New Books

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DAVID ABULAFIA
(Caius; Faculty of History)

The Discovery of Mankind: Atlantic Encounters in the Age of Columbus ($35, Yale University Press, April 2008). A Financial Times “Favourite Book” of 2008.

“Abulafia's narrative is as wide-ranging as the ships of those brutal years. He eloquently portrays the wonder of Europeans as they glimpsed new peoples and places, and shows brilliantly how they so often saw the new through preconceived categories. He explores the fated cultures of peoples from Atlantic islands and the Americas, and the result is accessible and illuminating.” - The Independent (UK)

“[A] penetrating historical analysis, one that casts fresh light on the whole sorry tale.... This is a fine book, a rare combination of careful scholarship and story-telling ability that breathes vivid life into the events of five centuries past.” – The Guardian (UK)  

PETER ACKROYD
(Clare)

Newton: Ackroyd’s Brief Lives ($21.95, Nan A. Talese, April 2008)

Latest in a series of brief biographies (Chaucer, Turner) by the author who “may well be the most prolific English author of his generation. And, which I find encouraging, he can write movingly and revealingly about Isaac Newton while being no more of a scientist or mathematician than I am.” – Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair

“Newton is both impeccably researched and a wonderful read. An afternoon in the backyard hammock with ‘the grand autocrat of science.’” – Los Angeles Times

The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time ($7.99, Random House). Adams (1952-2001) was the author of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

“A loving tribute to the author by his friends, who decided that the best way to salute his life and work was to collect some of the more unusual bits of it and let the world share the mind of a wonderfully talented man, with a unique viewpoint on almost everything...a fascinating collection of bits and pieces of a busy writer's life.” – Library Journal

The Road from Frijoles Canyon: Anthropological Adventures on Four Continents  ($45, Univ. of New Mexico Press, December 2009). Memoir ranging from the American Southwest to the Nile Valley, by a professor emeritus of anthropology at the Univ. of Kentucky who was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall in 1981-82. 

“These memoirs are not limited to the author’s life story. He relates lessons learned and mistakes made, along with interpretations and observations, giving this autobiography an unusual depth, intellectual honesty, and refreshing candor, while always remaining extremely engaging and readable.” – Egyptian Archaeology

LIAQUAT AHAMED
(Trinity)

Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World ($32.95, The Penguin Press, January 2009). A New York Times Notable Book of 2009. A Financial Times “Book of the Year” for 2009.

“Liaquat Ahamed’s Lords of Finance is supposed to be a history book about the economics of World War I and the Great Depression. But there is terrific prescience to be found in its portrait of times past. Mr. Ahamed, an investment manager who proves to be a writer of great verve and erudition, easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today. He does this winningly enough to make his book about an international monetary horror story seem like a labor of love.... Mr. Ahamed does a superlative job of explaining the ever-germane way the problems of one shyster, one bank, one treasury or one economy can set off repercussions all around the globe.” – The New York Times

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in History.

	Click here to view video of Liaquat Ahamed on the C-Span Video Library.
	Click here to view video from the Food for Thought Breakfast with Liaquat Ahamed.

DANIELLE ALLEN
(King's 1993)

Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v. Board of Education ($16.00, University of Chicago Press). Allen - classical scholar, MacArthur Fellow, UPS Foundation Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies - offers a program for revitalizing democratic citizenry in America.

“Allen understands that democracy originates in the subjective dimension of everyday life, and she focuses on what she calls our ‘habit of citizenship’—the ways we often unconsciously regard and interact with fellow citizens.... [Her] focus on race is entirely appropriate.”— Boston Review

M.T. ANDERSON
(Peterhouse)

The Kingdom On The Waves: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2 ($22.99, Candlewick Press, October 2008). Ages 14 and up. The first volume of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party (2006) won a National Book Award for juvenile literature.

“It may be hard to conceive of making the claim about a young adult book, but I believe Octavian Nothing will someday be recognized as a novel of the first rank, the kind of monumental work Italo Calvino called ‘encyclopedic’ in the way it sweeps up history into a comprehensive and deeply textured pattern.” – Jerry Griswold in The New York Times Sunday Book Review

Click here to view video of M.T. Anderson on the C-Span Video Library.

CHRISTOPHER ANDREW
(Corpus Christi)

Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 ($40, Knopf, November 2009)

"Mr. Andrew is no stranger to the secret world of Britain's intelligence community...[He] is used to reconciling the sensitivities of top-secret intelligence with the exigencies of providing a credible narrative.... Mr. Andrew has succeeded in producing a highly readable book that offers important new insights into MI5's operations over the past century." - The Wall Street Journal

"It will be enthusiastically scrutinised by historians, intelligence buffs and conspiracy theorists...[there are] anecdotes and operational details as gripping as any thriller." - Financial Times 

“….[A]s engrossing as any spy novel. In part, that's because Andrew, a professor of history at Cambridge, is this era's preeminent historian of espionage; in part, it's because he's one of those English academics in whom erudition and fluent clarity of style are happily conjoined.….Andrew's account of MI5's masterful deception operations reads like one of the multitude of spy novels they inspired.” – Los Angeles Times

A Financial Times “Book of the Year” for 2009.

Click here to view video of Christopher Andrew on the C-Span Video Library.

By Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin

The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB ($24, Basic Books). The first volume of a history of the postwar Soviet KGB, based on archives smuggled out of the former USSR by the late co-author, a highly placed dissident.

"The defection of KGB researcher Vasili Mitrokhin...was described by former Western and Russian spies...as one of the most extraordinary events in the intelligence game since the Soviet Union collapsed." - Washington Post

"Every page brims with the plots for a dozen movies and Robert Ludlum thrillers.... [N]o history of the last half of the Cold War can be written the same again." - Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Stranger than fiction...Aficionados of espionage will be rummaging through this enormously detailed book for years." - The New Republic

The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World ($19.95, Basic Books)  The second volume of a history of the postwar Soviet KGB, based on archives smuggled out of the former USSR by the late co-author, a highly placed dissident. The focus is on Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

"This illuminating book, co-authored by Christopher Andrew, our leading authority on the secret machinations of the Evil Empire... still has lessons for our present confused world scene." – The London Times

“Andrew's engaging, occasionally gossipy narrative provides new evidence of Soviet sponsorship of Latin American insurgencies and Palestinian terrorists, along with details of KGB spycraft and dirty tricks. The world-wide communist conspiracy he depicts was far from a juggernaut, but he sheds new light on the hidden history of the Cold War.” – Publishers Weekly

KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH
(Clare)

[new!] The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen ($25.95, W.W. Norton, September 2010).  A New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

"Rooting his analysis firmly in historical manifestations of honor, Appiah, a professor of philosophy at Princeton, offers four case studies in what he calls moral revolutions, attesting to how altering notions of honor can provoke positive changes in social behavior. Codes of honor surrounding dueling, Chinese foot binding, the Atlantic slave trade, and the ongoing practice of honor killing in contemporary Pakistan are all examined to reveal the various dimensions of honor as it relates to notions of respect, shame, and dignity...a compelling read...represents a refreshingly concrete solution to the question of how to alter deeply objectionable, deeply intractable human practices." - Publishers Weekly

"The word cosmopolitan applies to Mr. Appiah as fully as to any serious thinker alive." - The New York Times

The Ethics of Identity ($22.95, Princeton University Press). The author teaches philosophy at Princeton.

“Wonderfully straightforward.” – The New York Review of Books

“Suave and persuasive.” – The New York Times

“A humane and optimistic vision, eloquently expressed.” – The New Republic

Click here to view video of Kwame Anthony Appiah on the C-Span Video Library.

TERRI APTER
(Newnham)

What Do You Want From Me?  Learning to Get Along With In-Laws ($25.95, W.W. Norton, July 2009. American-born Apter is Senior Tutor at Newnham.

‘[B]ased on years of research, Cambridge University psychologist Terri Apter says it's now clear that this is primarily a woman-to-woman problem.... Apter says most in-law problems can be traced back to unspoken but conflicting expectations and assumptions.... Maybe she's not the world's best mother-in-law yet, but Apter's working on it.” – Newsweek.com
 

You Don't Really Know Me: Why Mothers and Daughters Fight and How Both Can Win ($13.95, paperback, W.W. Norton)

"Ongoing interaction between mother and daughter is key.... Apter offers a number of strategies to address common adolescent issues, such as complaints of a lack of freedom, concerns over physical appearance and irritability...a solid addition to the teen parenting genre." – Publishers Weekly

The Sister Knot: Why We Fight, Why We’re Jealous, and Why We’ll Love Each Other No Matter What ($15.95, W.W. Norton)

“Apter skillfully uncovers the complicated feelings inherent in sisterhood....  Highly recommended.” – Library Journal

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
(Clare 1946) 

Life in the Undergrowth ($29.95, Princeton Univ. Press, January 2006)

“[T]his wonderful exploration of invertebrates exceeds the requirements for a great nature book through the strength of its photographs and the quality of its prose.... Each page of text offers at least one remarkable description, further enhanced by the 275 photographs....” – Publishers Weekly

“Attenborough is at it again, exploring the natural world with his team of cinematographers and clearly explaining what they've found to a lay audience.... The text is always lively.” – Booklist

Click here to view a video of David Attenborough on Meet the Author UK.

Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster ($37.95, Princeton University Press, September 2002)

"[An] engaging and often amusing text." - Choice

"[T]ells the entertaining story of how he turned us all into armchair experts in natural history." - New Scientist

TASH AW
(Jesus)

[new!] Map of the Invisible World ($15, Spiegel & Grau, December 2010). The author studied law at Cambridge and earned a master's degree in 1996.

"This exquisite and haunting second novel from Aw (The Harmony Silk Factory) follows a vibrant cast searching for a sense of home during the political upheaval of 1960s Indonesia.... Well-paced and gorgeously written, this epic story of loss and identity mirrors the struggles of the young Indonesia in which it takes place." - Publishers Weekly

"With moving settings and memorable characters, this atmospheric and complicated tale of a rediscovered past and recovered family will engage readers interested in distant lands and timeless tales of bonds of blood and place." - Booklist

Listen to an interview with Tash Aw on NPR (5:46).

The Harmony Silk Factory ($15, Riverhead)

“Malaysian-British Aw makes an impressive contribution to a literature for which Conrad and Maugham are famous in the story of an audacious, successful Malaysian businessman during World War II.... Via Aw's fast-moving prose and shimmering dialogue, which has an odd, affecting noirish manner, three different accounts of Johnny Lim and varying views of historic and personal reality unfold.” – Booklist

JAMES AXTELL
(Trinity)

The Making of Princeton University: From Woodrow Wilson to the Present ($35, Princeton University Press).  The author is Kenan Professor of Humanities at the College of William & Mary.

“Arguably the most readable account of Princeton ever written.” – Princeton Town Topics 

ANTHONY J. BADGER
(History; Clare)

FDR: The First Hundred Days ($23, Hill & Wang, May 2008). The author is Paul Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge and Master of Clare College.

“A leading New Deal scholar summarizes and provides critical analysis of President Roosevelt's groundbreaking initial domestic and foreign initiatives.... The book's distinguishing feature is the interpretive light the author shines on FDR's political skills.” – Kirkus Reviews

Click here to view video of Anthony J. Badger on the C-Span Video Library.

New Deal/New South: An Anthony J. Badger Reader ($19.95, paperback, Univ. of Arkansas Press)

“No commentator on twentieth century America, especially the American South, writes more perceptively, or more engagingly, than Tony Badger. Viewing the United States from a British perspective, he matches an extraordinary command of his sources and a vivid style to a translatlantic angle of vision.” – Prof. William E. Leuchtenburg

TILLY BAGSHAWE
(St. John's 1993) 

Adored ($6.99, Grand Central)

"Glamour, fashion, gossip, scheming—they're all here in a page-turning debut.... This is one of those big, juicy summer beach reads—not too deep, just wildly entertaining." - Publishers Weekly

"An epic romance with ultraglamorous characters....the Hollywood setting and the volatile relationships will keep readers enthralled." - Booklist

BERNARD BAILYN
(Christ's)

To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders ($13.95, Vintage)

"A slim and handsome volume - a collection of what Bailyn calls 'sketches' on issues arising out of his lifework." - New York Times Book Review

"One of America's most discerning historians. His thinking is subtle. His style is forceful.... Throughout he retains a sense of wonder that those men in a clump of distant British provinces could have wrought a political system, a view of the world, that is so imaginative and enduring." - Los Angeles Times

Click here to view video of Bernard Bailyn on the C-Span Video Library.

DAVID BAINBRIDGE
(St. Catharine's)

[new!] Teenagers: A Natural History ($16, Greystone Books, August 2009). The author is Clinical Veterinary Anatomist at Cambridge, Fellow and Director of Studies at St. Catharine’s, and an alumnus of Emmanuel.

“Thoughtful but sometimes unsettling….Bainbridge has written a compelling natural history…the history of all our yesterdays.” – Financial Times

“Should you have a difficult teenager in your life, this book might just help everyone co-exist. Friendly and light-hearted, it attempts to explain why those years are so challenging. David Bainbridge is convinced that the teenage years are something to celebrate….a fresh and encouraging perspective on a difficult and embarrassing, yet vitally important, stage in the human life cycle.” – The Independent (UK)

The Essential Difference: Male And Female Brains And The Truth About Autism ($15.95, Basic Books)

“Should the title fail to express Baron-Cohen's certainty about gender differences, the Cambridge Univ. professor of psychology and psychiatry lays out his controversial thesis on page one: ‘The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems.’ Defending this bold view is a tough but engaging battle.... His copious evidence ranges from the anecdotal to the anthropological, and from the neurological to the case study.... Baron-Cohen offers curious lay readers a provocative discussion of male-female differences.” – Publishers Weekly

[new!] It’s Not That I’m Bitter…or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World ($14.99, St. Martin’s Press, paperback, June 2010)

Essays by a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut, who earned a B.A. and M.A. at New Hall, Cambridge. 

“Between the snappy observations, Barreca takes an opportunity to liken the progression of contemporary feminist thought to a car accident—it's not so much that we're in a backlash as we're in a whiplash.” – Publishers Weekly

While some may debate whether Barreca’s collection of short essays are painfully funny or humorously painful, many will agree these eminently readable pieces will have people laughing out loud, then sighing thoughtfully.... Many readers, especially women, will enjoy, discuss, and reread this quick, breezy work of commentary, a book that stirs up dust long after its covers are closed.” – Booklist

JOHN BARROW
(DAMTP; Clare Hall)

Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science ($39.95, W.W. Norton, September 2008). The author, winner of the Templeton Prize in 2006, is professor of mathematical sciences and director of the Millennium Mathematics Project at Cambridge.

“[A] work of art...beautifully published.... Through dozens of short essays, each prompted by one of science’s visual creations, Barrow conducts his own personal tour of the universe.... [O]pen it almost anywhere and you will probably learn something new, or see it from a curious new angle.” – The New York Times Sunday Book Review

The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless ($15.95, Vintage). A lively history of the mathematical concept of infinity, through the ages, including the story of one scholar whom the study of infinity drove mad.

"Performing with his customary fluency and accessibility, Barrow imparts for general readers a feeling for the nub of thought about the mathematical, cosmic, ethical, and theological implications." – Booklist

The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega – the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe ($26, Pantheon)

"A brief history of modern physics...a thoughtful survey of recent theory" – The Economist

CHRISTOPHER BAYLY & TIM HARPER
(Faculty of History, St. Catharine's and Faculty of History, Magdalene respectively)

Forgotten Wars: Freedom and Revolution in Southeast Asia ($35, Belknap Press). Bayly is Vere Harnsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History and a Professorial Fellow of St. Catharine’s. Harper is Senior Lecturer in History and a Fellow of Magdalene.

“An extremely well-researched, well-written book whose analysis and judgments command respect.... Their handling of the mass of material is superb and their narrative gripping. No one with connections to the region will want to miss this book.” – The Financial Times

"A work at once scholarly and panoramic.... Bayly and Harper's account is both vivid and authoritative. One of their great contributions lies in their stinging appraisal of the debacle [of the fall of Malaya and Singapore]....but Bayly and Harper, though plainly unsympathetic to Britain's imperialism, make clear that Japan's was incomparably worse." - The New York Times

MARY BEARD
(Faculty of Classics, Newnham) 

It's a Don's Life ($14.95, Profile Books, March 2010)

"For years now, one of my favorite pit stops on the long morning's journey into consciousness has been 'A Don's Life,' the blog of the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard...it is wonderful to have a selection from ‘A Don's Life' in book form.... Sometimes the blogosphere is as trivial and mean-spirited as the mainstream media that bloggers criticize. At its best, as this lively and deeply intelligent book shows, it fosters vital new communities and conversations. Floreat!" - Anthony Grafton in The New Republic

The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found ($26.95, Belknap Press, December 2008). A Financial Times “Favourite Book” of 2008. A New York Times Notable Book of 2009.

