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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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Days of My China Dragon
Chandrahas Choudhury (Trinity 2000)

The Bombay restaurateur Jigar Pala has three, great, overlapping passions: food, people and banter. And he shakes and stirs them to great effect in his hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, The China Dragon, set up with great ambitions on the foundation of a place previously set up by his father. Join Jigar as he shows you the arts of fried rice ("Self-fried rice is the right and duty of every human being") and Dragon Chicken, and portrays and narrates the stories of customers, waiters, chefs, ghosts and dragons (not to mention himself).

Drinkology. The Science of What We Drink and What It Does to Us, from Milks to Martinis
Alexis Willett (Darwin 2001)

Do you really know what you are drinking? Are you sure?

We consume many drinks every day and they all have an impact of some kind on our body. Maybe we're just thirsty, maybe we need something to wake us up, maybe we want something to relax us at the end of the day. But have you ever stopped to wonder what exactly is in your chai latte or just what those added electrolytes in your bottled water are supposed to do?

Love is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships
Brian Earp (Trinity 2013) and Julian Savulescu

What if there were a pill for love? Or an anti-love drug, designed to help us break up?

This controversial and timely new book argues that recent medical advances have brought chemical control of our romantic lives well within our grasp. Substances affecting love and relationships, whether prescribed by doctors or even illicitly administered, are not some far-off speculation - indeed our most intimate connections are already being influenced by pills we take for other purposes, such as antidepressants.

Twenty Thousand Miles Through South America
Kirk Wilson (Hughes Hall 2007)

In 2019 Kirk Wilson rode a 160cc Indian made motorcycle from Colombia to Venezuela, the long way round through ten countries, carrying only a backpack. He crossed frozen mountain roads on the equator in Ecuador, and the driest desert in the world in Chile. He broke down in torrential rain six hours into the Amazon Jungle in Peru, and ended up in a ditch underneath the bike on a dark night in Bolivia. To complete the journey he had to get himself and the motorcycle across the closed Venezuela-Colombia frontier, as the world tried to start a civil war.

The Myths We Live By: Adventures in Democracy, Free Speech and Other Liberal Inventions
Peter Cave (King's 1972)

 In this witty and mischievous book, philosopher Peter Cave dissects the most controversial disputes of today, using philosophical argument, thought experiments and taking the reasoning to where it leads.  He thus reveals the hidden complexities and muddles in the many cherished beliefs of our liberal democracies.

Untimely affects
Nadine Boljkovac (Newnham 2005)

Untimely affects: Gilles Deleuze and an Ethics of Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2013) examines screen affect, ethics and politics via works of screen and multimedia artist Chris Marker and filmmaker Alain Resnais, philosopher Gilles Deleuze and others, and was reissued in paperback in April 2015.

Out of the Third World
Ashok Sharma (Trinity Hall 1969)

Out of the Third World is a chronicle of the travails, tenacity, and grit against overwhelming odds and adversity faced by Ashok, a shy 18-year-old Indian student from East Africa, in gaining admission to a British Medical school during a tumultuous period in the British history triggered by an apocalyptic-sounding rhetorical speech, dubbed "The Rivers of Blood," delivered by Enoch Powell, a prominent British politician, on April 20, 1968, harshly denouncing the immigration of non-white people into Great Britain and demanding their repatriation.

Ways of Heaven. An Introduction to Chinese Thought
Roel Sterckx (Clare Hall 1992)

In Ways of Heaven, leading China scholar Roel Sterckx offers an engrossing introduction to classical China’s world of ideas. Drawing on evocative examples from philosophical texts, literature, and everyday life over centuries of Chinese history, Sterckx introduces major thinkers and traditions, illuminates key concepts like the dao, qi, yin, and yang, and examines questions of leadership, social order, death, nature, and more.

Chinese Thought. From Confucius to Cook Ding
Roel Sterckx (Clare Hall 1992)

We are often told that the twenty-first century is bound to become China's century. Never before has Chinese culture been so physically, digitally, economically or aesthetically present in everyday Western life. But how much do we really know about its origins and key beliefs? How did the ancient Chinese think about the world?      

The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney
Okechukwu Nzelu (Girton College 2007)

How do you begin to find yourself when you only know half of who you are?

As Nnenna Maloney approaches womanhood she longs to connect with her Igbo-Nigerian culture. Her once close and tender relationship with her mother, Joanie, becomes strained as Nnenna begins to ask probing questions about her father, who Joanie refuses to discuss.

