Book shelf

Book shelf

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

To have your book considered for inclusion, please submit your publication's details

Please note: to have your book considered for inclusion, its publication date must be either upcoming or it must have been published during the last 12 months. Unfortunately, we cannot include any details of books published prior to this time.

CAMCard discounts

Get up to 20% off when you use your CAMCard in selected book shops!

front cover

The UNIque Guide for Women: Confidently embracing your career in research and beyond

Emma Williams (Christ's 1990)

The early career research stage is tough. Interesting, intellectually challenging, pushing back frontiers of knowledge, working with talented people from around the world – all fantastic things. But have you ever wondered what on earth the next career step is going to be? Felt surrounded by researchers who are brighter and more together than you? Felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of 'stuff' you are supposed to do as a researcher? Looked at those 'high ups' in your institution and wondered where the women are? Tried to explain to your parents that postdocs seldom get Nobel prizes?

front cover

Safe Haven: The United Kingdom’s Investigations into Nazi Collaborators and the Failure of Justice

Jon Silverman (Selwyn 1968) & Robert Sherwood

The controversial 1991 War Crimes Act gave new powers to courts to try non-British citizens resident in the UK for war crimes committed during WWII. But in spite of the extensive investigative and legal work that followed, and the expense of some £11 million, it led to just one conviction: that in 1999 of Anthony (Andrzej) Sawoniuk.

Live to See the Day book cover

Live to See the Day - Coming of Age in American Poverty

Nikhil Goyal (Selwyn 2016)

An indelible portrait of three children struggling to survive in the poorest neighborhood of the poorest large city in America. Live to See the Day is “An incisive, compassionate depiction of families in a crisis not of their making and a vision of the policy choices our country could adopt to save their lives.” —Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us. Kensington, Philadelphia, is distinguished only by its poverty. It is home to Ryan, Giancarlos, and Emmanuel, three Puerto Rican children who live among the most marginalized families in the United States.

front cover

This is Not a Grail Romance: Understanding Historia Peredur vab Efrawc

Natalia Petrovskaia (Peterhouse 2003)

This is Not a Grail Romance provides answers to some of the most important questions surrounding the medieval Welsh Arthurian tale Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, one of the few surviving medieval Welsh narrative compositions, and an important member of the ‘Grail' family of medieval European narratives. The study demonstrates that Historia Peredur is an original Welsh composition, rather than (as previous theories have suggested) being an adaptation of the twelfth-century French grail romance.

front cover

Beyond The Trappings Of Office: A civil servant's journey in Punjab

Rajan Kashyap (Wolfson 1978)

Travel with the author, a former civil servant, on a fascinating journey. From a childhood spent in the infancy of free India, growing up in a state still relishing the after taste of maharajas and grand royalty, to traipsing into the Indian Administrative Service with child-like optimism. Enjoy a renaissance in the heady heights of the University of Cambridge, and a mellow cadence of a fruitful life in a modern Indian city, juxtaposed with a view of the transforming rural economy in a state at the heart of India’s green revolution.

front cover

Calmism: 8 habits for complete rest

Alexis Willet (Darwin 2001)

Is life getting on top of you? Do you dream of being stranded on an island just for some alone time? Are you currently standing on a chair, screaming, ‘Enough is enough!’? I get it. Your diary is full and your brain is racing. The hectic world we live in demands so much of you, it can be exhausting to keep up. You crave spa days and holidays to recharge but, while they offer short-term respite, they don’t give you the long-term rejuvenation you really need. Well, come down off that chair, open up this book, and feel your stress float away.

front cover

Vet at the End of the Earth: Adventures with Animals in the South Atlantic

Jonathan Hollins (Emmanuel 1977)

The role of resident vet in the British Overseas Territories encompasses the complexities of caring for the world’s oldest known living land animal – Jonathan the giant tortoise, 190 years old – and MoD mascots at the Falklands airbase; pursuing mystery creatures and invasive microorganisms; relocating herds of reindeer; and rescuing animals in extraordinary and rugged landscapes.

front cover

Interstellar Tours

Brian Clegg (Selwyn 1973)

Take a tour through the galaxy on the fictional starship Endurance. The phenomena you will visit, from the vast nebulae that are birthplaces of stars to stellar explosions in vast supernovas, creating the elements necessary for life - or from the planets of other solar systems to the unbelievably supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way - all reflect the best picture current science has to offer. Accompanying Interstellar Tours is an online gallery with over fifty images and videos in full colour, each directly accessible from the page using QR codes.

front cover

Learning eBPF

Liz Rice (Pembroke 1989)

What is eBPF? With this revolutionary technology, you can write custom code that dynamically changes the way the kernel behaves. It's an extraordinary platform for building a whole new generation of security, observability, and networking tools. This practical book is ideal for developers, system administrators, operators, and students who are curious about eBPF and want to know how it works.