“In a grand synthesis, one of our most distinguished classicists relates all that we know-and don't know-about ancient Pompeii, devastated by a flood of lava and volcanic ash from Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Beard splendidly recreates the life and times of Pompeii in a work that is part archeology and part history.... She examines the full scope of life, from houses, occupations, government, food and wine to sex, and the baths, recreation and religion...Beard's tour de force takes the study of ancient history to a new level.” - Publishers Weekly

ANNA R. BEER

Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, and Patriot ($34.99, Bloomsbury Press, August 2008)

“[A] loving tribute, a portrait of the poet in all his humanity.... Elegantly chronicles Milton's life from his precocious childhood (he read Greek and Latin when he was five) to his embattled support of Cromwell and his mature religious and political writings.” – Publishers Weekly

“Beer takes us on an educative and often inspiring journey through Milton's life and major works.... A well-researched, graceful account of the life of a literary giant.” – Kirkus Reviews

DUNCAN BELL
(Centre of International Studies, Christ’s)

The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 ($45, Princeton Univ. Press, August 2007). Joint winner of the 2008 Whitfield Book Prize (awarded annually to a scholar for his or her first book on a subject within the field of British history). Dr. Bell is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Cambridge’s Center of International Studies and a Fellow of Christ’s.

“Historians of Britain's empire have increasingly revived such notions as 'Greater Britain' or 'the British World.' Some, like Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts, have used such terms as launch pads for absurdly ahistorical hymns to the unique virtues of the English-speaking peoples. Bell's book, as a serious investigation of how that language was developed in the Victorian era, is a quietly powerful corrective.” – The Independent

MIKE BENTLEY

JAGDISH BHAGWATI
(St. John's 1954) 

In Defense of Globalization ($16.95, Oxford University Press).  The author is the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics and professor of political science at Columbia University.

"An outstandingly effective book...the standard general-interest reference, the intelligent layman's handbook, on global economic integration." - The Economist

"In this elegant book, one of the world's preeminent economists distills his thinking about globalization for the lay reader. Bhagwati, a former adviser to the U.N. on globalization, sets out to show that 'this process has a human face, but we need to make that face more agreeable.' Armed with a wit uncharacteristic of most writing on economics and drawing on references from history, philosophy and literature as well as some 'state of the art econometric analysis,' he sets out to prove that the anti-globalization movement has exaggerated claims that globalization has done little good for poor countries." – Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Jagdish Bhagwati on the C-Span Video Library.

TAMI DAVIS BIDDLE
(St. John's 1981) 

Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 ($27.95, Princeton University Press)

"Well written, full of nuance and detail, and solidly researched.  Biddle, Assistant Professor of History at Duke University, has done a thorough job of cutting through the thicket of contradictions and fantasies that surround the strategic bombing debate from 1914 to 1945." - Journal of Military History

SARAH BILSTON
(Clare Hall)

Sleepless Nights ($24.99, Harper, August 2009)

Sequel to the author’s first novel, Bed Rest (HarperCollins, 2006). Bilston, who teaches English literature at Trinity College, Hartford, was a junior research fellow at Clare Hall in 2000-01. 

“Bilston's sequel to Bed Rest describes new parenthood with emotion and humor... Bilston's plucky heroines are sympathetic, and she pulls no punches when describing the difficulties of parenting a newborn.”—Publishers Weekly

TIM BLANNING
(Fellow, Sidney Sussex; Faculty of History)

The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815 ($20, Penguin). From Westphalia to Waterloo.

“Splendid...a wonderful achievement.... A miracle of balancing and blending traditional political and diplomatic accounts with the newer fields of social, economic and intellectual history.” – Publishers Weekly

“Magisterial...very readable.” - Financial Times

HAROLD BLOOM
(Pembroke 1954)

[new!]  The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible ($28, Yale Univ. Press, September 2011). The esteemed Yale literary critic assesses how this canonical work stands up after 400 years.

"Bloom’s erudite mix of acerbic judgments and awed delight offers readers a fresh take on an old book."—Publishers Weekly.

“Bloom yields to the KJB’s literary splendor—and invites readers to join in his surrender.”—Booklist

[new!] The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life ($32.50, Yale University Press, May 2011).

From the longtime Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, extended analyses of Bloom's most cherished poets—Shakespeare, Whitman, and Crane—as well as appreciations of Emerson, Tennyson, Browning, Yeats, Ashbery, and others.

“America’s giant of a literary critic... Bloom pulls off a masterly connecting of the dots through the literary canon and his own life with his usual breathtaking eloquence.”—Publishers Weekly

“An autumnal summing-up, winding through ‘the labyrinth of literary influence’ to conclude, ‘[t]hat labyrinth is life itself.’ ”
—Kirkus Reviews

Click here to view video of Harold Bloom on the C-Span Video Library.

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Creative and Exemplary Minds ($19.95, Grand Central)

A New York Times Notable Book, 2002.

"Although the book is a delight to read, its real value lies in the author's ability to provoke the reader into thinking about literature, genius, and related topics. No similar work discusses literary genius in this way or covers this many writers.” - Library Journal

Click here to view video of Harold Bloom on the C-Span Video Library.

JANE BOLGATZ
(Robinson 1985)

Talking Race in the Classroom ($21.95, Teachers College Press). Helps new and veteran teachers develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to successfully address racial controversies in their classrooms. The author, a former high-school teacher, is an assistant professor at Fordham University's Graduate School of Education.

"This book offers practical strategies, ideas, and activities for teaching and learning about race and racism and, therefore, is highly recommended to all of us who teach in an increasingly multicultural America." - Teaching Theology and Religion

MALCOLM BOWIE
(Cambridge Professor and former Master, Christ's College)

Proust Among the Stars ($24, Columbia University Press)

"The best general study of Proust's 3,000-page work." - Times Literary Supplement

"Bowie can say more in three sentences than many a scholar in a belabored chapter.... This is critisicm motivated by intellectual joy, creatively sustained by felicities of expression." - Los Angeles Times

JAMES BOWMAN
(Pembroke)

Honor: A History ($25.95, Encounter Books)

“A brilliantly astringent accounting for the disappearance of honor as a normative standard of conduct in American society.” – Josiah Bunting III in The Wall Street Journal

Click here to view video of James Bowman on the C-Span Video Library.

PIERS BRENDON
(Churchill, Magdalene)

The Decline and Fall of the British Empire 1781-1997 ($20, Vintage, February 2010).  The author, a graduate of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is the former Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

"Starting with Cornwallis's surrender to Washington, Brendon moves from one continent to another, drawing on sources from official archives to Victorian memoirs.  The narrative is necessarily complex but always well informed, and entertaining digressions enliven the story." - The Sunday New York Times Book Review

MARTIN BROOKES

Extreme Measures: The Dark Vision and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton ($24.95, Bloomsbury). Galton (Trinity College), was the father of eugenics, the science, or pseudo-science, of "improving" the human race by selective breeding.

"This eccentric Victorian snob is one of the greatest forgotten scientists.... Brookes explores the mind of this polymath, illuminating how one man could both innovate modern genetics' most useful tools and completely misinterpret the results. Galton deserves his moment in the sun, and Brookes, with his respect for Galton's achievements and condemnation for his conclusions, is the right biographer to explain this controversial man.”—Publishers Weekly

“A clear-eyed look at a fascinating man who left an unmistakable-if mixed-stamp upon the world we live in.” – Kirkus Reviews

JANET BROWNE

Charles Darwin: The Power of Place Volume II of a Biography ($24.95, paperback, Princeton University Press). A New York Times Notable Book, 2002 and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography. The first volume, Voyaging, is available in paperback ($24.95, Princeton University Press).

"When Browne published her first volume on the life of Darwin, she secured her reputation as the last word on the Victorian naturalist. Now she has published the much-anticipated second half, and it is more spellbinding than the first.... Her prose is elegant in its clarity of thought, her craftsmanship impeccable in the way it weaves a coherent whole from the innumerable threads of thought, experience and persona that comprised this colossal life.” – Publishers Weekly

“A richly detailed, vivid, and definitive portrait with not a word wasted: the best life of Charles Darwin in the modern literature.” – Kirkus Reviews

TODD BUCHHOLZ
(St. John's)

Click here to view video of Todd Buccholz on the C-Span Video Library.

New Ideas from Dead CEOs: Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office (Collins, $26.95).  Buchholz is a commentator on public radio's "Marketplace Morning Edition."

Lives and lessons of innovative CEOs, from a former Harvard teacher, hedge-fund manager, and Broadway producer, author of New Ideas from Dead Economists (Plume, paperback, $16), which Library Journal called “an effective and entertaining introduction to economists and their ideas."

“Buchholz, with compelling and fast-reading narratives, drills to the core of each personality—and his or her business.” – Booklist  

Click here to view video of Todd Buchholz on the C-Span Video Library.

BILL BUFORD
(King's)

Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany ($14.95, Vintage).  A New York Times Notable Book, 2006.

“Terrific culinary writing...a wonderfully detailed and highly amusing book from the writer who once took an insider’s look at English soccer hooligans in Among the Thugs.” – Publishers Weekly

“A remarkable journey.” – New York Times Book Review

Listen to a radio interview with author Bill Buford (26 minutes).

Click here to view video of Bill Buford on the C-Span Video Library.

NICK BUNKER
(King's)

Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World ($30, Knopf, April 2010).  A Financial Times "non-fiction favourite" of 2010.

"Nick Bunker offers a remarkably fresh take on an old and well-worn story.... The evidence...adds up to a picture so full and vivid as to constitute a virtual ground-level tour of an otherwise lost world." - The Washington Post

"This superb book secures for the Pilgrims their iconic perch among the earliest founders of colonial America. Bunker, a British investment banker turned journalist, has succeeded in writing a major history, unprecedented in its sweep, of the Plymouth Colony.... The results are stunning. Certain to be the dominating work on the Pilgrims for decades." - Publishers Weekly 

Click here to view video of Nick Bunker on the C-Span Video Library.

FREDERICK BURKHARDT
(Clare Hall)

Editor, Charles Darwin: The Beagle Letters ($32, Cambridge University Press, October 2008)

Trying Leviathan: The Nineteenth-Century New York Court Case That Put the Whale on Trial and Challenged the Order of Nature ($29.95, Princeton University Press). The author, an associate professor of history at Princeton, earned an MPhil and PhD at Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar.

“It's science itself that was put on trial in 1818 in a dispute over a $75 inspection fee, as related in this fascinating account...Burnett's look at the trial and its fallout adds a historical dimension to debates caused by science's role in the legal sphere.” – Publishers Weekly

"Burnett describes the trial with the keen eye of an informed courtroom observer." – The Village Voice

“Riveting, one of those wonderful obscure microcosmic matters.” – The New York Times

“An unexpected page-turner.” – Nature

The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the 20th Century ($45, Univ. of Chicago Press, January 2012). “[A] sweeping, important study of cetacean science and policy….[Burnett] spent a decade poring over thousands upon thousands of pages scattered in far-flung archives….[He has] given his heart and soul to the troubling story of whalekind’s worst century.” – Sunday New York Times Book Review

“Burnett takes the reader on some wonderfully strange detours….Readers should be glad that he has made the effort.” – Financial Times

JANET BURROWAY
(Newnham 1958)

Bridge of Sand (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 2009)

“Burroway, the author of Writing Fiction, among the most widely used creative writing texts in the country, crafts memorable characters while challenging readers' assumptions about race, love, and family.”  - Library Journal

“It’s those ‘other hassles’ [besides race] — family obligations, romantic love and self-fulfillment — that come through most convincingly, and memorably, in Burroway’s clever and compassionate prose.” – The New York Times

Click here to view video of Janet Burroway on the C-Span Video Library.

Embalming Mom: Essays in Life ($14.95, University of Iowa Press). Includes an essay on Sylvia Plath.  The author teaches English at Florida State University.

"Alternatively clever, humorous, lively, sad, and charming." - Library Journal

"[A] pithy essayist with an inner compass that steers her to the ambiguity at the heart of the human condition...she celebrates all the vicissitudes of womanhood with pride and drollery." - Booklist

 A.S. BYATT
(Newnham)

The Children's Book ($26.95, Knopf, October 2009). A Financial Times “Book of the Year” for 2009.

"Brilliant...multilayered...bristling with life and invention.... A seductive book by an extraordinarily gifted writer.... All [the] characters connect in a tangled web, often erotic and frequently just this side of madness.... That Byatt marries this novel of ideas with such compelling characters testifies to her remarkable spinning energy.” - The Washington Post

"A tour de force.... In a dumbed-down world, what a pleasure it is to dive into the allusive, uncompromisingly erudite novels of A. S. Byatt.  In the end, The Children's Book brings to vivid life the often irreconcilable demands of being an artist and being a human being." – The Wall Street Journal

Little Black Book of Stories ($12.95, Vintage Paperback)

“With an accomplished balance of quotidian detail and eloquent flights of imagination, Byatt has crafted a powerful new collection.” – Publishers Weekly

“Byatt's stories are provoking and alarming, richly yet tautly rendered.... [She] has the sheer narrative skill to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and make your pulse race.” –The New York Times Book Review

The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries ($35, Knopf). Campbell was Tony Blair’s Director of Communications from 1994 to 2003.

“Being at Blair's side...gives Campbell a priceless opportunity to see in action the great political figures of his time.... [A] a behind-the-scenes look at dramatic junctures in recent history.... [A] classic text of the you-are-there school of politics at work.... one of the most compelling reads of history in the raw.” - Los Angeles Times

Click here to view video of Alastair Campbell on the C-Span Video Library.

DAVID CANNADINE
(Clare, Christ's)

Mellon: An American Life ($23, Vintage, February 2008)

"This is the first comprehensive biography of Andrew Mellon [1855-1937], the powerful American financier, secretary of the treasury, and art collector.... Cannadine's recounting of Mellon's public career make this a worthy contribution to our understanding of the man and his era." - Booklist

"Absorbing.... Cannadine writes like a storyteller, and the book often reads as compulsively as one of those immense fictional sagas that weigh down the bestseller lists. Sin and redemption are always close to the center of those family tales, and so they are in Mellon." - Russell Baker, in The New York Review of Books

Andrew Mellon was the father of Paul Mellon (Clare), 1907-1999, who became one of Cambridge's most generous benefactors. 

Click here to view video of David Cannadine on the C-Span Video Library.

PAUL CARTLEDGE
(Clare, Faculty of Classics)

Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities ($19.95, Oxford Univ. Press, November 2009)

"Cartledge, professor of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge, has created an intriguing overview of Greek history by providing synopses of 11 key city-states, each representing a different facet of Greek life and culture." -Publishers Weekly

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World ($30, Overlook)

“A masterful account of the causes, preparations for and consequences of the three-day battle in 480 BC that claimed the lives of all 300 Spartan defenders of the eponymous pass and those of perhaps as many as 20,000 Persian invaders... A class in Western Civilization that both instructs and entertains.” - Kirkus Review

"Cartledge's knack for bringing history to life makes for an absorbing new biography of the legendary Greek leader." – Publishers Weekly

HELEN CASTOR
(Fellow in History, Sidney Sussex)

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth ($30, Knopf, April 2010).   ($27.99, Harper, February 2011). The author is a Fellow in History at Sidney Sussex. A Financial Times “Non-Fiction Favourite” for 2010.

”From England’s durably popular dynastic history emerges this quartet of finely characterized portraits of would-be or actual female monarchs prior to those of the House of Tudor. Displaying precise perceptions of political contexts, often expressing herself in archly sardonic turns of phrase, Castor presents Matilda….Eleanor of Aquitaine…. Isabella….and Margaret of Anjou…. Castor shows how they confronted their central problem in playing the power game, asserting a notional right of female succession to the crown against an array of prejudices…Banned from leading armies into battle, each of them exhibited political acuity in inspiring support for her bid from magnates who could fight for her cause.” – Booklist. 

Click here to read an interview with Helen Castor.

Blood and Roses: One Family’s Struggle and Triumph During England’s Tumultuous Wars of the Roses ($25.95, HarperCollins). Dr. Castor tells a tale, drawn from over a thousand documents that survived from the 14th century, of ordinary lives touched by dramatic events.

