In We Sang Better, two hundred of these singers explain the art of singing in over 70,000 of their own words. Much of their evidence is appearing for the first time in a modern edition. In Volume 2 Why It Was Better (260 pp) the singers explain how they enabled the possibility of superlative singing.

The triple disaster that struck Japan in March 2011 began with the most powerful earthquake known to have hit Japan and led to tsunami up to 40 meters in height that devastated a wide area and caused thousands of deaths. The ensuing accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant was Japan's worst and only second to Chernobyl in its severity.

John Brande Trend, the first Professor of Spanish in Cambridge in 1933, arrived at his Chair by a circuitous route through a variety of disciplines, encountering a host of prominent people in pre-war political, cultural and intellectual life. It was this wider experience that made his teaching so unique and makes his story central to the period through which he lived.

Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This knowledge rests not only on the recordings of seismographs, but also on the observations of eyewitnesses to destruction. During the nineteenth century, a scientific description of an earthquake was built of stories - stories from as many people in as many situations as possible. Sometimes their stories told of fear and devastation, sometimes of wonder and excitement.

Michael Jackson's Lifeworlds is a masterful collection of essays, the culmination of a career aimed at understanding the relationship between anthropology and philosophy. Seeking the truths that are found in the interstices between examiner and examined, world and word, and body and mind, and taking inspiration from James, Dewey, Arendt, Husserl, Sartre, Camus, and, especially, Merleau-Ponty, Jackson creates in these chapters a distinctive anthropological pursuit of existential inquiry. More important, he buttresses this philosophical approach with committed empirical research.

Awestruck by the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving in a London church, David Esterly chose to dedicate his life to the art - its physical control, intricate beauty and intellectual demands. Forty years later, he is the foremost practitioner of Gibbons's forgotten technique, which revolutionised ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s. After a fire at Hampton Court Palace in 1986 destroyed much of Gibbons's masterpiece, the job fell to David Esterly to restore his idol's work to its former glory.

Joan's voice is almost a whisper. 'Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren't allowed to.' Joan Stanley has a secret. She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet, unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world. Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists, yet unworldly Joan feels better suited to a science lecture and a cup of cocoa.

Following plans hitched within the walls of St Catharine’s college, nine dare-devil Cambridge students set off in 1961 on the trip of a lifetime after their graduation. Their mode of transport was the iconic VW Kombi van and their journey took them across three continents at a time of global political, economic and cultural turbulence. With the world in the grip of the Cold War, the students moved through the Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Africa and Asia. They meet treacherous terrain and undergo some nerve-wracking, often bizarre encounters.

Breaking down walls between genres that are usually discussed separately - classical, jazz, and popular - this highly engaging book offers a compelling new integrated view of twentieth-century music.

Placing Duke Ellington (1899-1974) at the center of the story, David Schiff explores music written during the composer's lifetime in terms of broad ideas such as rhythm, melody, and harmony. He shows how composers and performers across genres shared the common pursuit of representing the rapidly changing conditions of modern life.