Canon balls? ... Sharon Osbourne with some rock star or other. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty
Examiners have swept aside classic A-level English texts by the likes of TS Eliot and Joseph Conrad to make room for books favoured by television's Richard and Judy. But could the pair boost A-level English in the same way as they have book clubs?
The Oxford Cambridge and RSA exam board's new English A-level, which starts this September, will let teachers pick their own texts and it wants them to draw "inspiration" from the TV duo's influential book club list.
Since R&J's book club began on Channel 4 in 2004 around 50,000 have sprung up around the country. And just being on the list boosts their chosen books' sales, some by as much as 1,000%.
The board's director of qualifications, Clara Kenyon, says the club has done well to break down the perception that literature is dull or boring and could help teachers bring some of that enthusiasm into the classroom.
Whatever helps teachers has got to be a good thing. And the list has done much to get people reading really good books like Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns and Geraldine Brooks' March.
But surely people are star obsessed enough without injecting celebrity autobiographies by Sharon Osbourne and Billie Piper - also endorsed by the couple - into the A-level curriculum?