"Castor has brought the Paston family to life in an accessible and fluid narrative." - Library Journal

"Beautifully paced and splendidly retold, Castor’s tale... is popular history at its best." - Publishers Weekly

"A master of every weapon in the modern historian’s arsenal... Castor has made the whole century live again, in complex, sometimes comic, often touching style."- New York Times Book Review

BRIAN CATHCART

The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom ($25, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux). The story of John Cockroft (St. John's) and Ernest Walton (Trinity) splitting an atom of lithium at the Cavendish Lab in 1932, and winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951.

"A superb account of the genesis of nuclear physics" – Publishers Weekly

HA-JOON CHANG
(Economics)

Click here to view video of Ha-Joon Chang on the C-Span Video Library.

Peasant Pasts: History and Memory in Western India ($21.95, U. of California Press). The author is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine.

“ [A] significant contribution to a recovery of memories and voices of Indian peasants that do not find adequate expression in the traditional mode of history writing.”—The Hindu, Delhi

MICHAEL CHAUVIN
(Wolfson)

Hokuloa: The British 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Hawai'i ($26.95, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu).  The author earned an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge in 1988.

RON CHERNOW
(Pembroke 1970)

[new!] Washington: A Life ($40, The Penguin Press, October 2010).  The author earned a master’s degree at Cambridge, and is the National Book Award-winning biographer of John D. Rockefeller and Alexander Hamilton.  A New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

“Today, books about Washington continue to appear at such an astonishing rate that the publication of Ron Chernow’s prompts the inevitable question: Why another one? An obvious answer is that Chernow is no ordinary writer...his ‘Washington’ while long, is vivid and well paced...his understanding of psychology is acute and his portraits of individuals memorable.  Most readers will finish this book feeling as if they have actually spent time with human beings.” – The Sunday New York Times Book Review

"[T]he best, most comprehensive, and most balanced single-volume biography of Washington ever written.... [N]o one has ever put together between two covers such a convincing depiction of the great man...." - Gordon Wood in The New York Review of Books

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Click here to watch part 1 of an interview with Ron Chernow on C-Span.

Click here to watch part 2 of an interview with Ron Chernow on C-Span.

Alexander Hamilton ($35, Penguin Press).  Selected by The Economist as a "Book of the Year" in 2004.

"Moving and masterly...by far the best biography ever written about the man." - New York Times Book Review

Click here to view video of Ron Chernow on the C-Span Video Library.

CHRISTOPHER CLARK
(Fellow, St. Catharine’s; Faculty of History)

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 ($35, Belknap). The author is a senior lecturer in modern European history at Cambridge and co-second-prizewinner, 2006 Wolfson History Prizes.

“Stately, authoritative...an exemplary job...a lively writer. Gently but insistently exposes the flaws in most of the received wisdom about his subject.... An illuminating, profoundly satisfying work of history, brightened by vivid character sketches of the principals in his drama.” - The New York Times

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World ($29.95, Princeton University Press). The author is Chair of the Economics Department at the University of California, Davis.

“Brilliant.... Mr. Clark writes with disarming wit.... [A]ny book that is as bold, as fascinating, as conscientiously argued and as politically incorrect as this one demands to be read.... [F]ully as absorbing, as memorable and as well written as Mr. [Jared] Diamond’s remarkable bestseller [Guns, Germs, and Steel] deserves to be widely read.”—The Financial Times

PETER CLARKE
(Faculty of History; Trinity Hall)

Keynes: The Rise, Fall, and Return of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Economist ($20, Bloomsbury Press, October 2009). The author was Professor of Modern British History from 1991 to 2004 at Cambridge and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from 2000 to 2004. 

“...[B]rings the suave iconoclast to life in a succinct and balanced account.... Keynes in these pages proves a protean figure - a man with a taste for mischief-making and a willingness to change his mind, again and again.” – Bloomberg News 

BRIAN CLEGG
(Selwyn)

[new!] How to Build a Time Machine: The Real Science of Time Travel ($25.99, St. Martin’s Press, December 2011).

JONATHAN CLEMENTS
(Emmanuel)

Funding Your Future: The Only Guide to Mutual Funds You’ll Ever Need (Grand Central, paperback, $11)

The author wrote a weekly column about personal finance in The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of 25 Myths You’ve Got to Avoid, If You Want to Manage Your Money Right: The New Rules for Financial Success (Fireside, paperback, $15.95).

TIM CLISSOLD
(Jesus)

Mr. China: A Memoir ($24.95, Harper Business)

"Lots of Western businessmen have China war stories, but only Tim Clissold has written this funny book." – Newsweek

"A wonderful read." – The Economist

Click here to view video of Tim Clissold on the C-Span Video Library.

JONATHAN COE
(Trinity)

The Rain Before It Falls ($23.95, Knopf, March 2008)

“Coe articulates a fierce, emotional current whose sweep catches the reader and doesn't let go until the very end.” – Publishers Weekly

“Jonathan Coe is a brilliant English novelist who isn't as well known here as he should be. If you've read his early work, you've discovered his manic inventiveness.... A mordant political observer, Coe has written of the Thatcher and Blair years in The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle; these are novels of panoramic sympathy as well as rude energy and satiric bite.  The Rain Before It Falls is different from all its predecessors.... For the admiring reader, the question may be whether The Rain Before It Falls is a diversion for Jonathan Coe, or whether it quietly announces a new direction.” – The Washington Post

“Precise and considered, restrained but unblinking...[Coe’s] tensest and most affecting work.” —The Boston Globe

RICHARD COHEN
(Magdalene 1965)

[new!] Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life ($35, Random House, November 2010)

“[An] information-packed miscellany on solar worship and solar studies, studded with evocative illustrations throughout.... With its pages as likely to turn from sunspots to sunlight’s play in famous paintings, Cohen’s medley will surprise and delight his readers, who will absorb humanity’s evolving view of the sky’s blazing orb, from deity to fusion-powered furnace.” – Booklist

By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions ($16, Modern Library)

“Cohen's enthusiastic history of the sword and of swordplay captures the adventure, romance, danger and intrigue that the weapon has represented throughout world history. The narrative contains superheroes, villains, underdogs, spies, alchemists, movie stars and champions.... For those with even a casual interest in fencing, Cohen's work will be a delightful read; he brings the daunting breadth of the history of the sword within easy reach of the curious.” – Publishers Weekly

The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History (Pantheon, $27.50). Biography of a globetrotting 18th-century travel writer. The author is a professor of history at Princeton.

“A dazzling performance of historical scholarship.... Brings the 18th century to life through the experiences of one remarkable woman.... A world in a book.... One of the 10 Best Books of 2007.” – The New York Times Book Review

[new!] That’s Offensive! Criticism, Identity, Respect  ($14.95, Seagull Press, February 2011). Part of a series addressing issues of censorship, “Manifestos for the 21st Century.”   The author is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare Hall.

“A good antidote to both clash-of-civilizationalists and identity-politicians.” – Inside Higher Ed.

Click here to watch a video of Stefani Collini on the Cambridge in America Day video page.

Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics ($29.95, Oxford Univ. Press, October 2009). Essays on aspects of the literary and intellectual culture of Britain from the early twentieth century to the present.

"Collini is acute, analytical and often killingly funny."-- Daily Telegraph (UK). 

"This collection shows the considerable talents and erudition of one of Britain’s finest essayists and writers….His style is capacious, fair-minded and unbuttoned, alert to the quirks of personality and the conflicts of creative restlessness.” – Times Higher Education Supplement (UK).

SIR LEYCESTER COLTMAN
(Magdalene 1958)

The Real Fidel Castro (Yale University Press, $20).  Coltman was British Ambassador to Cuba from 1991 to 1994.

"A remarkably evenhanded and illuminating biography." – Booklist

The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today ($26.95, Knopf, February 2010).  The author was a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge. 

“Gripping and provocative.... This is refreshingly nonromantic road writing. What Conover has brought back is a clear-eyed understanding that roads confine as much as they liberate, that they make the world more accessible but also infinitely more dangerous and exploitable . . . His modesty and compassion make The Routes of Man less a series of travel adventures than an empathetic look at the contradictory effects of modernity.” – Los Angeles Times

“Conover is a master of first-person, immersion journalism; his road trips are both entertaining and poignant.”—Boston Globe

ALISTAIR COOKE
(Jesus)

The American Home Front, 1941-42 ($24, Atlantic Monthly Press)

“Soon after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Alistair Cooke, a reporter for the BBC, took to the road... crisscrossing the American continent from east to west and north to south.... In addition to being a broadcaster, Mr. Cooke was a print reporter, and a superb one, with a sharp, skeptical eye and a stylish pen. Both are on brilliant display here.” – The New York Times

Click here to view video about Alistair Cooke on the C-Span Video Library.

DAVID K.C. COOPER
(Magdalene)

[new!] Open Heart: The Radical Surgeons Who Revolutionized Medicine ($26.99, Kaplan Publishing, August 2010). The author is a heart surgeon and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

"In this well-researched history of heart transplants, surgeon Cooper shares his interviews with more than 60 sources, including his former colleague, Christiaan Bernard, who performed the first human heart transplant...a fascinating account of the colorful men who pioneered what is now a common surgical procedure." - Booklist

JOHN CORNWELL
(Jesus; History & Philosophy of Science)

The Pontiff in Winter: Triumph and Conflict in the Reign of John Paul II ($24.95, Doubleday)

"Cornwell...dissects the record of John Paul II's pontificate with an informed, dispassionate and fully convincing authority." - The Washington Post 

Click here to view video of John Cornwell on the C-Span Video Library.

ROGER CROWLEY
(Emmanuel)

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World ($30, Random House, July 2008). Crowley is the author of 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West (2005). An Economist magazine "Book of the Year" for 2008.

“Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary sources, he vividly reconstructs the great battles, Malta and Lepanto...and introduces the larger-than-life personalities that dominated council chambers and fields of battle.... Crowley recreates the fighting and the brutality in page-turning prose that never sacrifices accuracy for color.” – Publishers Weekly

CHARLES CUMMING

WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
(Trinity)

MARCUS DANIEL
(Pembroke)

Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy ($28.00, Oxford Univ. Press, December 2008)

The author, associate professor of American history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, profiles “those whom he calls ‘the other founding fathers’ - the nervy newspaper editors who helped give the new nation its political character, for better or worse.... [H]e affirms their important place in the turbulent politics of the 1790s.”
- Columbia Journalism Review 

MIKE DASH
(Peterhouse)

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia  ($27, Random House, August 2009).

"Decades before the Five Families emerged and more than half a century before Mario Puzo wrote The Godfather, Giuseppe Morello and his family controlled all manner of crime in New York City. Bestselling historian Dash presents an enthralling account of this little-known ‘boss of bosses'.... Dash depicts the balance between loyalty and betrayal as an ever-changing dance and nimbly catalogues the endless gruesome murders committed in the name of revenge and honor. Readers may think they know the mob, but Morello's ruthless rule makes even the fictional Tony Soprano look tame." - Publishers Weekly

"New Yorkers had heard about the Mafia before 1892, but Mike Dash makes a convincing case...that the modern notion of Italian organized crime was rooted in Giuseppe Morello's surreptitious arrival in the city that year from Sicily." - The New York Times

Click here to view video of Mike Dash on the C-Span Video Library.

Satan’s Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York’s Trial of the Century (Crown, $24.95).  True story of the only U.S. police officer to be sentenced to death.

“Engrossing, well-researched history.... immerses readers in the corrupt hurly-burly that was old New York.” – Publishers Weekly

“In his chronicle of the crime, the trial, and the city, Dash paints an irresistible tableau that both fascinates and repels. This is a juicy but ultimately tragic tale that effectively captures a bygone era of a great city.” – Booklist

LOUISE DEAN
(Downing)

“[B]racingly acerbic….a highly entertaining, vivid evocation of love and marriage in its various forms….Dean’s characters have the rough edges and surprising grace of real people, and her fierce humanism animates every page. There continue to be funny and unexpected turns right to the end….” – The Sunday New York Times Book Review. 

CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE
(Fitzwilliam)

“Turkey, however much it may not like it, is lucky to have Christopher de Bellaigue. This book ought to be compulsory reading….” – Joseph O’Neill, in The New York Times

CHRISTOPHER DE HAMEL
(Donnelley Fellow Librarian of Corpus Christi College)

The Book: A History of the Bible ($27.97, Phaidon Press Inc.)

"In the 'unadulterated wow' category...a dazzling offering...by paleographist Christopher de Hamel, who served for a quarter century as the head of the Western Manuscripts department at Sotheby's in London." - Publishers Weekly

DAVID DEUTSCH
(Clare)

EDMOND DE WAAL
(Trinity Hall)

[new!] The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss  ($26, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, August 2010).

A Financial Times “non-fiction favourite of 2010.”  In this family history, de Waal, a potter and curator of ceramics at the Victoria & Albert Museum, describes the experiences of his family, the Ephrussis, during the turmoil of the 20th century…. rich in drama and valuable anecdote.´-- Publishers Weekly.

“Absorbing . . . In this book about people who defined themselves by the objects they owned, de Waal demonstrates that human stories are more powerful than even the greatest works of art.” -- The New Republic.

JARED DIAMOND
(Trinity)

Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed ($29.95, Viking). UCLA professor of geography, author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond examines the causes (both political and environmental) for the collapse of some of history's greatest civilizations, and what lessons those failures offer for the present day. A New York Times Notable Book, 2005.

"A complex historical web of how human communities either master their environments or become victims of them.... He takes a lifetime of research and, in normal English (free of academic jargon), leads the reader painstakingly where the media and intellectual journals have often refused to go." – Washington Post

Click here to view video of Jared Diamond on the C-Span Video Library.

EMMA DONOGHUE
(Girton)

JULIAN DOWDESWELL
(Scott Polar Research Institute, Department of Geography)

By Julian Dowdeswell and Michael Hambrey

Islands of the Arctic ($38, Cambridge University Press)

"Islands of the Arctic is a beautifully illustrated and nicely written account of the varied island environments of the polar north....  Islands of the Arctic should be part of the required reading for all those interested in understanding the environmental and cultural threats facing the Arctic." - The Times Higher Education Supplement

"This is indeed a beautiful book, and worth buying for the illustrations alone...It is also informative, spanning a broad range of topics to give a comprehensive view of the environment and history of these fascinating islands." - Bulletin of the American Meterological Society 

SUZANNE DOYLE-MORRIS
(Lucy Cavendish)

Beyond the Boys' Club: Achieving Career Success as a Woman Working in a Male Dominated Field ($22.99, Wit & Wisdom Press, June 2009). The author, a Washington-DC native, is a UK-based executive coach and specialist in helping companies retain and develop their female talent. She earned her Cambridge MPhil and PhD at Lucy Cavendish. 

JOHN S. DUFFIELD
(Trinity)

Over a Barrel: The Costs of U.S. Foreign Oil Dependence (Stanford University Press, $27.95, November 2007). The author, a professor of political science at Georgia State University, earned a B.A. at Cambridge as a Keasbey Scholar.

“Most in the U.S. would agree that American dependence on foreign oil, especially from countries hostile to the U.S. government, is an undesirable situation. Duffield...focuses on documenting the problems with this dependence and how to fix them.... Although Duffield is dubious about American intervention overseas, he does endorse American hegemony as a route to changing oil-related attitudes and policies worldwide.” – Publishers Weekly

"This timely volume is a valuable addition to the literature on world oil markets and particularly on the important issue of U.S. dependence on foreign oil and how the country should deal with it." - Choice

EAMON DUFFY
(Divinity, Magdalene)

Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570 ($35, Yale)

“Enchanting and engaging...beguiling and authoritative...probably the most intimate glimpse possible into medieval social history....  His exploration of apparently new-found territory sweeps the reader onward in an excited journey of inquiry.” – Christopher de Hamel (Corpus Christi) in The New York Review of Books

SARAH DUNANT
(Newnham 1969)

Sacred Hearts: A Novel ($25, Random House, July 2009)

Sarah Dunant, who earned her BA in history at Cambridge, is the author of the international bestsellers The Birth of Venus (2004) and In the Company of the Courtesan (2007). Her earlier novels include three Hannah Wolfe crime thrillers, as well as Snowstorms in a Hot Climate, Transgressions, and Mapping the Edge.

“A cast of complex characters breathe new life into the classic star-crossed lovers trope while affording readers a look at a facet of Renaissance life beyond the far more common viscounts and courtesans. Dunant's an accomplished storyteller, and this is a rich and rewarding novel.” – Publishers Weekly

Click here to see video from the Food for Thought Luncheon with Sarah Dunant.

In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel ($23.95, Random House)

“Lush and intellectually gripping.... This is a beautifully written and captivating work.” – Booklist

The Birth of Venus ($21.95, Random House). A novel of 15th-century Florence.

