Suggested reading and resources for your summer holidays

Whether you have another year of sixth form left and want to get ahead with university applications or you’re heading off to university in a few months’ time and want to prepare for your lectures and seminars, the summer holidays are a great time to do some useful reading.

The top UK universities are not only looking for students with a solid understanding of the core A-Level curriculum, they’re keen for students who are engaged with their subjects beyond their school studies and who find alternative ways of exploring the topics they find interesting.

Read ‘deeply’

You may have heard the phrase ‘read widely’ used often in the context of university reading, but it can be hard to know what this actually means and whether it’s really the best approach to tackling your summer reading list.

If you’re keen to do some reading that will help with your personal statement or potential university interviews, here’s our top tip:

Pick fewer books than you might think you need to read, but read them ‘deeply’

Although it’s good to read ‘widely’, i.e. wider than your A-Level set texts, it’s also important to know the content of your wider reading in depth. Choosing a few books and reading them well is much more productive than reading what seems like an impressively long list of books but only scanning the introductions to each one.

Why?

Universities will be far more impressed if you know a few books extremely well and can write or talk about them in detail than if you’ve ‘read’ a big list of books but are unable to discuss the content of any of them in great depth.

Remember! In university interviews, the lecturer or tutor may ask you to talk about some books you’ve mentioned in your personal statement, so make sure you feel confident talking about their content in detail and are able to give your opinion on anything you’ve read or any resources you’ve listened to.

How to go the extra mile

If you’re preparing for potential university interviews, it’s a good idea to have some knowledge of what’s going on in the world around you. Interviewers will often expect you to be aware of current affairs, particularly if a theme that crops up in your reading is topical in the news at that time. Reading short articles is a quick and easy way of bringing yourself up to speed and giving yourself the confidence to talk about the context of your wider reading, so make sure to have a check the BBC online news pages or other news outlets regularly.

Alternative resources

If you’re keen for a more relaxing way to find out more about a subject you’re interested in, try watching documentaries or listening to podcasts, as these can often be more helpful and more impactful than reading a chapter of a book.

Compiling your reading list

Why not make a list of books you’d like to read or podcasts you’d like to listen to over the summer, which you tick off as you go along? You could also keep a notebook to make notes alongside your reading and listening.

To kickstart your summer reading regime, we’ve put together a list of useful resources and reading material that you can add to your summer reading list:

General:

HE+: http://www.myheplus.com/

Oxford suggested reading and resources: https://goo.gl/JZReEw

Oxford University podcasts: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/

Cambridge University podcasts: https://sms.cam.ac.uk/collection/1081044

In Our Time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/downloads

Open Yale Courses: oyc.yale.edu/

Warwick University Courses: https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/podcasts/media

Oxplore: https://oxplore.org/

BBC documentaries: https://goo.gl/AcLLF6

Law:

Department of Justice: www.justice.gov.uk/