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Explore a selection of publications by alumni and academics, and books with a link to the University or Cambridge

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Front cover showing the chapel of King's College Cambridge from the backs at dusk

The Lies Behind Cambridge Minds

James Hayes (Homerton 2017)

Drugs, sex, and violence. Not the typical lifestyle of a Cambridge University student, but then again, Harry isn’t a typical student. As a hyper-intelligent finalist, Harry thrives in an academic environment and bottles away his wild lifestyle for the good of his degree. But what happens when the pressures of Cambridge get too much for Harry, and he succumbs to temptations? Harry starts falling down a slippery slope into a life of debauchery, from which he can’t escape. He lusts over a fresher, Elizabeth, who already has a boyfriend. Harry is determined to win her. But at what cost?

Front cover showing two cartoon figures on a colourful background showing a tree on a hill

The Ends of the Earth

Abbie Greaves (Pembroke 2011)

For the last seven years, Mary O'Connor has waited for her first love. Every evening she arrives at Ealing Broadway station and stands with a sign which simply says: 'Come Home Jim'. Commuters might pass her by without a second thought, but Mary isn't going anywhere. Until an unexpected call turns her world on its head. It will take the help of a young journalist called Alice, and a journey across the country for Mary to face what happened all those years ago, and to finally answer the question: where on earth is Jim?

Front cover showing a man in a face mask in a protest doing the Black Lives Matter fist signal

The Long Year: A 2020 Reader

Thomas J. Sugrue (King's 1984)

Some years—1789, 1929, 1989—change the world suddenly. Or do they? In 2020, a pandemic converged with an economic collapse, inequalities exploded, and institutions weakened. Yet these crises sprang not from new risks but from known dangers. The world—like many patients—met 2020 with a host of preexisting conditions, which together tilted the odds toward disaster. Perhaps 2020 wasn’t the year the world changed; perhaps it was simply the moment the world finally understood its deadly diagnosis.

Front cover depicting a painting of a road leading to the horizon in orange, red and yellow colours

The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East

Rebecca Lowe (Emmanuel 2000)

One woman, one bike and one richly entertaining, perception-altering journey of discovery. In 2015, as the Syrian War raged and the refugee crisis reached its peak, Rebecca Lowe set off on her bicycle across the Middle East. Driven by a desire to learn more about this troubled region and its relationship with the West, Lowe's 11,000-kilometre journey took her through Europe to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, the Gulf and finally to Iran.

Front cover showing the White House in a circle, made to look like a coronavirus.

Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus

Danielle Allen (King's 1993)

From Danielle Allen—Harvard professor, leading political thinker, and candidate for the Governor of Massachusetts—an invaluable playbook for meeting our current moment and a stirring reflection on the future of democracy itself. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated some of the strengths of our society, including the rapid development of vaccines.

Front cover showing the front of a dark grey sailboat with red and white striped sails

Sailing Free: The saga of Kári the Icelander

John Nugée (Magdalene 1974)

A gripping tale of law and justice, liberty and freedom, and trade and adventure in medieval Iceland. Sailing Free follows the life of Kári Ragnarsson, a venturous shipowner and merchant, and his brother Guðmundr, who dutifully takes over the family farm, as they traverse adulthood against the backdrop of 11th century Iceland. All around greedy neighbours seek to amass power and subvert Iceland’s ancient liberties; feuds are common and justice is being eroded and abused by those in charge.

Front cover with the title in a green box on an abstract, swirling grey background

The Role of Student Services in Higher Education: University and the Student Experience

Annie Grant (Newnham 1965)

This book examines the aspirations, challenges and experiences of contemporary university students though the eyes and ears of those who provide professional advisory services. The author highlights the breadth and depth of the role that these services now play. The volume addresses student academic and career success and their wellbeing, stressing the importance of of understanding and respecting the diversity of the student body.

Front cover showing the title on a green background, above a radio displaying stations on offer

Radio's Legacy in Popular Culture: The Sounds of British Broadcasting over the Decades

Martin Cooper (Jesus 1977)

Examining work by novelists, filmmakers, TV producers and songwriters, this book uncovers the manner in which the radio – and the act of listening – has been written about for the past 100 years. Ever since the first public wireless broadcasts, people have been writing about the radio: often negatively, sometimes full of praise, but always with an eye and an ear to explain and offer an opinion about what they think they have heard.

Front cover showing scientific model of the solar system with Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars & Jupiter labelled on consecutive ring

Urbain Le Verrier on the Movement of Mercury - annotated translations

Trevor G. Underwood (Clare 1962)

In 1916, Einstein proposed three tests of general relativity, subsequently called the "classical tests" of general relativity:
• the perihelion precession of Mercury's orbit
• the deflection of light by the Sun
• the gravitational redshift of light

Front cover showing a brown and gold landscape scene, with a sun and a river

The Lost Way to the Good: Dionysian Platonism, Shin Buddhism, and the Shared Quest to Reconnect a Divided World

Thomas Plant (Selwyn 2008)

The West has lost its way. But which way was it? Disoriented by postmodern relativism and critical theory, many seek refuge in older certainties of religious or political traditions. But many of these paths, author Thomas Plant maintains, are only recent forks off a wider, older road—a way that belongs as much to the East as to the West, and can unite Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and more in pursuit of the truly common Good.