"Well-nigh impeccable." - Financial Times

“The author has a genius for peppering her narrative with little-known facts, and the deadpan dialogue lends a staccato verve to the swift-moving plot. Forget Baedeker and Vasari's Lives of the Artists. Dunant's vivid, gripping novel gives fresh life to a captivating age of glorious art and political turmoil.” – Publishers Weekly

“A beautifully written and captivating work.” – Booklist

FUCHSIA DUNLOP
(Magdalene)

Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China ($24.95, W. W. Norton & Company, April 2008)

“[B]oth an insightful, entertaining, scrupulously reported exploration of China’s foodways and a swashbuckling memoir studded with recipes.... [W]hat makes it a distinguished contribution to the literature of gastronomy is its demonstration, through one person’s intense experience, that food is not a mere reflection of culture but a potent shaper of cultural identity.” - The Sunday New York Times Book Review

TERRY EAGLETON
(Trinity, Jesus)

Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate ($16, Yale Univ. Press, March 2010). A Financial Times "non-fiction favourite of 2010."  The author teaches at the University of Lancaster and is a visiting professor at Notre Dame.  He earned his MA and PhD at Trinity and is a Fellow of Jesus.

"Eagleton is an unconventional and entertaining thinker.  His book is as much about capitalism, politics, and literary criticism as it is about religion." -  The Globe and Mail

The Gatekeeper: A Memoir ($19.95, St. Martin's Press). The coming-of-age of an acclaimed, prolific writer and Marxist scholar at Cambridge.

"[A] hilarious, devastating little book...from one of Britain's most unapologetic old New Left thinkers...a hymn to the enduring power and pleasure of intellectual thought." – The New York Times Book Review

DAVID EDMONDS & JOHN EIDINOW

Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers ($13.95, Harper Perennial). A New York Times Notable Book, 2002.

“In October 1946, philosopher Karl Popper arrived at Cambridge to lecture at a seminar hosted by his legendary colleague Ludwig Wittgenstein. It did not go well: the men began arguing, and eventually, Wittgenstein began waving a fire poker toward Popper. It lasted scarcely 10 minutes, yet the debate has turned into perhaps modern philosophy's most contentious encounter, largely because none of the eyewitnesses could agree on what happened.... Tightly constructed and extraordinarily well written, this is a marvelous blend of lay and academic scholarship. It has every chance of becoming a classic of its kind.” – Publishers Weekly

“What actually happened in this now-legendary clash, and how it reflects the development of philosophy and the times, is what Edmonds and Eidinow set out to discover.... [They] bring rich interpretation to the extraordinary incident.” – Booklist

Click here to view video of David Edmonds on the C-Span Video Library.

JENNIFER EGAN
(St. John's)

[new!] A Visit from the Goon Squad ($25.95, Knopf, June 2010). A New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

"Readers will be pleased to discover that the star-crossed marriage of lucid prose and expertly deployed postmodern switcheroos that helped shoot Egan to the top of the genre-bending new school is alive in well in this graceful yet wild novel." - Publishers Weekly

 "Clever. Edgy. Groundbreaking.... For all of its cool, languid, arched-eyebrow sophistication...the novel is actually a sturdy, robust, old-fashioned affair. It features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human." - Chicago Tribune

"In her audacious, extraordinary fourth novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan uses the pop-music business as a prism to examine the heedless pace of modern life, generational impasses, and the awful gravity of age and entropy.... A Visit from the Goon Squad is fascinating for its daring scope and fractured narrative, but along the way, Egan crafts some brilliant scenes.... A rich and rewarding novel." - Philadelphia Inquirer 

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 

Click here to view video of Jennifer Egan on wnyc.org

The Keep ($23.95, Knopf). Egan, author of The Invisible Circus (1994) and Look at Me (2001), lives in Brooklyn, New York.  A New York Times Notable Book, 2006.

“Atmospheric and tense, this is a mesmerizing story.” – Booklist

“A work both prodigiously entertaining and profoundly moving.” – The New York Times Book Review

“The novel luxuriates in Wilkie Collins-style atmospherics.” – The New Yorker

MOHAMED EL-ERIAN
(Queens')

When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change ($27.95, McGraw-Hill, May 2008). Winner of the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. The author is co-CEO of the investment-management company PIMCO, and has also served as CEO of the firm that manages Harvard University’s $35 billion endowment. A Financial Times "Favourite Book" of 2008. An Economist magazine "Book of the Year" for 2008.

"Few people are as well positioned to understand markets as Mohamed El-Erian. He is almost unique in being able to attack the credit crisis from the perspectives of academic economist, policy official, investment banker and fund manager.... Mr. El-Erian's insights are as valuable as ever." - Financial Times

The DNA of Prejudice: On the One and the Many ($13.95, Upper West Side Philosophers Inc., January 2010)

The author, a former Fellow of Sidney Sussex, has taught at Cambridge and Columbia. The DNA of Prejudice won the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Social Change, bestowed annually by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group.

RICHARD J. EVANS
(Faculty of History; Gonville & Caius)

The Third Reich at War ($40, Penguin Press, May 2009). The author has been named Regius Professor at Cambridge.  This is the final volume of a trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany.  A New York Times Notable Book of 2009.

Final volume of an acclaimed trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany, by Cambridge’s newly named Regius Professor of History.  “[M]ay well be not only the finest but also the most riveting account of that period.... The story of Germany between its invasion of Poland in 1939 and its collapse in 1945 is a complex one. Its details have been reported in thousands of publications. In this book – the last in a magisterial trilogy covering the entire history of the Third Reich – Evans...brilliantly weaves together the diverse strands of the monumental evil at the heart of that story.” – The Sunday New York Times Book Review

“Masterful.... Evans demonstrates a fluent style and a sweeping grasp of the Third Reich’s history and of the enormous historical literature.... Evans narrates the Reich’s end in gripping fashion as the Allies closed in on Germany. Evans’s fellow historians as well as a broader public will read this work, not quite with pleasure, for there is little joy in this story, but with admiration for the author’s narrative powers.”―Publisher’s Weekly 

The Coming of the Third Reich ($18, Penguin). The first in a three-volume history of Nazi Germany, from Cambridge’s Regius Professor of Modern History.

“Well-written and accessible.... Evans has accomplished his goal of writing a readable account of the origins of the Third Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the establishment of the Nazi regime in 1933.” – The Washington Post

The Third Reich in Power ($20, Penguin)

"[A] major achievement.  No other recent synthetic history has quite the range and narrative power of Evans's work.” — Publishers Weekly

“A model of clarity and intelligence...Mr. Evans’s magisterial study should be on our shelves for a long time to come.” — The Economist

“[Evans’s] three-volume history...is shaping up to be a masterpiece. Fluidly narrated, tightly organized and comprehensive.” — The New York Times

PATRICIA FARA
(History and Philosophy of Science; Clare)

Science: A Four Thousand Year History ($34.95, Oxford Univ. Press, April 2009). The author is Senior Tutor at Clare.

"A true introduction.... [Fara] synthesizes an impressive amount of scholarship without overwhelming the reader with the usual scholarly apparatus. The book is unique for including non-Western sources, something that few books about the history of science for the nonspecialist do." - Library Journal

"Wide-ranging and provocative.... Ms Fara argues that there is no unique path to universal truth. Rather science progresses in fits and starts, with many avenues terminating as blind alleys." - The Economist

Click here to view a short video with Patricia Fara

Newton: The Making of Genius ($29.95, Columbia University Press)

"A scholarly but accessible social history." - Publishers Weekly

GRAHAM FARMELO

The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom ($29.95, Basic Books, August 2009). Paul Dirac (1902-1984) came to St. John's College, Cambridge, to do research in 1923 and spent most of his career there; he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1932 to 1969 when he moved to Florida.  He shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. A New York Times Notable Book of 2009.

“[B]oth wonderfully written...and a thought-provoking meditation on human achievement, limitations and the relations between the two...the most satisfying and memorable biography I have read in years.”—Louisa Gilder in the New York Times Sunday Book Review

"Farmelo proves himself a wizard at explaining the arcane aspects of particle physics. His great affection for his odd but brilliant subject shows on every page, giving Dirac the biography any great scientist deserves." - Publishers Weekly

"Paul Dirac was a giant of 20th-century physics, and this rich, satisfying biography does him justice.... [A] nuanced portrayal of an introverted eccentric who held his own in a small clique of revolutionary scientific geniuses." - Kirkus Reviews

SEBASTIAN FAULKS
(Emmanuel)

Devil May Care ($24.95, Doubleday, May 2008)

“Undaunted by the task of stepping into Ian Fleming’s shoes, Faulks [Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, Engleby] produced a fun follow-up to the James Bond novels a century after 007’s original creator was born.” – The Financial Times, which names it a “Favourite Book” for 2008.

Engleby (Doubleday, $24.95)

From the author of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, the Cambridge-educated protagonist of this new novel is a “pub-crawling, aesthetically sensitive sociopath.” – The New York Times Book Review

“Brilliant...seems like a page torn from Camus.... With artistry and skill, [Faulks] turns a would-be murder mystery into a meditation on consciousness.” – Washington Post Book World

BRUCE FEILER
(Clare)

JULIAN FELLOWES
(Magdalene)

Past Imperfect ($24.99, St. Martin's Press, September 2009).  Second novel from the Oscar-winning Gosford Park screenplay author.  

"Deservedly compared to Tom Wolfe, Fellowes, with his ability to document the aristocracy with a sociologist's eye, fashions intriguing narratives." - Publishers Weekly

"Past Imperfect shows Mr. Fellowes's satirical talents to be undiminished.... He offers a narrative crowded with incident and memorable ­characters." - The Wall Street Journal

Snobs ($13.95, St. Martin's)

"A merciless and hilarious sendup of snobbery and social jealousy, revealing the pettiness and self-absorption of both the envious and the envied." – Publishers Weekly

THOMAS C. FISCHER
(Wolfson)

[new!]  Legal Gridlock: A Critique of the American Legal System ($35, Carolina Academic Press, December 2011).

 The author is former dean and emeritus professor of law, New England School of Law, Boston, and senior fellow, Center for Global Justice, Seattle University School of Law.  He has been a visiting fellow and scholar at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

ERIC FONER
(King’s; Pitt Professor)

[new!] The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery ($29.95, W.W. Norton, October 2010).   The author is De Witt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia, and was visiting Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge in 1980-1981. A New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

“Do we need another book on Lincoln?.... Well, yes, we do – if the book is by so richly informed a commentator as Eric Foner...the most thorough and judicious account of Lincoln’s attitudes toward slavery that we have to date.... More cogently than any previous historian, Foner examines the political events that shaped Lincoln and ultimately brought out his true greatness.” - The Sunday New York Times Book Review

“[A] probing assessment.... Lincoln is no paragon in Foner's searching portrait, but something more essential--a politician with an open mind and a restless conscience.” – Publishers Weekly

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for History  

RICHARD FORTEY
(King's)

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum ($27.50, Knopf, August 2008)

“Having spent his entire career as a paleontologist at London's Natural History Museum, Fortey is well positioned to explore all aspects of the institution.... Fortey offers a beautiful paean to the collections and articulately makes the case that museums are much more than mere spectacles to entertain and educate the public.” - Publishers Weekly

Earth: An Intimate History ($30, Knopf). The author of this geological history of the Earth is a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.  Selected by The Economist as a "Book of the Year 2004."

"Mr. Fortey makes rocks almost come alive." - The New York Times

GERALD FRANK
(Trinity Hall 1946)

Gerry Frank's Where To Buy It, Find It, Eat It In New York, 2010-2011, 16th Edition ($19.95, Gerry's Frankly Speaking, September 2009). Since 1981, the best-selling comprehensive guide to New York City. A fourth-generation Oregonian, Frank earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Cambridge, returned to his family's retail business, and later served as chief of staff to US Senator Mark Hatfield.

MICHAEL FRAYN
(Emmanuel)

[new!] My Father’s Fortune: A Life ($25, Metropolitan Books, February 2011).  Memoir by the novelist (Spies) and playwright (Noises Off!, Copenhagen)

“A sprightly, warmhearted memoir of his dapper salesman father….Michael Frayn was not destined to be the brilliant cricketer and wit that his father envisioned….he became enamored with music and poetry, eventually attending Cambridge and becoming a journalist. Here is a son's proud, gently poking tribute to the remarkable qualities of an ordinary man, if only on the outside.” – Publishers Weekly.

“Frayn…writes with poignancy and wit about a humble, hardworking man.” – Booklist.

Click here to listen to an interview with Michael Frayn on NPR

The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe ($14, Picador USA, January 2008)

“British playwright and novelist Frayn has nursed a serious interest in philosophy since studying it at Cambridge in the 1950s.... This bold, original spin on the role of the human imagination in the construction of reality reflects the same robust intellectual curiosity, keen powers of observation and ingenious sense of humor that characterize all his work.” – Publishers Weekly 

Spies ($14, Picador)

A New York Times Notable Book, 2002: "...the 10th novel by this master of the intellectual mystery."

“[T]his dark, nostalgic and bittersweet parable evokes the childhood escapades of an isolated and hapless young boy caught up in the uncertainties of wartime London in the early 1940s.... As it plays out to a surprising denouement, this enigmatic melodrama will keep readers' attention firmly in hand.... [T]hose who appreciate Frayn for the rigorous intelligence of his fiction will find him in fine form here.” – Publishers Weekly

JILL FREDSTON
(Darwin 1982)

Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches ($24, Harcourt). Author of the acclaimed Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic's Edge, Alaska-based avalanche expert Fredston earned an MA in Polar Studies at Cambridge.

"Like a true scientist, Fredston loves her subject, finding it beautiful even in its most menacing and heartbreaking moments. Also a fine writer, she ably imparts her passion." – The New York Times

BENJAMIN FRIEDMAN
(King's 1966)

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth ($35, Knopf). The author is the William Joseph Mayer Professor of Economics at Harvard.

"An impressive work: commanding, insistent, and meticulously researched." – The New York Times

"Thorough, historically detailed, accessible." – The Economist

Click here to view video of Benjamin Friedman on the C-Span Video Library.

Frost/Nixon, Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews ($14.95, Harper Perennial). With Bob Zelnick.

Basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway play, the inside story of how Frost pursued and secured the landmark Nixon interviews, one of the most dramatic television events ever broadcast.

Click here to view video of Sir David Frost on the C-Span Video Library.

STEPHEN FRY
(Queens')

[new!] The Fry Chronicles ($29.95, Penguin, January 2012).

 “With his trademark dry wit, Fry recounts his Cambridge years and those leading up to his 30th birthday in this genuinely touching and often hilarious second autobiographical installment ….Fry is cheeky and thoughtful in equal measures, making this a must for his legion of fans.” – Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Stephen Fry on CBS This Morning.

The Ode Less Travelled: Unblocking the Poet Within ($25, Gotham)

Novelist and comedian Fry’s how-to for reading and writing poetry “is at once idiosyncratic and thoroughly traditional...yet still manages to be a smart, comprehensive guide to prosody.” – The New York Times Sunday Book Review

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too ($15, Free Press, May 2009). The author, who was a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge, teaches at the University of Texas - Austin.

"Galbraith, noted economist and son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, offers his views on the gap between conservative ideology and its use and abuse to cover up the George W. Bush administration's ‘Predator State,' which took advantage of the public sector and undermined public institutions for private profit....Not everyone will agree with Galbraith's progressive beliefs, but he offers an important perspective in this thought-provoking book written in plain English." - Booklist

Click here to view video of James Galbraith on the C-Span Video Library.

PETER GALISON
(Churchill 1977)

Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time ($23.95, Norton).  A New York Times Notable Book, 2003. The author, a professor at Harvard, was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1997.

"[P]art history, part science, part adventure, part biography, part meditation on the meaning of modernity.... In Galison's telling of science, the meters and wires and epoxy and solder come alive as characters, along with physicists, engineers, technicians and others.... Galison has unearthed fascinating material" – The New York Times

“Few books have ever made Einstein's work more accessible—or more engrossing—for general readers.” – Booklist

“Galison provides a unique and enlightening view on the origin of time as we know it in the modern age. - American Scientist

Click here to view video of Peter Galison on the C-Span Video Library.

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
(Clare College)

[new!] Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts ($26.95, NYU Press, July 2010). The author, a Harvard professor, was a Mellon Scholar at Clare College and the first African-American to earn a Cambridge PhD.

