Book shelf

Book shelf

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

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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.

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Enchanted Islands - Travels through myth & magic, love & loss

Laura Coffey (St John's 2000)

A lyrical odyssey about love, loss, and Greek myth, Enchanted Islands is a memoir that blends together Laura’s experiences navigating heartbreak and grief with her quest to map the real-life islands that inspired the wanderings of Homer’s epic hero, Odysseus. 

Stephen Fry describes it as: "A magical and hugely captivating journey - filled with such beauty, wonder and surprise. A simply marvellous read, hugely recommended" 

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Broken Light

J K Denning (Hughes Hall 1998)

'Broken Light' explores how both the brokenness and beauty of life and love can have enduring significance through relationship and art.

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Sound Tracks: Uncovering Our Musical Past

Graeme Lawson (Corpus Christi 1974)

Written by one of the world foremost experts in the field of music's origins, the book's fifty short chapters trace the fascinating story of archaeology's exploration of music's prehistory, from the present day back to the first modern humans and beyond.

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King of the Armadillos

Wendy Chin-Tanner (Churchill 1996)

A novel about family, love, and belonging, set against the backdrops of 1950s New York City and Louisiana, following one young man’s quest to survive an often misunderstood disease, and find love, music, and himself, in the process.

Book cover is bright yellow with a black and white image of a middle aged Edward de Bono in a suit and tie.

Edward de Bono: Love Laterally

Sarah Tucker (Homerton 2020)

The first authorised biography to reappraise the life and legacy of writer, philosopher and Nobel Prize nominee, Edward de Bono, best known for inventing the concept of lateral thinking. The book will be launched at The House of Lords on 3 September 2024 at 7pm.

Book cover shows a black and white image of two women standing facing each other in a field at Glastonbury Festival.

Glastonbury: The Festival and Its People

Liam Bailey (Hughes Hall 1986)

'Glastonbury: The Festival and Its People' is the striking distillation of over 30 years’ unprecedented photographic access to the world’s largest green-field music and performing arts festival. In over 120 memorable images, Liam Bailey invites us to share his experiences of being among its diverse tribes.

A book cover in grey with a raised causeway drawn in white.

The First Question

Alex Fallows (Christ's 1974)

What happened to Annie Wilson? Katy Harrington does not know, but she suspects that her husband does.

Dr Katy Harrington is a university lecturer; intelligent and successful. But she is trapped in a suffocating marriage and rapidly losing control of her life. When a mysterious woman alerts her to the disappearance of a university student, Annie Wilson, eight years ago in Lyme Regis, Katy realises she is being warned about her husband. She desperately needs someone to talk to, but then her best friend does the one thing a best friend would never do.

A dark blue book cover shows a city skyline picked out in a single white line.

Cheek To Cheek

Alex Fallows (Christ's 1974)

Mia Kirkland’s husband is dead. Everyone tells her it was an accident. But she does not believe it.

A blue book cover with the title in white lettering. A sketch of a blanket sails off in the distance.

Leaving Academia: Ditch the blanket, take the skills

Dr Emma Williams (Christ's 1990)

Have you reached the heady heights of Peak Postdoc? Or are you experiencing the ‘meh’ of the Postdoc Plateau? Or has the doom spiral of the Postdoc Plummet begun?

Book cover shows a starlit sky, transitioning from orange to deep blue, with Chinese lanterns hung above.

The Cry of the Silkworm

Shi Naseer (Trinity 2013)

Growing up in 1990s China, in a village where failure to observe the rigidly enforced one-child policy is deemed tantamount to a crime, Chen Di must fight to get the education she craves in a world in which boys are prioritised. Following her mother's untimely death, 16-year-old Chen Di's thirst for vengeance against those she holds responsible brings about her transformation from a gutsy, marginalised child into an aikido-practising young woman who braves Shanghai.

Book cover shows a blond woman in a red blouse holding a canvas in front of an easel. Beyond is the sky above St Paul's.

The War Artist

Jan Casey (Hughes Hall 1996)

When young painter, Sybil Paige, wins a coveted assignment from the War Artists' Advisory Committee, she is determined to tell the stories of women fighting their own battles on the home front. Armed with her sketchbook, she begins her journey across the country sketching everything from airfields and assembly lines to farms and factories. With each new commission, Sybil grows in confidence. But, like the many people she meets and sketches, she fears the future: will it bring hope or heartbreak?

