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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Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History

Simon Goldhill (King's 1975)

'Queer Cambridge' recounts the untold story of a gay community living, for many decades, at the very heart of the British Establishment. Making effective use of chiefly forgotten archival sources – including personal diaries and letters – the author reveals a network that was in equal parts tolerant and acerbic, and within which the queer Fellows of Cambridge University explored bold new forms of camaraderie and relationship. Goldhill examines too the huge influence that these individuals had on British culture, in its arts, politics, music, theatre and self-understanding.

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Monstrosity, Bodies, and Knowledge in Early Modern England: Curiosity to See and Behold

Whitney Dirks (Wolfson 2006)

In 1680, the poor cottager Mary Herring gave birth to conjoined twins. At two weeks of age, they were kidnapped to be shown for money, and their deaths shortly thereafter gave rise to a four-year legal battle over ownership and income.

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Chopping Onions on my Heart

Samantha Ellis (Queen's 1993)

Samantha’s mother tongue is dying out. An urgent need to find out more becomes an expansive investigation into how to keep hold of her culture and when to let it go.

The daughter of Iraqi-Jewish refugees, Samantha grew up surrounded by the noisy, vivid, hot sounds of Judeo-Iraqi Arabic. A language that’s now on the verge of extinction.

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Freshly Laidoff

Srivani Bairi (St Edmund's 2022)

'Freshly Laidoff' is a story with a feminist perspective that captures the raw realities of corporate life and the struggles of an employee navigating the turbulent waters of job insecurity. The book paints a picture of fear, resilience, and determination that resonates with anyone who has faced professional or personal challenges.

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A Missing Ticket

Philippa Carey (Trinity Hall 1970)

At Paddington railway station, Martin comes across a girl whose purse, including all her money and her train ticket, has been stolen by a pickpocket. In this predicament, it could easily have been one of his sisters, and so he can't just walk on by, can he?

Later, having bought her a new ticket and lunch on the train, the railway line becomes blocked by snow. They can't get to their destinations today as expected and as he now feels committed to her rescue, what is he going to do?

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An Orchid in My Belly Button

Katy Wimhurst (Trinity 1984)

Offbeat short stories that explore our fragile world. These stories savour the surreal, flirt with magical realism, and dabble with dystopia. A boy sees the ghosts of dead crabs. A girl with a fox tail is bullied. A disenchanted woman sprouts orchids from her belly button. Fashion models pursue the trend of having plants as hair. Electronic goods amassing all over London herald an apocalypse. Darkness and wonder, the strange and the ordinary interweave to offer an environmental and social portrait of our times.

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Cranleigh Arts - 50 Years at the Heart of the Community

Clive Wouters (Trinity Hall 1970)

Cranleigh Arts, a thriving community arts centre in Surrey, is fifty years old.  Much has changed since its beginnings, and this book tells the story of the struggles and successes as it evolved from a small group of societies into a professional organisation beloved by the community. It is testimony to the army of dedicated volunteers, with the input and leadership of some remarkable people, who had the vision to transform a neglected school building into a cultural hub.

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The Body in the Graveyard

Stephen Hudson (Downing 1974)

A light-hearted, cosy "crime whodunit" set in the world of comprehensive schools. 

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Barton the College Cat

Patrick Whitby Russell (Wolfson 2020)

Barton, a handsome tabby cat, lives at Wulfstan College, in an ancient university town in the East of England. While his hunting days may be long behind him, Barton still loves college life. He gets strokes and attention from the students and extra rations from all the college feasts! However, one fateful day, a new President - who hates cats - comes to Wulfstan. What will Barton do?

This children's book for 6/7 year olds will also be of interest to current and former members of Cambridge University who will recognise the picture of college life painted here.

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An Idyllic Childhood in Troubled Times

Geoff Squire (Downing 1955)

A memoir of Branscombe 1934-1953. Having reached 90, with the 80th anniversary of VE Day coming up next May, I’ve been writing about my early life in the beautiful village of Branscombe on the coast of East Devon - a village often regarded as an example of the rural idyll.