"Based on the PBS series [available on DVD] of the same name hosted by the author, the book is a deceptively breezy read that contains profound revelations on race, on biology vs. social constructs, and how ancestry can subtly (or resoundingly) manifest itself.... Gates offers a book stuffed with epiphanies that will spark curiosity among readers about their own ancestry as well as their possible connections to each other." - Publishers Weekly

"Gates's book supports the idea that the United States is a nation built from the contributions of immigrants. The family histories here provide an inspiring and engaging read for genealogy buffs, students of American history, and fans of Gates's previous work." - Library Journal 

Click here to view video of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on the C-Span Video Library

City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London (Walker, $45). The author is co-second-prizewinner, 2006 Wolfson History Prizes.

“Gatrell vividly demonstrates the maliciousness and ribaldry of Georgian London. What made Londoners laugh was less the polished wit of the literary salon than a combination of drunken frat-boy–style jokes, toilet humor and nasty political satire.” – Publishers Weekly

MARTIN GAYFORD
(Corpus Christi)

[new!] Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud ($40, Thames & Hudson, October 2010). 

A Financial Times “non-fiction favourite of 2010.”  The author, European art critic for Bloomberg News, sat for Freud for seven months.

“….[N]o matter how fascinating its revelations of the artist’s working life and his pungent views on painting, what carries the narrative is this dialogue between the two, in which Freud is vividly surprising, potent and dynamic, while Gayford is steadily attentive and respectful….” – The Observer.

“…Mr Gayford’s writing has an authority and clarity that matches the nature of this subject – this is a portrait of the artist in words, full of observation about how he looks, sounds, thinks and moves….” – Country Life.

GILLIAN GILL
(New Hall/Murray Edwards)

We Two ($35, Ballantine, May 2009)

The author has taught at Wellesley, Yale, and Harvard, and has written biographies of Florence Nightingale, Mary Baker Eddy, and Agatha Christie.  Here she chronicles the lives and marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (Chancellor of Cambridge University from 1847 until his death in 1861). 

“Ms. Gill's portrait of the marriage is a rounded one, sparkling with perception and insight...a valuable portrait of two remarkable people.” – The Wall Street Journal 

Click here to view video of Gillian Gill on the C-Span Video Library.

JOHN GIMLETTE (Jesus)

JAMES GLEICK

Isaac Newton ($22.95, Pantheon).  A New York Times Notable Book, 2003.

"Now the biography of choice for the interested layman." – The New York Times

MARK GLICKMAN

PETER GODWIN
(St. Catharine’s)

[new!]  The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe ($26.99, Little Brown, March 2011). 

“Godwin's skills as a journalist and his personal connection to Zimbabwe combine to create an astonishing piece of reportage marked by spare, stirring description, heartrending action, and smart analysis.” Publishers Weekly.

“An important work of witness.” – Booklist. 

"Peter Godwin's latest book is the most powerful indictment of Robert Mugabe's regime yet written, marking out the author as one of the sharpest observers of modern Africa." -- The Economist.

“Mesmerizing…. Godwin is a skilled storyteller and scene-setter, with a novelist's knack for selecting the detail that paints the whole….”  Salon.com.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun ( Little, Brown, $24.99). Memoir and reportage about life in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

“A powerful narrative of grief and desperation, both personal and national.” – The New Yorker

“Hauntingly and beautifully written...a powerful and deeply affecting book.” – The New York Times

Jerusalem: City of Longing ($27.95, Harvard Univ. Press, May 2008)

“[A]n illuminating archeological, architectural and historical guide to Jerusalem's most important holy and secular sites from biblical times to the present...faces head-on the difficulty of telling the history of a place where every fact is contested by conflicting nationalist narratives.... A highly knowledgeable and beautifully written look at both the ‘heavenly’ and the ‘earthly’ Jerusalem.” – Publishers Weekly

How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today ($18, University of Chicago Press)

“As one would expect from Goldhill, author of a number of respected discussions of Greek tragedy, the sections on the individual plays are lucid and highly informative. There are also particularly important caveats for the theater practitioner.... However, it is not just the would-be practitioner who could benefit from reading this book: there are equally good nuggets for the seasoned scholar of Greek tragedy.” – Literary Review

WILLIAM B. GOULD IV
(Churchill, Past Fellow)

Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor ($24.95, Stanford University Press). A former slave's daily record of his experiences as a free man, presented and edited by his great-grandson, a Stanford Law professor and former chair of the National Labor Relations Board.

"[Provides] modern readers with vivid insight into the life and thought of a man who overcame the degradations of slavery, actively sought his own freedom and fought to make it permanent, and in the end forged a new life as a full citizen....An unusual work, one of only three [Civil War] wartime diaries kept by black sailors." - Library Journal

[new!] The Swerve: How the World Became Modern ($26.95, W.W.Norton, September 2011). Harvard Shakespeare scholar Greenblatt, author of the acclaimed Will in the World, tells how the discovery of an ancient text during the Italian Renaissance changed the course of Western thought.

“[A] gloriously learned page-turner, both biography and intellectual history.”-- Publishers Weekly.

“[An] affectionate portrait of a bibliophile and the poem he found.” – Financial Times.

“Mesmerizing intellectual history.” – Newsweek.

Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction 

Click here to view video of Stephen Greenblatt on Charlie Rose.

GERMAINE GREER
(Newnham College)

Shakespeare's Wife (HarperCollins, $14.99, March 2009)

“[N]ow the book written by a brilliant student from Newnham, dreamed of by Virginia Woolf in the last century, exists: lively, rigorous, fiercely imagined.” - Kate Roiphe in the New York Times

“[An] excellent portrait of an early modern woman in all of her richness and complexity... Greer rescues [Anne] Hathaway from the graveyard of the forgotten wives of famous men and places her firmly within her own time and social context.” - Library Journal

Click here to view video of Germaine Greer on the C-Span Video Library.

SUSANNA GREGORY
(Dr. Elizabeth Cruwys, Wolfson College)

A Vein of Deceit:  the Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles ($26.95, Little Brown, July 2009)

Fifteenth in a series of murder mysteries set in medieval Cambridge. The author, who earned her PhD at Cambridge, is an Institute Associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute. 

“[Protagonist Matthew] Bartholomew remains a credible and sympathetic amateur sleuth.”—Publishers Weekly 

A short-story murder mystery by Susanna Gregory set during the founding of Cambridge University in 1209 is available at www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/special/downloads/bloody-beginnings.pdf.

THOM GUNN
(Trinity)

Selected Poems ($14, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, March 2009), edited by August Kleinzahler. Gunn (1929-2004) moved to San Francisco after Cambridge in the mid-1950s, taught writing at UC-Berkeley, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1993. 

“His total output ran well over 500 pages, almost all of which are well worth reading, and any selection was bound to have holes critics would cry over. It’s to the credit of this remarkable writer that those absences seem unimportant beside what is so rousingly present.” – Sunday New York Times Book Review

Hostile Intent: U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964-1974 ($29.95, Potomac Books)

Reviewing Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA, Cambridge espionage scholar Professor Christopher Andrew (Pembroke) wrote in the London Times:

“Waiting in the wings is a new generation of less polemical historians with a greater capacity for balanced interpretation of the CIA’s record. Due this month is an outstanding work by the young Canadian Kristian Gustafson, Hostile Intent, which lays to rest a number of myths about CIA operations in Chile. I recommend it as a corrective to Legacy of Ashes.”

JOHN GUY
(Clare)

A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg ($30, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, March 2009)

From Cambridge historian Guy, most recently a biographer of Mary Queen of Scots, portraits of Sir Thomas More, his eldest daughter Margaret [“Meg”], and his family, including adopted daughter Margaret Giggs. 

“[Guy’s] absorbing, thoroughly researched book does justice to two exemplary women – and reminds us that history is full of ironies.” – Claire Tomalin, in The Sunday New York Times Book Review

"Using extensive sources, Guy provides unprecedented insight into this intense relationship [between More and daughter Margaret].... Guy reveals an invaluable perspective on Henry VIII's political and religious machinations...."
– Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of John Guy on the C-Span Video Library.

Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart ($16.95, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2005)

This new biography by "one of the most distinguished scholars of the Tudor period" is "as enthralling as a detective story." - New York Times Book Review

"Guy's biography is a masterpiece of moderation that steadfastly avoids the lure of her scandalous reputation. Here is a life of Mary Stuart that painstakingly assembles all the surviving documentary evidence and scrupulously assesses it, weighing the false testimony of her enemies against the whitewashing of her friends." - Lisa Jardine, in The Washington Post  

WILLIAM HAGUE

William Pitt the Younger ($35, Knopf). A biography of one of Pembroke College's most famous alumni (1759-1806), Britain's Prime Minister during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, written by the former Conservative Party leader.

"A first-class work of history; informative, well written and captivating." - Alistair Horne, The Times (UK)
 

JOHN R. HALE
(Trinity)

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy  ($29.95, Viking, May 2009). The author, who earned his PhD at Cambridge in 1974, is director of liberal studies at the University of Louisville.

“Hale has enjoyed a career as an archaeologist, including underwater searches for ancient warships. Here he examines the origins, growth, and campaigns of the great Athenian fleet, which helped make Athens the most powerful polis in Greece for most of the fifth century BC….a well-written, stirring chronicle.”  - Booklist

“Lords of the Sea packs into a small volume a wide sweep of knowledge...tells an important story…...well worth the read.” – Washington Times

"[A] novel and gripping way to approach a story that has been told many times before.... Mr. Hale's simple but vigorous sentences prick up your ears from the first page." - The New York Times 

STEFAN HALPER
(Magdalene; Centre for International Studies)

The Beijing Consensus: How China's Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century ($28.95, Basic Books, April 2010).

“Halper cogently rejects the conventional wisdom that suggests America's relationship with China is on track in this lucid, probing text...he concludes this sobering, excellently argued book with a series of concrete policy recommendations.” – Publishers Weekly

“Halper’s perspective and advice to American policy makers is a clearly conceived, jargon-free appreciation of China as ideological rival as well as commercial partner.” – Booklist

Click here to view video of Stefan Halper speaking at a Cambridge in America event.

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke

The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy Is Failing ($26.95, Basic Books). Indictment of U.S. foreign policy by conservative veterans of the Reagan White House.

"Why was there so little opposition to the Iraq gamble during the run-up to the invasion in 2002-03? Where, beyond the loony fringe, were the reasoned questions about the future of Iraq after ‘V-I Day'? How would the United States redeem a country of which it knew nothing? Why would a democracy stay the course in a place only remotely related to its core security? The authors describe that fiasco by squaring off against media, politicos and think tanks, both left and right." - The Washington Post

Click here to view video of Stefan Halper on the C-Span Video Library.

"[Halper and Clarke's] thoughtful, insightful work spans ideological and partisan differences, a rare phenomenon in these times.... The argument never has been put together so persuasively, so conclusively and so effectively." - The Washington Post

"America Alone is a sobering critique of U.S. foreign policy by two very serious conservatives. What makes their book so powerful is that their conclusion appears to be right." - Washington Times

S.J. HAMRICK

Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess (Yale Univ. Press, $29.95). New conclusions about the Cambridge Spies.

“Hamrick’s research has enabled him to show in a most convincing manner that the accepted accounts…are at best flawed, and often plain wrong.... A valuable book.” – New York Review of Books

“[Hamrick’s] subversive recasting of the Philby-Maclean-Burgess case will fascinate and challenge all those interested in Cold War history.” – Publishers Weekly

“Hamrick brings a thriller-writer's imagination to the otherwise familiar story, coupled with a very careful reading of the Venona material released over the past decade by the U.S. National Security Agency.” – Washington Post

CHRISTINA HARDYMENT
(Newnham)

Malory: The Life and Times of King Arthur’s Chronicler ($30, HarperCollins)

“Camelot echoes marvelously through Hardyment's biography, making palpable Malory's desire for valor and honor in his own time.” - Publishers Weekly

“More whirlwind history than biography, this is a book that old-time history buffs, who love battles and political machinations, should utterly adore.” – Booklist

The Ghost: A Novel ($26, Simon & Schuster). From the author of best-sellers Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, and Imperium.

“Harris...hits one out of the park with this dark, paranoid thriller...nicely leavens his cynical tale with gallows humor, and even readers who anticipate the plot’s final twist will admire the author’s artistry in creating an intelligent page-turner that tackles serious issues.” – Publishers Weekly

JOHN HARWOOD
(St. John's)

The Ghost Writer (Harcourt, $25)

"A wonderful debut, evoking a century's worth of family history, by a multi-talented and artistically ambidextrous newcomer." - Kirkus Reviews

"The ghost stories at the heart of this book are lyrical, labyrinthine tales that feel simultaneously fresh and familiar, making this an atmospheric paranormal thriller with many surprises." - Booklist

"A first-class creeper, a literary ghost story in the Victorian tradition." - The Boston Globe

JOHN HATCHER
(Faculty of History, Corpus Christi)

The Black Death: An Intimate History ($27.50, Perseus Books/Da Capo Press). The author is Professor of Economic and Social History and chairman of the Faculty of History and senior Fellow of Corpus Christi. A Financial Times "Favourite Book" of 2008.

“In an experimental narrative for an academic historian—blending some fiction with solid facts—Hatcher, of Cambridge University, offers a ‘literary docudrama’ that looks at the lives of ordinary people during the Black Death that devastated Europe in the 1340s.... [T]his is a fine work that gives an intimate sense of the Black Death's horrors.” – Publishers Weekly

"This totally absorbing book presents the best account ever written about the worst event to have ever befallen the British Isles." - Simon Winchester in the New York Sun  

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW
(Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Gonville & Caius; Trinity Hall)

[new!] The Grand Design ($28, Bantam, September 2010). Stephen Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including, most recently, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at Caltech. "This is an amazingly concise, clear, and intriguing overview of where we stand when it comes to divining the secrets of the universe." - Publishers Weekly

"Hawking and Mlodinow's fascinating book, with its wonderful illustrations, takes us through the various supernatural and scientific cosmological theories that mankind has developed since earliest times to explain our universe.... Hawking and Mlodinow pack in a wealth of ideas and leave us with a clearer understanding of modern physics in all its invigorating complexity." - Los Angeles Times

A Briefer History of Time ($25, Bantam, September 2005)

"The authors maintain the same wry, lively tone that made the original Brief History of Time such a delight. They close with a discussion of where physics ends and philosophy begins, 'Why does the universe exist at all?' They cannot provide the answer, but they do provide an immense amount of food for thought. Highly recommended." - Publishers Weekly

"May be the clearest introduction to physics ever.... an utterly engrossing read." - Booklist

Click here to view video of Stephen Hawking on the C-Span Video Library.

DAISY HAY
(New Hall / Murray Edwards)

“[I]t’s as a biographer pure and simple that Hay shines. Despite being almost as youthful as her subjects — she only recently received her doctorate from Cambridge, and Young Romantics is her first book — she is a skilled and sure- footed chronicler. In firm, clear, often elegant prose, she narrates the main events in the lives of her subjects.... Moving swiftly and purposefully, her story has no longueurs whatsoever, nor even a single lurching transition; it represents a triumph of artful selection and synthesis.... However tormented, this episode remains one of the most riveting in literary history, an operatic tale brimming with color and variety and passion. To hear it told so nimbly and concisely is to be helplessly swept up into it all once again.” – Sunday New York Times Book Review

Click here to watch an interview with Daisy Hay.

The Debt Threat: How Debt is Destroying the Developing World ($13.95, CollinsBusiness). A passionate call for the cancellation of third-world debt.

"[Hertz] navigates this terrain with precision and clarity, presenting inspiring visions for change.... [Hertz's] eloquent call to action deserves the attention of every concerned citizen of our troubled world." - Publishers Weekly

"Fast becoming the central text of the antiglobalization movement." - Christian Science Monitor

Click here to view video of Noreena Hertz on the C-Span Video Library.

"[Hertz] asserts that...free market capitalism has had dire social and political repercussions, although it has triumphed as the dominant world ideology and brought prosperity to many." -Publishers Weekly

SYLVIA ANN HEWLETT (Girton) AND RIPA RASHID  

[new!] Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women are the Solution ($35, Harvard Business Review Press, August 2011). Girton alumna Hewlett is the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy and Rashid is its senior vice president.

“[The authors] argue that recruiters are missing out by overlooking women. Expanding on research published in Harvard Business Review, they point to the educational achievements and ambition of many young women in Brazil, China, India, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Hewlett and Rashid make a powerful case that companies keen to recruit and develop these women should help them manage specific challenges they face, such as safety when travelling or responsibility for the care of ageing relatives…[they] offer useful lessons in how big business can do better.” – Financial Times.

SYLVIA ANN HEWLETT
(Girton) 

Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95). Named one of the top ten business books of 2007 by the editors of Amazon.com.

