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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Getting (more out of) Graphics

Antony Unwin (Queen's 1969)

Data graphics are used extensively to present information. Understanding graphics is a lot about understanding the data represented by the graphics, having a feel not just for the numbers themselves, the reliability and uncertainty associated with them, but also for what they mean. This book presents a practical approach to data visualisation with real applications front and centre.

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Women Are Angry: Why Your Rage Is Hiding And How To Let It Out

Jennifer Cox (King's 1996)

What if you aren't depressed?
What if you don't have chronic fatigue?
What if you are just... angry?

In a world where patience is a virtue and being a good girl is for life, women are never allowed to truly express their anger - and it is making us ill. After a lifetime of being told to repress it, to hide it away and fear it, anger has begun to manifest in female bodies in myriad ways we can't control. And the results are alarming.

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Physics Fixes All the Facts

Liam Graham (Robinson 1986)

Complex systems seem to magically emerge from the interactions of their parts. A whirlpool emerges from water molecules. A living cell from organic molecules. You emerge from the cells of your body. Not since chaos has a concept from physics spread like wildfire to other disciplines. Emergence can be found from chemistry to economics; from psychology to ecology. At its heart is the alluring idea that there’s more to the world than physics, that there is a holistic component to nature, an edge of mystery.

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These Mortal Bodies

Elspeth Wilson (Girton 2014)

"I’m ready to be part of something bigger", I told myself, whispering the words over and over, visualising myself at the centre of things, never alone again.

Leaving behind her childhood in coastal Scotland, neurodivergent Ivy Graveson arrives at a prestigious university and throws herself into the deep end of life on campus.

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Chokepoints: How the Global Economy Became a Weapon of War

Edward Fishman (King's 2011)

Globalisation was once hailed as the great leveller, bringing prosperity to all. But the world has changed. As Russia, China and Iran have sought to upend the international order, America and its allies have mounted unprecedented economic retaliation. The global economy is now a weapon of war.

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Transforming Europe in the Images of the World, 1110-1500: Fuzzy Geographies

Natalia I. Petrovskaia (Peterhouse 2003)

This is the first book to examine the wide and important geographical tradition that arose from the description of the world in the Imago Mundi – a medieval encyclopedic bestseller, almost unrivalled in popularity from its composition in the 1110s well into the age of print. The Imago Mundi was translated into most European vernaculars and extracts from it were adapted into vernacular works ranging from encyclopedias to literary fiction, verse and prose. This is the first study to examine this tradition as a unified whole.

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Medieval Statistics: Accounting, Record-Keeping and Financial Management, 1066-1525

Mark Casson and John Lee (Corpus Christi 1997)

This book is the first to systematically examine the sources of medieval statistics. It will be useful as a handbook for researchers in financial and cultural history, as a history of financial record-keeping, and as a review of recent research into medieval finance and accounting based on statistical sources.

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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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