 

Book cover in a deep blue with lighter blue wave patterning.

The Classical Double Copy: New Connections in Gauge Theory and Gravity

Chris D White (Downing 1999)

Our current understanding of nature is in terms of matter that is acted on by forces. There are four fundamental forces, of which three are described by so-called gauge theories, a type of quantum field theory. The fourth force, gravity, is best described by general relativity, and our traditional ways of thinking about gauge theories and gravity look completely different from each other.

Book cover shows two faces in profile with the universe contained within.

The Square Root of Einstein: The Mysterious Connections in Our Universe

Chris D White (Downing 1999)

What is our universe made of? How did it get here, and how will it end? Why are many scientists currently so excited about these questions? And why is everybody else so scared of the one subject – physics – that promises to give us all the answers?

Book cover shows a mosaic of green tiles and orange circle representing an iris.

Rhizodont

Katrina Porteous (Trinity Hall 1979)

330 million years ago, what is now the rocky shore close to Katrina Porteous’s Northumberland home was a tropical swamp inhabited by three-metre long predatory fish with huge tusk-like teeth. They belonged to a family of lobe-finned fishes which evolved to move on land as well as swim, and which are the ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates, including humans. The fossil fish found in Northumberland is called the ‘rhizodont’.

Book cover shows a cartoon scene of a person in a wheelchair in hot pursuit of a boar clutching papers in its mouth.

The Ha-Ha

Tom Shakespeare (Pembroke 1984)

Fred Twistleton is about to turn forty. Gathering with his friends to celebrate at a rented stately home, he finally hopes to get together with his college crush, the woman of his dreams, Heather. But Fred is also keen to publish his memoirs, and Heather realises the revelations they contain could threaten her career as a high-flying foreign correspondent.

Book cover shows a woodcut featuring a early modern nobleman sitting on an elaborate throne.

Reformed Identity and Conformity in England, 1559-1714

Jake Griesel (Peterhouse 2016) and Esther Counsell (Trinity 2015) eds.

This volume is the first collection of essays to focus specifically on how reformed theology and ecclesiology related to one of the most consequential issues between the Elizabethan Settlement (1559) and the Hanoverian Succession (1714), namely conformity to the Church of England. This volume enriches scholarly understandings of how reformed identity was understood in the Tudor and Stuart periods, and how it influenced both clerical and lay attitudes towards the English Church's government, liturgy and doctrine.

Book cover shows two naked individuals in an embrace.

Sexual Attraction: The Psychology of Allure

Dr James Giles (Institute for Continuing Education)

We all experience it but exactly how and why does sexual attraction happen? Philosopher and psychologist James Giles explores the universal, yet highly individualised, experience of being sexually attracted to another person.

Incorporating interviews, research findings, and excerpts from romantic and erotic literature, lyrics, and film, 'Sexual Attraction: The Psychology of Allure' explores a subject that is central to the human experience and highly relevant in not only personal, intimate interactions, but also other relationships.

Cover shows three silhouetted figures walking through a foggy, lamp lit street.

King Street Run

V. R. Ling (King's 2005)

'King Street Run' is a satirical fantasy thriller set in contemporary Cambridge. Thomas Wharton, an archaeology graduate, becomes drawn into the problems of a series of anachronistic characters who exist in the fractions of a second behind our own time. These characters turn out to be personifications of the Cambridge Colleges; they have the amalgamated foibles, history, and temperament of their Fellows and students and, together with Thomas, must enter into a race against time to prevent their world being destroyed by an unknown assailant.

Book cover shows a swan sailing across rippled water as musical notes rise from the surface.

Swansong

Henry Disney (Sidney Sussex 1959)

The final collection of poems by a scientist and poet near the end of an extraordinary life. The poems are poignant and straight to the point. There are no shades of grey. You will either concur with the poet or you may beg to differ, but you will not be neutral. Comments cover politics, current conflicts across the world, impacts of climate change and other concerns, which are treated with clarity and insight. You will be moved, you will be challenged and you will be stirred. The poems reflect on unusual incidents in the poet's life and comments on contemporary concerns of life today.

Book cover with a black background and title in bright orange text.

Vital Signs

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, followed by the more experimental Exploring Rights (2020); and And Then the Rain Came (2022), an exposition on love and well-being forged under the global pandemic and climate crisis. This new work, Vital Signs, draws on the inspiration of the medical vital signs.

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