“Looks at all areas of a constrictive work environment and offers intelligent solutions for reaching one's full potential within it.” – Publishers Weekly 

"Makes the persuasive case for a new competitive model that takes into account the pressing needs of women employees." - Financial Times

Click here to view video of Sylvia Ann Hewlett on the C-Span Video Library.

DOMINIC HIBBERD
(King's 1961)

Wilfred Owen: A New Biography ($30, Ivan R. Dee).  Owen was a celebrated War Poet (1893-1918) who was killed in battle a week before the Armistice.

"Enthralling reading" - The Financial Times

PENELOPE HOBHOUSE
(Girton 1948)

Gardens of Persia ($49.95, Kales Press). One of the world's foremost garden designers was captivated by what she saw on a Cambridge alumni trip to Iran.

"Hobhouse, a veteran garden historian and designer, elegantly explains the continuity of the aesthetic ideas that govern Persian gardens.... Her account, accompanied by Jerry Harpur's spectacular photography, spans more than two thousand years of design...." - The New Yorker

"[A] dazzling look at the evolution of a beautiful and peaceful tradition." - Publishers Weekly

ADINA HOFFMAN AND PETER COLE

[new!] Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza ($26.95, Schocken, April 2011).  The authors, essayist Hoffman and MacArthur-winning poet and translator Cole, live in Jerusalem.  Much of the Genizah archive resides at the Cambridge University Library.

"Absorbing…an accessible, neatly narrated story of hallowed detritus and the resurrection of nearly 1,000 years of culture and learning."—Kirkus Reviews.

“[E]ngaging…The story told by ‘Sacred Trash’ is both lively and elevating….restores to life the mostly obscure and unnoticed scholars whose careers were touched by the geniza or who committed themselves to its study.” – The Sunday New York Times Book Review. 

TOM HOLLAND
(Queens')

The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West ($30, Doubleday, May 2009)

“...[E]njoyable and exuberantly argued...combines sound scholarly credentials with a gift for storytelling on a magisterial scale.”  - The Economist

“Holland (Persian Fire) surveys the two and a half centuries between the fragmenting of Charlemagne's empire and the First Crusade, visiting milestones like the Norman conquest of England along with lesser invasions, raids, feudal vendettas, kidnappings and pope vs. antipope squabbles.... Holland's colorful, energetic narrative vividly captures the medieval mindset, while conveying the dynamism that underlay a seemingly static age.”  - Publishers Weekly

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West ($27.50, Doubleday)

“Vibrant, bloodthirsty popular history, told with a rich sense of irony and irresistible narrative timing.” – The Telegraph

“[Holland] brings this tumultuous, epoch-making period dazzlingly to life, and makes the common reader familiar again with one of the most thrilling periods in world history.” – The Independent

DARA HORN
(Jesus)

All Other Nights: A Novel ($14.95, W.W. Norton, March 2010). The author, who lives in New Jersey, has published two prior novels, In the Image (2002) and The World to Come (2006).

“A Civil War spy page-turner...enthralling.... Horn propels the love story at a thriller's pace; the mix of love and loyalty played out in a divided America is sublime.”—Publishers Weekly

“...Horn is too gifted and ambitious an artist to settle for easy reassurances or a facile happy ending; she instead offers her readers the deeper satisfactions of complexity and generosity as she limns a world of agonizing, implacable moral ambiguities and guides her imperfect yet lovable protagonist toward a tentative redemption.” – The Washington Post

“...Horn both unearths a fascinating, relatively unexplored aspect of American history—the role of Jewish Americans in the Civil War—and delivers a novel rich in human emotion and ambiguity. A triumph.”—Booklist

“...[A]n enjoyably fast-paced amalgam of historical romance, spy novel and political thriller...a rare and memorable portrait of Jewish life during the Civil War.” – The Wall Street Journal

 NICK HORNBY
(Jesus)

Juliet, Naked: a Novel ($25.95, Riverhead/Penguin, September 2009)

 “Hornby returns to his roots – music, manic fandom, messy romance – in his funny and touching latest.” – Publishers Weekly

“Hornby’s books are almost shamefully readable...his characters are always richly, sympathetically drawn.... The story is tinged with despair, and though the ending offers little by way of hope, its bittersweet ambiguity lends it maturity.”—The New Yorker.
 
Nick Hornby has also written the screenplay for 2009 film An Education, which features actress Emma Thompson (Newnham).  The author was interviewed on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” in October 2009. 

Click here to view video of Nick Hornby on the C-Span Video Library.

Slam, ($19.99, Penguin USA, October 2007). Young adult fiction.

“[P]ortrait of a prickly and interesting boy who is forced to become, very quickly, a man...an agreeably casual and occasionally effervescent comedy of manners.” – New York Times

“Vintage Hornby: a witty trek inside the emotional life of the modern male.” – People

A Long Way Down ($24.95, Riverhead). The fourth novel from the author of About a Boy and High Fidelity.

"A brave and absorbing book." – Publishers Weekly

ALISTAIR HORNE
(Jesus)

La Belle France : A Short History ($30, Knopf). From the eminent English-language historian of France, author of Seven Ages of Paris (2002).

"A lifelong passion for the Gallic nation led Horne...to pen numerous books on the subject, including this lively, concise history that takes us from Julius Caesar right through the travails of President Jacques Chirac." - The Washington Post

"Comprehensive in coverage, fluid in presentation, and rendered in sprightly language." - Booklist

Click here to view video of Alistair Horne on the C-Span Video Library.

Seven Ages of Paris ($17, Vintage paperback)

"A British historian's evocation of the world's favorite city"

A New York Times Notable Book, 2003.

"Brilliant and entertaining...sure to delight Francophiles everywhere." - Publishers Weekly

"While politics informs and guides his presentation, this is by no means a political history. Each section includes fascinating insights into the social and cultural life of the age, fashions in clothing, architectural developments, leading personalities, and lifestyles of rich and poor alike." - Library Journal

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
(Girton 1969)

Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America ($14, Three Rivers Press ). Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, who was president of the Cambridge Union Society, is a nationally syndicated columnist and TV commentator. She is founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post.

"[A] scathing indictment of the corporate and political culture that brought the 'new economy' '90s crashing down...a powerful book, brimming with wit and sulphurous satire that connects the dots among politicians, lobbyists and corporations, and demonstrates their destructive effect on the well-being of average Americans." - Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Arianna Huffington on the C-Span Video Library.

On Becoming Fearless...in Love, Work, and Life ($12.99, Little Brown)

"Huffington ruminates on the cultivation of fearlessness in all aspects of a woman's life: body image, love, motherhood, work, money, illness and aging, with contributions from other fearless females like Nora Ephron and Diane Keaton...[T]he author's common-sense feminism is welcome in a sea of women's books dedicated solely to snagging a man...."-Publishers Weekly

"[S]urprisingly refreshing....a wide-ranging look at the challenges women face in family, faith, careers, and personal fulfillment to explore the rewards of facing up to fears and working steadily toward fearlessness." - Booklist

TED HUGHES
(Pembroke)

Selected Poems, 1957-1994 ($16, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux)

A New York Times Notable Book, 2002.

"Whether he wrote poems about the farm, or wild birds and animals, or birthday masques for Royal occasions, Hughes had the same spontaneity of craft which came from some inner joy in the ceremonial powers of poetry." -The Times Literary Supplement

"Hughes has a great spiritual imagination--he is truly a visionary and a modern primitive." - London Review of Books

Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet ($15.95, W.W. Norton), a biography by Elaine Feinstein. 

A New York Times Notable Book, 2002.

"[A]n engaging and, on the whole, convincing narrative that manages to blend honesty with sympathy.... This is, in fact, the measured, gentle biography that needed to be written, an attempt to set the record straight and clear the air of rancor and recrimination." - The New York Times

COLIN HUMPHREYS
(Materials Science & Metallurgy; Selwyn)

The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories ($24.95, HarperCollins)

"An unusual combination of homework, legwork and creativity." – Publishers Weekly

DAVID IGNATIUS
(King's) 

The Increment: A Novel ($26.95, W.W. Norton, May 2009)

The author, a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, has covered the Middle East and the CIA for more than twenty-five years. Listen to the author in an NPR interview.

“Ignatius floods his latest book with highlights of technology while exploring the dark heart of human betrayal with menacing ambiguity.” - Library Journal  

“[A] page-turner of the highest order.” - Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of David Ignatius on the C-Span Video Library.

Body of Lies (W.W. Norton, $24.95). Novel by a columnist for The Washington Post who has extensive reporting experience in the Middle East.

“A timely and plausible cautionary tale of schemes within schemes and morality compromised. It has vividly rendered locales, clever plotting, compelling characters, and a discomforting verisimilitude.” – Booklist

The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions ($15, Harvest Books, 2005)

The author, former dean of admissions at University of Chicago Law School, spent her junior year abroad at Cambridge and won the Newnham history prize.

HOWARD JACOBSON
(Downing)

[new!] The Finkler Question (e-book: $26.70, Bloomsbury UK, August 2010). Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize. 

"Humour, insight and chutzpah pepper this fictional foray into what it means to be Jewish." - The Telegraph (UK)

"The Finkler Question balances precariously a bleak moralising with life-affirming humour."- The Independent (UK)

"The Finkler Question is full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding. It is also beautifully written with that sophisticated and near invisible skill of the authentic writer. Technically the characterisation is impeccable, the prose a subtle delight, the word selection everywhere perfect, the phrase-making fresh and arresting without self-consciousness." - The Guardian (UK) 

A Financial Times “Book of the Year / Fiction” of 2010.
 

CLIVE JAMES
(Pembroke)

As of This Writing ($35, Norton). Literary essays and reviews.

"An impressive body of work: tonic, entertaining, informative, intelligent." – The Wall Street Journal

Click here to view video of Clive James on the C-Span Video Library.

SUSAN JAMES
(Darwin)

Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love ($34.95, The History Press, January 2009). The author, an independent researcher and writer who lives in California, earned her PhD at Cambridge.

“[O]nce queen, Catherine blossoms before our eyes and so does this book.... [A]bundantly sustains James’ purpose to demonstrate that Catherine was not the colourless and unimaginative person that previous historians have painted her.... [James] fills the spaces with such exactitude of scholarship that the account is altogether persuasive...” – The Spectator

LISA JARDINE
(Newnham)

Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory ($18.99, Harper Perennial, September 2009)

"Jardine understands and appreciates her sources, and she writes exceptionally lively history. A pleasure to read...."  – Library Journal 

"Jardine meticulously studies the exchange of ideas between England and Holland, displaying an impressive ability to look at the bigger picture and tie together seemingly disparate strands of culture.... She leaves no stone unturned as she documents just how many significant figures from Holland held sway over English culture. Absorbing, enjoyable reading." – Kirkus Reviews 

Click here to view video of Lisa Jardine on the C-Span Video Library.

MAYA JASANOFF
(King's)

Click here to view video of Maya Jasanoff on C-Span

PAM JENOFF
(Jesus)

[new!] The Things We Cherished: A Novel ($24.95, Doubleday, July 2011). A former attorney and diplomat, the author lives outside Philadelphia and teaches law school.

“Two lawyers argue, fall in love, and unravel a tragic historical mystery in Jenoff’s solid latest novel….Unlike much romantic historical suspense, this is quiet and credible – even the surprise twists – further cementing Jenoff’s reputation for adeptly using the harsh realities of WWII Europe as a context for a timeless love story.” – Publishers Weekly.   

Almost Home: a Novel ($25, Atria, February 2009)

"[A] cool, contemporary romantic thriller...Jennoff keeps the pace brisk and the plot tight...concluding with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger." - Publishers Weekly

"[T]his thriller delivers politics and plot..." - Kirkus Reviews

Click here to view video of Pam Jenoff on the C-Span Video Library.

HUGH JOHNSON
(King's)

A Life Uncorked ($34.95, University of California Press)

"A loving but bittersweet look back at bottles he's emptied and the people and places that produced them. It's a world that he treasures, and that he fears is on the way out.... He's a delightful writer who will make you hungry and thirsty, and the rare wine reviewer who can capture the essence of a bottle without resorting to winespeak." - Eric Asimov in The New York Times

"His memoir proceeds following broad categories of wine--bubbly, white, red and sweet--each chapter replete with memories of remarkable trips, vintages, vineyards and people. Johnson opens his notebooks and the oenophile's lifetime experience richly spills forth." - Publishers Weekly

JOINVILLE AND VILLEHARDOUIN: CHRONICLES OF THE CRUSADES
($16, Penguin Classics, March 2009)

Translated with an introduction and notes by Caroline Smith (Trinity Hall)

Originally composed in Old French, the two chronicles brought together here offer some of the most vivid and reliable accounts of the Crusades from a Western perspective. Villehardouin’s Conquest of Constantinople, distinguished by its simplicity and lucidity, recounts the controversial Fourth Crusade, which descended into an all-out attack on the Eastern Christians of Byzantium. In Life of Saint Louis, Joinville draws on his close attachment to King Louis IX of France to recall his campaigning in the Holy Land. Together these narratives comprise a fascinating window on events that, for all their remoteness, offer startling similarities to our own age. 

MARTIN KENNETH JONES
(Archaeology; Peterhouse)

Feast: Why Humans Share Food ($24.95, Oxford Univ. Press, June 2008). The author is the George Pitt-Rivers Professor of Archaeological Science at Cambridge; the book has been awarded the “Food Book of the Year” prize by Britain’s Guild of Food Writers.

“A captivating narrative.” – Nature

“[A] smooth chronological narrative from the earliest evidence of hominid eating habits right up to a 20th-century TV dinner.” – Library Journal

TONY JUDT
(King's)

[new!]  The Memory Chalet ($25.95, Penguin Press, November 2010).  Autobiographical essays, including several about the author's time at Cambridge as student and teacher. 

Tony Judt was educated at King's College, Cambridge and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. He was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New York University, and the Director of NYU's Remarque Institute, dedicated to the study of Europe, which he founded in 1995. The author or editor of fourteen books, Professor Judt was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, The New York Times and many other journals. He died in August 2010 at the age of sixty-two. 

Postwar: A History of Europe ($39.95, Penguin Press).  A New York Times Notable Book, 2005.

"This is the best history we have of Europe in the postwar period and not likely to be surpassed for many years....  History writing at its very best." – Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Tony Judt on the C-Span Video Library.

ANTHONY JULIUS
(Jesus)

GEOFFREY KABASERVICE
(Jesus 1988)

The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment ($30, Henry Holt)

"This deftly woven portrait of Brewster and his close friends—McGeorge Bundy, Elliot Richardson, John Lindsay, Cyrus Vance, and Paul Moore—is among the most revealing books ever written about the liberal establishment." - The Atlantic Monthly 

Click here to view video of Geoffrey Kabaservice on the C-Span Video Library.

JOSEPH KANON
(Trinity)

Stardust: A Novel ($27.99, Atria. September 2009)

“Gritty look at post-WWII Hollywood from Edgar-winner Kanon (Los Alamos,The Good German).... Kanon perfectly balances action and introspection, while smoothly integrating such real-life figures as actress Paulette Goddard into the plot.” – Publishers Weekly

“[Kanon] operates with an intelligence that briskly evokes the atmosphere of a vanished era." - The New York Times Book Review

"A delicious synthesis of menace and glamour, historical fact and rich imagination.... Among the real movie people making appearances here is Paulette Goddard - just one element of a perfect setting for a story in which nothing is obvious." - The Seattle Times

CHRISTOPHER KELLY
(Corpus Christi, Faculty of Classics)

The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of the Roman Empire ($26.95, W.W.Norton, June 2009)

“Christopher Kelly, in his learned, fluent and often witty study of the great Hunnish leader, is too nuanced a historian to buy into the notion of his subject as merely a mindless thug; but nor does he go to the opposite extreme, and cast Attila as a misunderstood man of peace.” – Tom Holland, in the Telegraph (UK)

“Kelly's first-rate history provides a singularly fresh look at a fractious period in the life of ancient Rome.” – Publishers Weekly 

IAN KELLY
(Trinity Hall 1985)

Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Carême, the First Celebrity Chef ($26, Walker and Co.). The author is an actor who portrays Carême (1783-1832) in a one-man show, Off-Broadway.

"An engrossing story...a fine book." - Publishers Weekly

CHRISTINE KENNEALLY
(Trinity)

The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language ($26.95, Viking). The author, born in Australia, earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at Cambridge.

“Compelling.... The book's wit and sophistication will appeal to anyone interested in talking about talk.” – Slate

PASCAL KHOO THWE
(Gonville & Caius 1992)

From the Land of Green Ghosts ($13.99, Harper Perennial, 2003).  A memoir of youth in Burma and at Cambridge. A New York Times Notable Book, 2003.