Front cover showing one tree full of leaves, and one with bare branches

Walking Through The Four Seasons

Eugene Stelzig (King's 1966)

This, my third published volume of poetry (126 pages), subtitled An Impromptu Poetry Journal, is an experiment in which I took up the challenge of writing poems every few days about my walks in the countryside of Western New York over the course of an entire year, to comprehend and complete the full circle or cycle of the seasons. What this collection seeks to trace is the geography of a reflective mind in touch with the natural world and itself.

Front cover showing a painting of a battle scene, one man brandishing a gun and another holding a French flag

The Personality of Paris: Landscape and Society in the Long Nineteenth-Century

Alan Baker (Emmanuel 1988)

What was the personality of 19th-century Paris? To answer that question, Alan - who has lived in Queen Edith's for 43 years and was one of its city councillors from 2002 to 2010 - starts with the legacies that late 18th-century Paris inherited from its foundation in pre-Roman and Roman times and from its medieval infancy and early-modern adolescence. His book unpacks the social and material complexity of the 19th-century city. It considers the role of immigration in the making of Parisians and in the city's growth from half a million people in 1801 to almost three million in 1911.

Front cover depicting a silhouette of Napoleon on a quarter of a watch face, in sepia

Needing Napoleon

Gareth Williams (Queens' 1984)

Needing Napoleon is a remarkably original feat of imagination: an irresistible adventure that spirits the reader from present-day Paris to the battle of Waterloo and beyond. Can you change what has already happened? As a history teacher, Richard Davey knows the answer. At least, he thinks he does. On holiday in Paris, he stumbles across a curious antiques shop. The eccentric owner reveals a secret Richard dares not believe. Richard's conviction that Napoleon Bonaparte should have won the Battle of Waterloo could be put to the test.

Front cover showing four wooden blocks on a blue background. On the blocks are written class, race, sex and age.

The Identity Myth

David Swift (Girton 2006)

Karl Marx outlined the idea of a material ‘base’ and politico-cultural ‘superstructure’. According to this formula, a material reality – wealth, income, occupation – determined your politics, leisure habits, tastes, and how you made sense of the world. Today, the importance of material deprivation, in terms of threats to life, health and prosperity, are as acute as ever. But the identities apparently generated by these realities are increasingly detached from material circumstances.

A man and a woman dressed in workout clothes embrace and flex their biceps, in front of a sofa where two grey people languish

Get off the Couch Before It's Too Late - All the Whys and Wherefores of Exercise

Hugh Bethell (St John's 1960)

Like most of us, you probably know you need to keep fit – but just why is it so vital? And what sort of exercise should you be doing – how often, how hard and for how long? Perhaps you feel you are fit already – but how much exercise are you really taking? What are the consequences of our increasingly sedentary lifestyles?

Front cover depicting Greek mosaic of a man's eyes and half of face

The Greeks: A Global History

Roderick Beaton (Peterhouse 1970)

The Greeks is the story of a culture that has contributed more than any other to the way we live now in the West. It is a story that travels the entire globe and four millennia, taking us from the archaeological treasures of the Bronze Age Aegean, myths of gods and heroes, to the politics of the European Union today. Here are the glories of the classical city-states of Athens and Sparta, the far-reaching conquests of Alexander the Great, the foundations of early Christianity, the thousand-year empire of the Byzantines, and the rediscoveries of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Front cover showing earth partially visible from the moon

Science, Music, and Mathematics

McIntyre Michael Edgeworth (St John's 1963)

Professor Michael Edgeworth McIntyre is an eminent scientist who has also had a part-time career as a musician. From a lifetime's thinking, he offers this extraordinary synthesis exposing the deepest connections between science, music, and mathematics, while avoiding equations and technical jargon.

Front cover showing the silhouette of a woman with black hair, red lipstick and a red coat

The Dictator's Wife

Freya Berry (Trinity 2010)

My debut novel follows a captivating dictator's wife standing trial for her dead husband's crimes in post-communist eastern Europe, and the web of lies she weaves around the young female lawyer defending her.

Published as a lead launch by Headline Review as 'the most darkly gripping debut of the year'.

Book cover that shows African workers on a ladder, near a palm tree

Labour & Christianity in the Mission: African Workers in Tanganyika and Zanzibar, 1864-1926

Michelle Liebst (Trinity Hall 2013)

Important and broadening study of the way Africans engaged with missions, not as beneficiaries of humanitarian philanthropy, but as workers. The important role missions played as places of work has been underexplored, yet missionaries were some of the earliest Europeans who tried to control African labour. African mission workers' roles were not just religious and educational, as they were actively involved, not always voluntarily, in building and domestic work.

Front cover showing hands touching a medical tube in black and white

Managing Medical Authority

Daniel Menchik (Hughes Hall 2001)

Exploring how the authority of medicine is controlled, negotiated, and organized, Managing Medical Authority asks: How is knowledge shared throughout the profession? Who makes decisions when your heart malfunctions—physicians, hospital administrators, or private companies who sell pacemakers? How do physicians gain and keep their influence?

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