front cover

Inside Retirement Housing: Designing, Developing and Sustaining Later Lifestyles

Sam Clark (Churchill 1999)

Many developed nations face the challenge of accommodating a growing, ageing population and creating appropriate forms of housing suitable for older people. Written by an architect, this practice-led ethnography of retirement housing offers new perspectives on environmental gerontology. Through stories and visual vignettes, it presents a range of stakeholders involved in the design, construction, management and habitation of third-age housing in the UK, highlighting the importance of design decisions for the everyday lives of older people.

front cover

And Then the Rain Came

Edward Ragg (Selwyn 1999)

Edward Ragg won the 2012 Cinnamon Press Poetry Award and his debut collection was A Force That Takes (2013). His second volume, Holding Unfailing (2017), charted the rise of modern China, whilst Exploring Rights (2020) confronted ‘post-truth’ culture and the prospects of humankind’s survival. And Then the Rain Came turns to love, physical and mental geographies, wellbeing, and the vitality of the present. Set against the backdrops of the global pandemic and climate crisis, each poem embraces present perception in the awakening motif of rain.

front cover

Bitter

Alexina Anatole (Jesus 2010)

Fearlessly bringing together the best flavours and culinary strategies from around the world, Bitter is MasterChef finalist Alexina Anatole's brilliantly innovative debut cookbook. The first in a series about the five tastes (bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami), Bitter will help you find the beauty in bitterness, and show you how to harness this often misunderstood taste to make your food more moreish and delicious.

front cover

The Dream Builders

Oindrila Mukherjee (Peterhouse 1997)

After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing — and no one — here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations.

front cover

Quantum Untangling

Simon Sherwood (Sidney Sussex 1979)

After studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge (Sidney Sussex 1979), I spent my business life working in the travel industry, running the luxury Orient-Express train and renovating old hotels. However, a few years ago, an old passion grabbed me. Throughout my years in the business world, I never forgot my love of science, and especially physics. Now, over 60 years old, I have written my first book - Quantum Untangling - a primer on quantum mechanics, published by Wiley.

front cover

The Evolution of Hollywood's Calculated Blockbuster Films: Blockbusted

Alexander Ross (Girton 1981)

In this book, Alexander Ross highlights how creative entrepreneurs saved the Hollywood studios in the 1970s by establishing the calculated blockbuster, consisting of key replicable markers of success, as Hollywood's preeminent business model. Ross demonstrates how visionary individuals such as Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, and Zemeckis helped create the modern, calculated blockbuster business model (BBM).

front cover

Special Relativity

Trevor G. Underwood (Clare 1962)

This study concludes that, quite apart from the enormity of the consequences of the two postulates of Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, taken together, including length contraction, time dilation, and the requirement to assume a point electron in the unsuccessful attempt to introduce special relativity into quantum electrodynamics, the evidence in support of Einstein’s second postulate on the constancy of the speed of light is far outweighed by the evidence against it.

front cover

Uprooting

Marchelle Farrell (Christ's 2000)

What is home? It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. A longed-for career in psychiatry saw her leave behind the pristine beaches and emerald hills of Trinidad. Until, disillusioned, she uprooted again, this time for the peaceful English countryside.

The only Black woman in her village, Marchelle hopes to grow a new life. But when a worldwide pandemic and a global racial reckoning collide, the upheaval of colonialism that has led her to this place begins to be unearthed. Is this really home? And can she ever feel truly grounded here?

front cover

Stories Scratched on the Wall

Irakli Laitadze (Sidney Sussex 2002)

Stories Scratched on the Wall is a collection of flash (mini) stories. The book is a personal confession of the author and as such, is close to nearly every individual. The real-life cases narrate in a philosophical way about soul-searching, broken hopes, desperation, brave confrontation with depression, and the absurdity of life; but next to it, you will meet the deep Christian hope, repentance, resilient desire and energy for renewal.

front cover

Retaining the Old Episcopal Divinity: John Edwards of Cambridge and Reformed Orthodoxy in the Later Stuart Church

Jake Griesel (Peterhouse 2016)

John Edwards of Cambridge (1637-1716) has typically been portrayed as a marginalized 'Calvinist' in an overwhelmingly 'Arminian' later Stuart Church of England. In Retaining the Old Episcopal Divinity, Jake Griesel challenges this depiction of Edwards and the theological climate of his contemporary Church.

front cover

The Spare Room - Of Elves and Men

P R Brown (St John's 1979)

The Spare Room (Of Elves and Men) follows naturally from the author's preceding title, Diary of the Last Man, in that it is an examination of the struggle between hope and despair concerning the future of mankind given man's persistent and some might say burgeoning inhumanity to man. It is for the reader to decide whether The Spare Room is a humorous book with serious undertones, a serious book with humorous overtones, an allegorical commentary on the so-called 'human condition', or all of these things.

Pages

Want to see your book here?

Submit your book's details for consideration using our webform.

Submit your book