“A heartbreaking tale, told with lyricism, affection and insight.” - Publishers Weekly

“A political statement as well as a poetic lament, the book is a true work of art.” - Financial Times

“The best memoir you will read this year.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“Unique as much for the riveting story it tells as for the sublime way it is told.” - Seattle Times

“[A] writer of uncommon elegance and sensitivity." - New York Times Book Review

DAVID KING
(Emmanuel 1998)

Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World ($23, Harmony). The story of 17th-century polymath Olof Rudbeck's quest to prove that he had found Atlantis -- in Sweden. The author teaches history at the University of Kentucky.

"King tells his tale with the pace and appeal of a classic whodunit." – Publishers Weekly

SIR DAVID KING & GABRIELLE WALKER
(Department of Chemistry, Downing; Queens')

The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming ($14.00, Harvest Books). Prof. Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the British government, is Director of Research in the Dept. of Chemistry, Fellow of Queens’ and Former Master and Honorary Fellow of Downing (1995-2000).

“[An] excellent primer on arguably the most serious problem facing the world today...present[s] in concise layman’s language everything you wanted to know about global warming but were too depressed to ask.... Entertaining as well as deadly serious, this lucid book, which includes an appendix that dispels many myths about and misconceptions, explains in the clearest possible way why we should care about global warming and what we can do about it.” – Publishers Weekly

FRANK P. KING
(Pembroke 1970)

A Chronicle of World History: From 130,000 Years Ago to the Eve of AD 2000 ($59, University Press of America)

"As much fun to simply browse through, as it is informative." – Library Bookwatch

A comprehensive version of this book, in PDF format, is available here.

JAMES KLOPPENBERG
(Pitt Professor; Jesus)

ANNETTE KOBAK
(Girton)

Joe's War: My Father Decoded ($16, Vintage Paperback). Biographer Kobak pierces the veil of secrecy surrounding her Czech father's experiences before and during World War II.

"Part memoir, part Joe's first-person narrative, part historical account, the book violates genre boundaries—but it is precisely this lack of affectedness, couched in graceful, perceptive writing, that makes it such an engrossing and informative work." - Publishers Weekly

JEAN HANFF KORELITZ
(Clare)

Admission ($24.99, Grand Central Publishing, April 2009)

Novel about an Ivy League admissions officer, by an alumna of Dartmouth and Clare, author of three previous novels and book of poetry.

“Well-written, well-plotted and extremely satisfying, ‘Admission’ marks another step forward for a writer whose accomplishments grow more impressive with each book.” – Los Angeles Times

“[T]he novel gleams with acute insights into what most consider a deeply mysterious process.” – The New Yorker

Click here to view video of Jean Hanff Korelitz on the C-Span Video Library.

ROBERT LACEY
(Selwyn)

[new!] Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia ($17, Penguin, October 2010). Sequel to the author's acclaimed The Kingdom (1981).

"Lacey's eye for sweeping trends and the telling detail combined with the depth, breadth and evenhandedness of his research makes for an indispensable guide." - Publishers Weekly 

Click here to view video of Robert Lacey on the C-Span Video Library

The Malice Box ($25.95, Pegasus Books, September 2007). Apocalyptic thriller in the manner of The DaVinci Code, by a former Reuters journalist and bureau chief.

“The book is full of surprises and moves at a good lick.”—The Observer (UK)

LEWIS LAPHAM
(Magdalene 1956)

Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy ($19.95, Penguin Press).  The author is the editor of Harper's Magazine.

"Provocative and thoughtful…a lively political pamphlet written in the tradition of Thomas Paine's Common Sense." - The New York Times

STARLING LAWRENCE
(Pembroke 1965)

The Lightning Keeper (Harper Collins, $25.95). Historical fiction about pioneers of electrical energy in early 20th-century America.

“A deeply satisfying novel of love and electricity...not only a complex romantic tale, but also a grand story of science and American industry in the years before World War I....  Lawrence’s descriptive gifts are such that the history and science of electrical energy and turn-of-the-century manufacturing are given the power and fascination they must have held for people of that time. His writing is crisp, often beautiful.” – Washington Post Book World

DAVID LEAVITT

The Indian Clerk (Bloomsbury, $24.95, September 2007). Novel about the relationship between Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy (1877-1947; Trinity 1896) and his colleague / protégé S. Ramajunan (1887-1920), the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College.

“Richly imagined.... Reading it offers the pleasure of escape into another world, along with the nagging feeling of familiarity that characterizes the best historical fiction.” – The New York Times Book Review

The End of Barbary Terror: America’s 1815 War against the Pirates of North Africa ($28, Oxford). The author, a lawyer in Baltimore, earned an M.Phil. in International Relations at Cambridge.

“A fascinating account of what popular historians now refer to as America’s first war against state-sponsored terrorism.” – Library Journal

“Leiner does an excellent job of describing the personalities involved and depicting the heated naval battles.” – Publishers Weekly

KEVIN LEWIS
(St. John's, Wolfson)

SIMON LEWIS
(Christ's)

JENNIFER LIGHT
(Emmanuel)

SIR GEOFFREY LLOYD
(Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science, and Needham Research Institute)

The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China ($29.99, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002).  Prof. Lloyd was Master of Darwin College from 1989 to 2000.  "Crisply written," says former Classics Faculty Chair Paul Cartledge.

"G.E.R. Lloyd has produced an important work...recommended." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review

HUMPHREY E. D. LLOYD
(King's 1947)

While Memory Serves ($25.95, Beckham Publications Group).  A memoir of a Cambridge-trained pathologist, from English wartime boyhood to life and medical practice in Massachusetts and Texas. Dr. Lloyd is the brother of Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd.

JULIA LOVELL
(East Asia Institute, Queens’, Emmanuel)

The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC – 2000 AD ($25, Grove Press).  Dr. Lovell studied at Emmanuel and is a Fellow of Queens’ College.

“A supremely inviting entrée to the country.” – Booklist

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years ($45, Viking, March 2010). 

A New York Times “Notable Book of 2010.” 

"A prodigious, thrilling, masterclass of a history book. MacCulloch is to be congratulated for his accessible handling of so much complex, difficult material ... He keeps the reader engaged with wit and choice anecdotes and throughout the entire book he retains his own distinctive, slightly irreverent perspective, and an unerring instinct for when to go from macro to micro history." -John Cornwell, in the Financial Times.

ROBERT MACFARLANE
(Fellow, Emmanuel)

The Wild Places ($15, Penguin, June 2008). A New York Times Sunday Book Review Notable Book for 2008.

“In this eloquent travelogue, Macfarlane explores the last undomesticated landscapes in Britain and Ireland in a narration that blends history, memoir and meditation.... His striking prose not only evokes each locale's physicality in sensuous, deliberate detail, it glows with a reverence for nature in general and takes the reader on both a geographical and a philosophical journey, as mind-expanding as any of his wild places.” – Publishers Weekly

“[Macfarlane is] a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence — poetry, really — with the breathless ease of a master angler, a writer whose ideas and reach far transcend the physical region he explores.... The natural world swells with meaning through Macfarlane’s devoted observations, which can be both minutely detailed and vast in scope.” – The New York Times

Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit ($14.95, Vintage, 2004). A New York Times Notable Book for 2003. The author, a fellow of Emmanuel, is featured in CAM magazine, No. 39, Page 9.

"Wonderfully illuminating.... An exhilarating blend of scholarship and adventure, displaying dazzling erudition, acute powers of analysis, a finely honed sense of cultural history and a passionate sense of the author's engagement with his subject." —Los Angeles Times

“Fascinating stuff...a clever premise.... Goes back three centuries, showing how a few brainy opinion makers created the outdoor image.” —The New York Times Book Review

"A convincing book of historical evidence alongside his own oxygen-deprived experiences in an attempt to answer the age old question, 'Why climb the mountain?' " —San Francisco Chronicle

BEN MACINTYRE
(St. John's)

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory ($25.99, Harmony Books, May 2010). A New York Times Notable Book of 2010.

“Mr. Macintyre writes about spies so craftily, and so ebulliently, that you half suspect him of being some kind of spook himself.... Utterly thrilling.... What makes Operation Mincemeat so winning, in addition to Mr. Macintyre’s meticulous research and the layers of his historical understanding, is his elegant, jaunty, and very British high style.” – The New York Times

"[An] edge-of-your-seat history...unveiling previously classified files and even unearthing living witnesses to the grand conspiracy."—Kirkus Reviews

Click here to view Ben Macintyre discuss Operation Mincemeat on YouTube.

The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan ($25, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

The London Times columnist tells the story of adventurer Josiah Harlan, in a "riveting, scrupulously researched book [which] should place this remarkable man where he rightfully belongs: in the pantheon of 19th-century American folk heroes." - New York Times Book Review

“While Macintyre is satisfyingly thorough in his attempt to solve this long-buried mystery, he is even better at recreating the texture of day-to-day life in rural, occupied France.” – Publishers Weekly

“The book has some surprising twists that include such pure examples of love, betrayal, honor, and sacrifice that it is easy to forget that the story is absolutely true.” – Library Journal

DAVID J.C. MACKAY
(Physics - Cavendish Laboratory)

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air ($49.95, UIT Cambridge Ltd., February 2009)  Prof. MacKay takes a refreshing, unconventional, rational look at what can be done to promote sustainable energy, at personal, national, and global levels. 

"A tour de force...As a work of popular science it is exemplary...For anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the real problems involved [it] is the place to start."  —Economist.com

A Financial Times “Book of the Year” for 2009

BRENDA MADDOX

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA ($15.99, Harper Perennial, 2003).  A biography of the enigmatic, controversial scientist (Newnham 1938).

“Rosalind Franklin never received due credit for the crucial role these played in the discovery of DNA's structure. In this sympathetic biography, Maddox argues that sexism, egotism and anti-Semitism conspired to marginalize a brilliant and uncompromising young scientist who, though disliked by some colleagues, was a warm and admired friend to many.... Drawing on interviews, published records, and a trove of personal letters to and from Rosalind, Maddox takes pains to illuminate her subject as a gifted scientist and a complex woman....”—Publishers Weekly

“[Maddox] shows a woman of fiery intellect and fierce independence whom some saw as haughty, though to family and close friends she was warm and devoted. Maddox displays a unique voice in recounting Franklin's story, using letters written to family and friends for much of the text. Her voice subtly draws us in while holding us at arm's length, much like Franklin herself. – Library Journal

Click here to view video of Brenda Maddox on the C-Span Video Library.

JOAO MAGUEIJO
(St. John's & Trinity)

Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Story of a Scientific Speculation ($26, Perseus)

"Welcome to the world of career science, disclosed here in all its flawed brilliance.... This book shows how science is done-and so easily can be undone." - Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Joao Magueijo on the C-Span Video Library.

MICHAEL E. N. MAJERUS
(Genetics, Clare)

Sex Wars: Genes, Bacteria, and Biased Sex Ratios ($66, Princeton University Press, 2003) 

The author, who was Professor of Genetics at Cambridge and Fellow of Clare College, was awarded a Pilkington Prize for Teaching Quality in 2009, posthumously.

"An excellent introduction to a rapidly developing discipline"— New Scientist

G.M. MALLIET
(St. Edmund's)

Death at the Alma Mater: a St. Just Mystery  ($14.95, Midnight Ink, January 2010)

“This third in the series is every bit as good as its predecessors. Longtime cozy fans will be reminded of Golden Age classics starring Dorothy Sayers' Harriet Vane and Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen.”—Booklist

Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery ($13.50, Midnight Ink). Murder mystery, set in a snowbound Cambridgeshire manor house, by a journalist/copywriter who earned a Cambridge M.Phil. in 1987. 

“Fans of stylish English detective work will welcome Malliet’s droll debut.” – Publishers Weekly

“Malliet's debut combines devices from Christie and ‘Clue’ to keep you guessing until the dramatic denouement.” – Kirkus Reviews

[new!] The Unfinished Global Revolution: The Pursuit of a New International Politics ($27.95, Penguin Press, February 2011). The author has served in top posts at the World Bank, the United Nations, and the UK government.

“Malloch-Brown has seen global institutions struggle with terrorism, poverty, financial crises, and environmental threats. Part autobiography and part political treatise, his book journeys through the recent past, relating the highs and lows of global governance….Malloch-Brown argues that as global challenges mount, states will find it harder to deliver security and welfare for their citizens and so the demand for international cooperation will grow.” – Foreign Affairs. 

THOMAS MALLON
(St. Edmund's 1982)

Yours Ever: People and Their Letters ($26.95, Pantheon, November 2009).  Thomas Mallon was a visiting scholar at St. Edmund's College in 1982.

"...surveys several epistolary subgenres, including friendship, advice, complaint, love, confession, war-zone dispatch and pleas from prison.... This smart, witty and lively account with excerpts of a not-yet-extinct literary genre will whet our appetites for published collections of letters-a selected bibliography is included-while motivating us to put pen to paper to rediscover a satisfying means of communication.' - Publishers Weekly "It looks beautiful, it's meant to be read in eight-minute increments, it's as full of learning as a candy bar chock-full of nuts...." - Washington Post

Click here to view video of Thomas Mallon on the C-Span Video Library.

Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy ($13, paperback, Harvest/Harcourt)

A nonfiction account which gives the events of November 22, 1963 "an unexpected freshness." - The New York Times Book Review

[new!] The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era ($23.95, Public Affairs, August 2010)

"Mandelbaum is a lucid thinker and a clear writer...delivers a healthy dose of expert analysis with a minimum of frills." - Newsweek

"Provocative." - Foreign Affairs

"The message of this cool and concise book is: irrespective of whether you approve of US foreign policy, what matters is her shrinking financial ability to carry it out." - The Guardian (UK)

A Financial Times “non-fiction favourite of 2010.” 

Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government ($15.95, PublicAffairs, August 2008). Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and chair of the Department of American Foreign Policy.

“In this engaging treatise, Mandelbaum explains how the modern democratic fusion of popular sovereignty—i.e., majority rule—with individual liberty came to dominate the world's polities...a lucid, accessible blend of history, political science and sociology, with a wealth of fresh insights into the making of the contemporary world.” – Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Michael Mandelbaum on the C-Span Video Library.

The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History ($16.95, Da Capo Press, February 2010)

“Marozzi notes that Herodotus was the first historian, travel writer, anthropologist, political theorist, foreign correspondent, and prose stylist…. an imposing and remarkable travel history.” – Booklist

“[Marozzi is] excellent at evoking character and scene…His descriptions sparkle…His assessments of current political and religious battles read as spontaneous but well-informed. Marozzi seems worthy of his illustrious model, as he travels with the ghost of the father of history.”—Washington Post

CHRISTOPHER MASON
(Girton 1980)

Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction-House Scandal ($26.95, Putnam Penguin).  Mason writes for the New York Times and other publications.

"[A] lively, anecdote-packed saga...a chronicle of greed in the name of culture." - Publishers Weekly

ALEXANDER MASTERS
(St. Edmund's)

Stuart: A Life Backwards ($20, Delacorte). A moving biography of a street-person met by the author during his time at Cambridge. 

“Achieves a perfect balance of empathy and comedy.” – The New Yorker

“Raw, disturbing, and unsettling but also revelatory and life-affirming.... A must-read book that is warmly funny, deeply moving, and utterly extraordinary.” – Booklist

Visit the NPR website to listen to a radio interview with author Alexander Masters (eight minutes) by clicking here.

Click here to view video of Alexander Masters on the C-Span Video Library.

The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It ($25.95, Collins, November 2008). The author is assistant professor of English at Colby College.

"An intoxicating business biography.... [T]he story of the woman who transformed a struggling family business into one of the great champagne houses of France. Told in a light and graceful style that is just right for its subject, The Widow Clicquot takes us on a journey from a well-stocked wine shop in the American Midwest to the dusty Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin company archives in Reims. It's a fascinating trip, made even more so by Ms. Mazzeo's charming cameo appearances as a kind of a tour guide." - The Wall Street Journal  

MEHER McARTHUR
(Emmanuel)

ROBERT McCRUM
(Corpus Christi)

Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language ($26.95, W.W. Norton, May 2010)

"Distinguished by its historical focus and accessibility to a general audience, this book successfully appeals to language lovers and history buffs alike." - Library Journal

"[G]ripping and profoundly informative." - Kirkus Reviews

"The history of English is inherently fascinating, and McCrum tells the story well." - Washington Post

Click here to view video of Robert McCrum on the C-Span Video Library.

