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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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The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery
Sebastian Falk (Homerton 2011)

An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk.

The Middle Ages were a time of wonder. They gave us the first universities, the first eyeglasses and the first mechanical clocks as medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky.

Somewhere Near to History: The Wartime Diaries of Reginald Hibbert, SOE Officer in Albania 1943-1944
Edited by Jane Nicolov (nee Hibbert, Newnham 1968)

In July 1943, a twenty-one-year-old British officer, Reg Hibbert, answered a call inviting volunteers for mysterious ‘parachute duties’. The call was part of a recruitment drive by Special Operations Executive, SOE, to attract likely young officers for clandestine work in the German-occupied Balkans. By December of that year, he had been parachuted into the centre of British efforts to encourage armed resistance in northern Albania.

Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the Struggle to Remake Indonesia
Ben Bland (Magdalene 2001)

From a riverside shack to the presidential palace, Joko Widodo surged to the top of Indonesian politics on a wave of hope for change. However, six years into his presidency, the former furniture maker is struggling to deliver the reforms that Indonesia desperately needs. Despite promising to build Indonesia into an Asian powerhouse, Jokowi, as he is known, has faltered in the face of crises, from COVID-19 to an Islamist mass movement.

The Water and the Wine
Tamar Nicholls (Homerton 1982)

The novel is set in the sixties on the island of Hydra where there was an artistic community. The author lived there as a child as her parent were involved. The main focus, however, is on Leonard Cohen: his writing, his music and his relationship with his lover and muse Marianne. There is passion,creativity, infidelity and conflict. The San Francisco  Review of Books called this novel 'a very fine tresure' and the film-maker Nick Brooomfield called it 'beautifully written. Highly recommended.'

The Rules
Tracy Darnton (née Hobbs, Jesus 1986)

Amber’s an expert when it comes to staying hidden – she’s been trained her whole life for it. But what happens when the person you’re hiding from taught you everything you know?

When a letter from her dad arrives, Amber knows she’s got to move – and fast. He’s managed to find her and she knows he’ll stop at nothing to draw her back into his extreme prepper way of life. Now the Rules she’s spent so long trying to escape are the ones keeping her safe. But for how long?

The Age of Ageing Better? A Manifesto For Our Future
Anna Dixon (Trinity Hall 1991)

The Age of Ageing Better? takes a radically different view of what our ageing society means. Dr Anna Dixon turns the misleading and depressing narrative of burden and massive extra cost of people living longer on its head and shows how our society could thrive if we started thinking differently.

Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Postwar Global Role
Adrian Brettle (Pembroke 1991)

My book explores the Confederacy’s expansionist plans during the American Civil War and will break much new ground in placing the Confederacy, and the war in a broader sense, within a transnational context. It aims to describe what happened and what arguments were in play as to the Confederate future.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book
James Raven (Clare 1978)

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book reveals the history of books in all their various forms, from the ancient world to the digital present.

The Lonely Century
Noreena Hertz

Even before a global pandemic introduced us to terms like social distancing, loneliness was well on its way to becoming the defining condition of the twenty-first century.

Combining a decade of research with first-hand reporting, Noreena Hertz takes us from ‘renting a friend’ in New York to Belgian far right festivals replete with face-painting and bouncy castles, from elderly women knitting bonnets for their robot caregivers in Japan to isolated remote workers in London during lockdown.

 The Big Book of Wisdom
Larry Culliford (St Catharine's 1968)

The Big Book of Wisdom describes how to grow through adversity towards maturity, and so make an enduring personal contribution towards a safer, more peaceful, cleaner, happier world. Appealing uniquely to both spiritual and secular-minded people, combining scientific findings with logical and intuitive reasoning, this short book takes engaged readers are taken on a fulfilling journey towards wisdom by looking at: What is it? Why we need it... And how to get it. If short, why 'big'? Because there are ideas here for everyone that cover more or less everything.

Matisse: The Books
Louise Rogers Lalaurie (Queens' 1982)

Generously illustrated with archival images and new photography, Matisse: The Books offers an unprecedented insight into the experience of reading – and looking at – Matisse’s books and brings new clarity to a controversial period in the artist’s life.