Climate Change (A Ladybird Expert Book)
HRH The Prince of Wales, Tony Juniper and Dr Emily Shuckburgh OBE (Trinity College 1994)

Part of the new Ladybird Expert series, Climate Change is a clear, simple and enlightening introduction to one of the most important issues facing our world today.

From HRH The Prince of Wales, environmentalist Tony Juniper and climate scientist Dr Emily Shuckburgh, it explains the history, dangers and challenges of global warming and explores possible solutions with which to reduce its impact.

Invisible Jumpers
Joseph Ford (St Catharine's 1997)

Photographs of jumpers blending into their background from an inventive 1000-hour knitting project Photographer Joseph Ford and knitting pro Nina Dodd have dedicated more hours than is reasonable to creating bespoke jumpers (for humans, animals and even bananas) that blend seamlessly into their surroundings – from bus seats to bushes, carpets to coastlines. The images are executed with such painstaking precision that should the camera, or jumper for that matter, move by an inch the illusion would unravel.

Meditation for Life
Justyn Comer (Trinity 1988)

Career, relationships, health, happiness, sport, creativity – you name it – they can all be enhanced by the practice of meditation. It has the power to improve every aspect of our lives. Although there has recently been a lot of coverage of meditation, most people still see it narrowly as being a relaxation technique, or a spiritual exercise. It can be both these things, but it is also so much more. This book is an attempt to explain the 'more'.

Burning Souls
David Chernushenko (Clare Hall 1987)

A climate breakdown thriller. Burning Souls is a dramatic tale of courage and friendship in a time of political turmoil and ecological collapse.

Long time best friends Simone, Sagan, Jenny and Jiro learned of the predatory practices driving climate breakdown and social collapse, in a time and place when they could dream of making a difference.

And did.

Ideas of Power: The Politics of American Party Ideology Development
Verlan Lewis (Trinity Hall 2009)

This groundbreaking book challenges the dominant view of ideology held by both political scientists and political commentators. Rather than viewing ideological constructs like liberalism and conservatism as static concepts with fixed and enduring content, Professor Verlan Lewis explains how the very meanings of liberalism and conservatism frequently change along with the ideologies of the two major parties in American politics.

Liberty Intact Human Rights in English Law
Michael Tugendhat (Caius 1963)

The connections between conceptions of rights found in English law and those found in bills of rights around the World? How has English Common Law influenced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 1950?

Author Unknown: The Power of Anonymity in Ancient Rome
Tom Geue (King's 2008)

From Banksy to Elena Ferrante to the unattributed parchments of ancient Rome, art without clear authorship fascinates and even offends us. Classical scholarship tends to treat this anonymity as a problem or game—a defect to be repaired or mystery to be solved. Author Unknown is the first book to consider anonymity as a site of literary interest rather than a gap that needs filling. We can tether each work to an identity, or we can stand back and ask how the absence of a name affects the meaning and experience of literature.

Let There Be Life. An Intimate Portrait of Robert Edwards
Roger Gosden (Darwin 1970)

 The authorized biography of IVF pioneer Robert Edwards is a compelling account of how he led a medical and social revolution by making babies in ‘test-tubes’. Prevailing against opposition when human embryology was new and sacrosanct territory, he was the champion of women and men with infertility, and now millions owe their existence to assisted reproductive technologies. An improbable hero of science, he was a coal miner’s son and a gritty Yorkshireman who rode a roller-coaster of endeavour to a breakthrough for which he was rewarded with a Nobel Prize and knighthood.

Imagined Futures
Max Saunders (Queens' 1976)

This study provides the first substantial history and analysis of the To-Day and To-Morrow series of 110 books, published by Kegan Paul Trench and Trübner (and E. P. Dutton in the USA) from 1923 to 1931, in which writers chose a topic, described its present, and predicted its future. Contributors included J. B. S. Haldane, Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, Sylvia Pankhurst, Hugh McDiarmid, James Jeans, J. D. Bernal, Winifred Holtby, André Maurois, and many others.

The Impact of Jesus in First-Century Palestine. Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Long-standing Discontent
Rosemary-Margaret Luff (Lucy Cavendish 1972)

Although the archaeological evidence indicates a prosperous and thriving Galilee in the early first century CE, the Gospel texts suggest a society under stress, where the rich were flourishing at the expense of the poor. In this multi-disciplinary study, Rosemary Margaret Luff contributes to current debates concerning the pressures on early first-century Palestinian Jews, particularly with reference to socio-economic and religious issues.

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