list of Best Crime books,  with The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason, the terrific Icelandic writer, mentioned.
• Electric Literature gives us 15 Best Non-Fiction Books, 25 Best Novels and an interesting list of 15 Best Short Story collections (some particularly good covers there).
• BBC Culture has a selection of 10. Cristina Garcia's Here in Berlin, with its echoes of Sebald, looks promising. 
• Austin Kleon's 'Reading Year' includes one of our own recommendations, How to Think by Alan Jacobs.
• Time has Top 10 Novels, with Irish author Sebastian Barry making the list with his award-winning Days Without End. 
• The Australian's list includes Jon McGregor's often-mentioned Reservoir 13, and Teju Cole's latest, the essays in Known and Strange Things. 
• The excellent Atlantic magazine gives us its editors and contributors' choices, with Rachel Cusk's Outline mentioned by Rosa Smith (it features in many other lists too).
• Barack Obama released his books of 2017 (the current President didn't...), including Mohsin Hamid's readable Exit West (including more than a touch of magic realism).
• The Children's Book Council has a handy summary of lists of children's books. 
• The Atlantic's 'Best Books we Missed in 2017', with comments by the authors themselves, include Alice McDermott's eighth novel The Ninth Hour, and Draft No 4, a promising book on writing by the teacher John McPhee.