A Throne Of Swans
Katharine (Sidney Sussex 1989) and Elizabeth Corr

The first part of a new YA fantasy duology, loosely inspired by Swan Lake.

When her father dies just before her eighteenth birthday, Aderyn inherites the role of Protector of Atratys, a dominion in a kingdom where nobles can transform into birds. Aderyn's ancestral bird is a swan. But she has not been able to transform for years, not since witnessing the brutal death of her mother. Aderyn must venture into the malevolent heart of the Citadel in order to seek the truth about the attack that killed her mother and to fight for the land she has vowed to protect.

The Butchers
Ruth Gilligan (Caius 2006)

A feminist, folkloric murder mystery set in the Irish borderlands during the 1996 BSE crisis.

A photograph is hung on a gallery wall for the very first time since it was taken two decades before. It shows a slaughter house in rural Ireland, a painting of the Virgin Mary on the wall, a meat hook suspended from the ceiling - and, from its sharp point, the lifeless body of a man hanging by his feet.

Somerville's War
Andrew Duncan (Trinity Hall 1971)

The strange brigadier who hardly speaks... Leo, his feisty pilot daughter... Labrador, the vengeful Pole... Henry Dunning-Green, Leo's boring suitor... Adrian Russell, the treacherous master spy... ... All linked by SOE Somerville, the top secret Second World War finishing school for spies on England's south coast, and its local community: A melting pot of intrigue and counter-intrigue. A fast-unfolding, untold tale of deception, betrayal and romance leading to a tense life-or-death climax in occupied France. Many of the events actually took place.

An Elephant in Rome: Bernini, The Pope, And The Making Of The Eternal City
Loyd Grossman (Magdalene 2008)

In 1655, a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mania for building, determined to restore the prestige of his church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe's elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, already celebrated as the most important artist of the age.

Poems from Life as it Happens
Jane Ross (St Edmund's 1982)

An anthology steeped in the rural Battle River region of western Canada. Rich with the words of known and unknown poets, the book evokes inescapable reflections on landscape, history and peoples. They point to the unrevealed with its sinewy tensions and silent cries. Life, as it happens in this anthology, considers the other kingdoms: trees and snow and the creatures who live within the stunning embrace of the vast prairie terrain and its under land.

Portraying Pregnancy: from Holbein to Social Media
Karen Hearn (Girton 1972)

This book offers a new lens through which to look at history and art history, by rethinking the context in which portraits of women have been made over 500 years. Although up to the early 20th century many women spent most of their adult years being pregnant, their pregnancies are seldom made apparent in surviving portraits.   'Portraying Pregnancy' considers the different ways in which a sitter’s pregnancy was, or was not, visibly represented to the viewer.    

The Mountbattens: Their Lives & Loves
Andrew Lownie (Magdalene 1981)

The intimate story of a unique marriage that spans the heights of glamour and power to infidelity, manipulation and disaster through the heart of the 20th century.

Dickie Mountbatten: A major figure behind his nephew Philip's marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the Royal Family taking the Mountbatten name, he was Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War II and the last Viceroy of India.

Understanding Ugly: Human Response to Buildings in the Environment
Ian Ellingham (St Edmund's 1993)

The book explores research about the visual factors that determine how a building is received - sometimes esteemed by one group and despised by another. It creates a synthesis of decades of insightful research and provides insights into what factors contribute to a building being perceived as delightful. While it is of particular interest to anyone who creates or manages buildings or cities, it is written in a non-technical style so as to be accessible and entertaining to anyone who takes an interest in the buildings and urban spaces that we inhabit.

Audrey Orr and the Robot Rage
Jenny Moore (Selwyn 1994)

Ever wished there was more than one of you to go round? Need to be in two places at once?

When Audrey Orr’s mum wins a luxury cruise to Norway, Audrey thinks she’s won the jackpot – until she realises it’s during term-time. With her no-nonsense headteacher, Mr Stickler, on her case, she has to resort to something a bit unusual: a robot clone! But can she trust Awesome the clone to stay home and pretend to be her or will Awesome turn out to be a bit… Awful?

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