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Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms

Richard Fortey (King's 1965)

Richard Fortey, FRS, OBE, has pursued a distinguished career in Palaeontology, but has been a devoted field mycologist since childhood. Drawing on decades of exploring the world of fungi, he shares the richness of this extraordinarily diverse kingdom in his latest book. Through special selected examples, he explores and explains their various and under appreciated roles in the world's ecology.

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Hard Drive

Paul Stephenson (Darwin 1998)

When his partner suddenly died, life changed utterly for Paul Stephenson. 'Hard Drive' is the outcome of his revisiting a world he thought he knew, but which had been upended. In poems that are affectionate, self-examining, sometimes funny and often surprised by grief in the oddest corners, the poet takes us through rooms, routines, and rituals of bereavement, the memory of love, a shared life and separation.

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Sizar

Susan Grossey (Murray Edwards 1984)

In the spring of 1826, ex-soldier Gregory Hardiman is settling into civilian life as an ostler and university constable in Cambridge. When an undergraduate is found hanged in his rooms at St Clement’s College, the Master asks Gregory to find out what could have driven the seemingly happy young man to take such a drastic step. A second death at the same college suggests something altogether more sinister, and Gregory sets out to discover whether a love of illegal gambling on horse races could lie at the heart of the tragedies.

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Whimwondery: An Alphabetarium of Useful Nonsense Inventions

Daniel J. T. McKay (Peterhouse 2017)

Whimwondery is the academic study of the magickal properties of elemental curiosity and its two sub-particles – whimsy and wonder. For, as perhaps you have felt yourself deep down in your gizzards, in every spark of curiosity, every maddening ponderation, every look of bafflement and inquisitive squint, is power beyond reckoning. Though not, as has been discovered, entirely beyond the capacities of our imaginations.

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From Madrid to Heaven

Leslie Croxford (Selwyn 1963)

'From Madrid to Heaven' is a collection of fourteen short stories by Leslie Croxford. Centred on Madrid, they reach across to Lisbon and over the Mediterranean to Tangier. Characters meet the unexpected in a timespan ranging from the fall of dictators to the surge in trans-Mediterranean migration. The reader is taken with them to surprising edges of experience where, finding nothing seems possible, everything suddenly becomes possible.

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Language and Life - Reflections of an English Teacher

P R Brown (St John's 1972)

'Language and Life' is an anthology of articles dealing with aspects of the teaching of English as a foreign language, but it is under-pined by the motto of the book: 'To say, as I have been tempted to say, that language is human life, is incorrect, but to say that language is a part of human life is a profound and widely misconceived understatement'.

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The Four Ages of Death and Other Stories

Guy Riddihough (King's 1984)

'The Four Ages of Death and Other Stories' — a collection of three novellas and one novelette — examines how catastrophic weather events, the tragedy of living forever, the future of the war on terrorism, and being judged by a non-human entity reveal who we are.

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Fatally Inferior

Lyn Squire (Emmanuel 1968)

In 'Fatally Inferior' award-winning author Lyn Squire delivers another gripping, period mystery. When a member of Charles Darwin’s household goes missing and a former maid dies in childbirth (or so it seems), reluctant detective Dunston Burnett is thrust into a twisted web of deception, revenge, and murder.

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Goya’s Caprichos in Nineteenth-Century France: Politics of the Grotesque

Paula Fayos Pérez (Magdalene 2015)

The impact of Goya’s oeuvre and particularly of the Caprichos (1799) on nineteenth-century French art was immense, long-lasting and multifaceted. Whereas in Spain Goya was associated with the work he produced as a court painter, in France he became known as the author of the Caprichos, interpreted by the Romantics as a lampoon of late eighteenth-century Spain.

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Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From – and the Science-Backed Method to Unravel Them

Anu Gupta (Queens' 2007)

Imagine a world without bias. A world where all human beings can truly be just as they are and unleash their full potential. Take a moment to imagine how you feel in such a world—not what you think about it, or whether you believe it’s possible, but how you feel. This is the proposition that opens 'Breaking Bias'. It’s your invitation to embark on a journey that will radically change your experience and show you how you, in turn, can help reshape our world.

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