PHILIP MCFARLAND
(St. Catharine’s)

Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe ($17, Grove Press, November 2008)

“[Stowe] was a member of a clan that produced other prominent and historically significant figures. McFarland offers interesting profiles of family members that reveal much about them as well as providing a useful snapshot of antebellum northern society….Harriet's public career is well known, but McFarland paints a touching portrait of her personal life, particularly regarding her 50-year marriage to Calvin Stowe.” – Booklist

CAPT. ALFRED S. MCLAREN
(Peterhouse)

Unknown Waters: A First-Hand Account of the Historic Under-Ice Survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf by USS Queenfish (SSN-651) (Univ. of Alabama Press, $29.95). The true-life tale of a Cold War spy mission under the North Pole in 1970. After retiring from the U.S. Navy, submarine skipper McLaren earned an MPhil in Polar Studies at Cambridge in 1982.

“[A] splendid adventure. Captain McLaren's spellbinding account of his unparalleled voyage into the unknown beneath the ice off Siberia constitutes a treasure house of knowledge never before conceived of a dark and forbidding part of the globe. Audacious as well as entertaining!” – Clive Cussler

JOHN MCPHEE
(Magdalene 1953)

Silk Parachute ($25, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, March 2010).  Latest collection of non-fiction pieces - on lacrosse, grandchildren, golf, and more - by the longtime New Yorker contributor.

"In the age of blogging and tweeting, of writers' near-constant self-promotion, McPhee is an impressive counterweight, a paragon of both sense and civility." - Sunday New York Times Book Review  

Click here to view video of John McPhee on the C-Span Video Library.

Uncommon Carriers ($24, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux).  This is McPhee's 28th book, this time telling about encounters with various modes of transportation: 18-wheel trucks, coal trains, river barges, canoes, air-cargo planes, and the fascinating people who navigate them.  A New York Times Notable Book, 2006.

“McPhee imparts a sense of the special sociology within each transportation mode, drawing from readers both enlightenment and respect.” – Booklist

“McPhee reaffirms his stature as a bold American original. His prose is rugged, straightforward and unassuming, and can be just as witty. This book sings like anglers' lines cast on the water.” - Publishers Weekly

“McPhee is in great form here, as informative as always but also funny, unusually self-revealing, and quite passionate in his discussions of the dire effects dams have had on shad and rivers alike....” – Booklist

CLAIRE MESSUD
(Jesus)

The Emperor's Children (Knopf, $25)

A New York Times Notable Book, 2006.

“A formally nimble novel of formidable scale…a masterly comedy of manners – an astute and poignant evocation of hobnobbing literati in the months before and immediately following September 11.” – The Sunday New York Times Book Review

"Tangy dialogue, provocative asides, glittering imagery, and nimble postulations build toward an electrifying and edifying conclusion." - Booklist

SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER
(Peterhouse)

DC Confidential: The Controversial Memoirs of Britain’s Ambassador at the Time of 9/11 and the Iraq War ($29.95, Orion).  Recollections of the career diplomat who was UK ambassador in Washington from 1997 to 2003. 

“He tells a juicy tale.” – The Sunday Times (London)

"An important book about what it was like to be Britain's most senior and lustrous ambassador at a time when the Prime Minister enjoyed a direct line to the White House." - The Guardian (UK)

Click here to view video of Sir Christopher Meyer on the C-Span Video Library.

VICTORIA MEYERS
(Fitzwilliam)

Designing With Light ($45, Abbeville Press, April 2006).  The author is a founding partner of the New York City architecture practice hanrahanMeyers.

"Offers not only a philosophy of lighting but plenty of practical design advice, pointedly illustrated with excellent photography." -- Metropolitan Home.

”This beautifully photographed book…reveals how the careful treatment of light can produce truly spectacular spaces…a breathtaking journey.”-- California Homes Magazine

DIANE MIDDLEBROOK

Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, A Marriage ($25.95, Viking Press). New perspectives on poets Ted Hughes (Pembroke) and Sylvia Plath (Newnham).

"Astutely reasoned, fluidly written and developed with psychological acuity…sure to be the gold standard." – Publishers Weekly

CHINA MIÉVILLE
(Clare)

[new!] Embassytown ($26, DelRey/Ballantine Books, May 2011).

“The fashioning of intricately conceived parallel worlds plus the recombinant use of popular formulas equals a story-generating method that Miéville has employed to write eight novels….’Embassytown’ has the feel of a word-puzzle, and much of the pleasure of figuring out the logic of the world and the story comes from gradually catching the full resonance of its invented and imported words….a particularly deep-thinking entry in a tradition of using the speculative resources of science fiction to address how language shapes culture and society….with his usual confident ambition [the author] takes its monsters and spaceships deep into the zone of overlap between linguistics and politics…” – Sunday New York Times Book Review.

“British fantasist Miéville mashes up cop drama, cults, popular culture, magic, and gods in a Lovecraftian New Weird caper….[a] dizzying whirl of outrageous details and fantastic characters.” – Publishers Weekly.

“Miéville's fantasy is a rich literary work, full of wordplay and imagery that will appeal to literary-fiction fans as much as to fantasy readers.”—Booklist.

The City & The City ($26, Del Rey, May 2009)

“An excellent police procedural and a fascinating urban fantasy, this is essential reading for all mystery and fantasy fans.” – Booklist

“Miéville offers an outstanding take on police procedurals with this barely speculative novel. Through this exaggerated metaphor of segregation, Miéville skillfully examines the illusions people embrace to preserve their preferred social realities.” - Publishers Weekly

”Evoking such writers as Franz Kafka and Mikhail Bulgakov, Mr. Miéville asks readers to make conceptual leaps and not to simply take flights of fancy.” – The Wall Street Journal 

DAMIAN MILLER
(Trinity)

SIMON MITTON
(St. Edmund's, Treasurer and Fellow; Churchill)

Conflict in the Cosmos: Fred Hoyle's Life in Science ($27.95, Joseph Henry Press). Biography of Sir Fred Hoyle (1915-2001; Emmanuel, St. John's; Plumian Professor of Astronomy), one of the towering figures in 20th-century cosmology.

“[T]he author's lively writing and extensive research bring to life this important figure in the development of modern astronomy." - Publishers Weekly

WENDY MOFFATT

A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster ($32.50, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 2010)

Forster (1879-1970) was an alumnus (1897) and honorary Fellow of King’s, living in College for the last 25 years of his life.

“....[A]n impressive first-time biographer...a vigorous storyteller.... [O]ffers an insightful, revelatory portrait.”—The New York Times
 

ROBERT A. G. MONKS
(Trinity 1954)

Reel and Rout ($23.95, Brook Street Press). A novel about corporate greed and intrigue, by one of the world's leading shareholder activists.

"A tale well told." - The Economist

BENJAMIN MORRIS
(Clare Hall)

[new!]  The Bella ($4.95, Kindle edition, Amazon Digital Services, 2011).

Novel set at the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen.  The author, who earned his PhD in archaeology at Cambridge, lives in New Orleans.

BENNY MORRIS
(Trinity)

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War ($32.50, Yale Univ. Press). The author, an Israeli historian, earned his PhD at Cambridge.

“The history of the 1948 war desperately needs to be told, since it's so barely understood or remembered and since so many of the issues that plague us today had their roots in that struggle.... No one is better suited to the task than Benny Morris.... Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and somberly, evenhandedly and exhaustively.” – The New York Times Sunday Book Review

Click here to view video of Benny Morris on the C-Span Video Library.

[new!] Bandwidth ($14.95, Dog Ear Publishing, October 2010)

The novel’s author is a financial journalist (Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune) and former U.S State Department advisor and speechwriter for the Secretary of State and IBM executives.

ARUN MOTIANEY
(King's)

SuperCycles: The New Economic Force Transforming Global Markets and Investment Strategy ($27.95, McGraw Hill, January 2010)

MARK MOYAR
(St. John's)

A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq ($30, Yale Univ. Press, October 2009). A wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency, from the Civil War and Reconstruction to Afghanistan and Iraq, that draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans, including top leaders in today’s armed forces.

“A Question of Command stands out because it reaches back quite far, and to unexpected destinations.” - Wilson Quarterly

Click here to view video of Mark Moyar on the C-Span Video Library.

Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 ($32, Cambridge University Press). A Cambridge PhD’s revisionist history of America’s intervention in Vietnam.

“Thoroughly researched and richly informative…a valuable appraisal.” – Booklist

“An important book, a history that serves as a mirror to the present.”—The Wall Street Journal

THANT MYINT-U
(Trinity)

[new!] Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia ($27, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, September 2011). The author, who earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1996, is the grandson of U.N. Secretary General U Thant.

“In 2007 [the author] published the best general introduction to contemporary Myanmar, ‘The River of Lost Footsteps,’ and his latest book adopts the same blend of personal reminiscence, history – enlivened with an eye for the telling anecdote – travelogue and polemic.”  -- The Economist.

The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma ($25, Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The author, who earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge in 1996, is the grandson of U.N. Secretary General U Thant.

“Part history, part memoir, part polemic, with a little travelogue thrown in...eloquently and mournfully recites the dismal history of the last half century and, in analyzing the country’s nascent democracy movement, holds out only the slimmest of hopes for a better future.” – The New York Times

SYLVIA NASAR

[new!] Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius ($35, Simon & Schuster, September 2011). The course of modern economic thought and debate over the past two hundred years, with many Cambridge protagonists, from Henry Fawcett and Alfred Marshall to Maynard Keynes and Amartya Sen.

“[T]he story of the evolution of a radical, planet-reshaping idea…The canvas is epic…The details are fresh, at times startling…At the same time, gnarly but critical concepts shine through in all their richness and complexity. If only Econ 101 had been this interesting!” – Fortune 

IRENE NEMIROVSKY (Translated by SANDRA SMITH)
(Robinson)

Suite Française ($25, Knopf). Smith teaches French at Robinson. The author, a Russian-Jewish émigré, completed the two novellas which comprise this book about the 1940 Occupation of France before she died at Auschwitz in 1942; the manuscripts came to light only in the late 1990s. A New York Times Notable Book, 2006.

“An incomparable book...startling, steely etched sketches of both collaboration and resistance among people motivated by personal loyalties and grievances that date from before the war.... It is hard to imagine a reader who will not be wholly engrossed and moved by this book.” – Washington Post Book World

ROBERT NEWMAN
(Selwyn 1983)

The Fountain at the Center of the World ($14.95, Soft Skull Press)

"A sublimely frisky first novel [that] elegantly and angrily scorches a lot of earth." - The New York Times

MARK NICHOLLS (St. John's) and S PENRY WILLIAMS

[new!] Sir Walter Raleigh in Life and Legend ($34.95, Continuum, March 2011).  Historian Mark Nicholls, President and Librarian of St. John’s College, Cambridge, co-authors a new biography that offers fresh insights about Raleigh – soldier, voyager, courtier, colonizer, politician, poet, historian, possible traitor.

“With this landmark book, Mark Nicholls and Penry Williams debunk the legends, giving us instead a story that is all the more engrossing for its sophistication.” – Sunday Times (London)

ADAM NICOLSON
(Magdalene)

Sissinghurst, An Unfinished History: The Quest to Restore a Working Farm at Vita Sackville-West's Legendary Garden ($27.95, Viking, May 2010)

The author, grandson of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, grew up at Sissinghurst and now lives there.

“Nicolson's love of language is equal to his love of the land, and his poetic prose evokes the richness of the landscape he strives to save.” – Publishers Weekly

"A wonderful book." -Financial Times
 

God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible ($13.95, Harper Perennial)

“Nicolson tells the KJB's story so well that his book may prove to be the KJB's indispensable companion for years to come.” – Booklist

Click here to view video of Adam Nicolson on the C-Span Video Library.

Seize the Fire : Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar ($26.95, HarperCollins)

"Nicolson's exploration of Trafalgar embraces the psychology and values of the British naval officers and the corresponding mindsets of the French and Spanish officers....  Enlisting a creative range of sources including Romantic poets, Nicolson seeks out the sensibility that lies behind Nelson, finding in him and others an emotional authenticity that was both ambitious and socially anxious about status--which could be secured but by brutal victory. An incisively original analysis." - Booklist 

Seamanship: A Voyage along the Wild Coasts of the British Isles ($13.95, Harper Perennial). A stirring account of an often dangerous six-month sailing trip the author and a friend took through the treacherous waters off western Ireland and Scotland and to the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Faeroes.

DOUGLAS NORTHROP
(Emmanuel 1989)

Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia ($25.95, paperback, Cornell University Press). The author is Associate Professor of History and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan.

"Few doubt that Central Asia labors under a Soviet legacy, but precisely what that legacy is remains elusive. Northrop goes a long way toward reconstructing a key piece of it: the history of the Bolsheviks' effort to uproot the old and impose the new on the Muslim population of Uzbekistan between 1917 and 1941." - Foreign Affairs

MICHAEL O'BRIEN
(Faculty of History; Fellow of Jesus; Trinity Hall 1966)

Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860: An Abridged Edition of Conjectures of Order  ($39.95, Univ. of North Carolina Press, April 2010).

One-volume abridgement of the author’s Conjectures of Order, which won a Bancroft Prize in 2005. 

Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon ($27, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, March 2010). In the winter of 1815 Louisa Catherine Adams made a forty-day journey by carriage from St. Petersburg to Paris to reunite with her diplomat husband John Quincy Adams. Cambridge historian Michael O’Brien, winner of a Bancroft Prize in American History, reconstructs this dramatic tale, and explores Mrs. Adams’s life and place in the world.

“Innovatively and creatively told...bristles with insight into the era. Witty, informed, sophisticated, and moving; essential reading.” – Library Journal

“A wide-sweeping historical survey and original intellectual journey.” – Kirkus Reviews

“This compelling combination of biography, travelogue, and adventure does an admirable job resurrecting one of the many forgotten females in the annals of American history.” – Booklist  

Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860 (2 volumes, $85, University of North Carolina Press). Winner of a Bancroft Prize, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. The lives, thoughts, and fortunes of antebellum Southern thinkers, placed in the larger tradition of American and European intellectual history.

"Breathtakingly grand...a work of lasting significance."- The Atlantic Monthly

MAGGIE O'FARRELL
(Murray Edwards/New Hall)

The Hand That First Held Mine ($25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 2010). Winner of Britain’s Costa Novel Award.

ROBERT OLBY

Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets ($45, Cold Spring Laboratory Press, September 2009). Nobel Laureate Crick (1916-2004) earned his PhD at Caius and was an Honorary Fellow at Churchill; he spent much of his career at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA. Biographer Robert Olby is a research professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.

JOSEPH O'NEILL
(Girton)

Netherland ($23.95, Pantheon). O’Neill was born in Ireland, raised mainly in Holland, educated in England; he read law at Cambridge, was a barrister in London, and has lived in New York since 1998. He has written previous novels and a family memoir, Blood-Dark Track (2001). A New York Times Sunday Book Review Notable Book for 2008. A Financial Times "Favourite Book" of 2008. Winner of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, awarded by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

“[T]he wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.... O’Neill seems incapable of composing a boring sentence or thinking an uninteresting thought..... Netherland has more life inside it than 10 very good novels.” – New York Times Sunday Book Review

“Joseph O’Neill’s stunning new novel, Netherland, provides a resonant meditation on the American Dream.... He captures [New York City]’s myriad moods, its anomalous neighborhoods jostling up against one another, its cacophony and stillness, its strivers, seekers, scam artists and scoundrels.” – Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times 

Blood-Dark Track: A Family History ($15.95, Vintage). A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

“[A] compelling family history interwoven with the politics of World War II.... This is a voyage of self-exploration, a grandson coming to terms with family history previously forbidden.... [T]he journey is worth the price. O'Neill's adventures in genealogy and the interviews he pursued keep the reader drawn close.” – Library Journal

“[B]oth of O'Neill's grandfathers were imprisoned during World War II on suspicion that they had aided the German war effort. What was the truth to these allegations that so disrupted these families, then and later? O'Neill visits the personal landscapes of the two men: one from Ireland and the other from Turkey.... [T]heir lives thereafter were shrouded in a secrecy that took a deep toll on the family and served as testament to living ‘in extraordinarily hateful and hazardous places and times,’ one that required an understanding and forgiveness that both spurred and is a result of this book. The pleasures here are in the slow accretion of detail and awareness that allows O'Neill to create an abiding image of a two places during a moment in history.” – Kirkus Reviews

ONORA O'NEILL
(Newnham)

A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002 ($15, Paperback, Cambridge University Press). The Principal of Newnham challenges current approaches to accountability, investigates sources of deception in our society, and re-examines questions of press freedom.

"Fascinating…both thoughtful and relevant." - The Telegraph

CLIVE OPPENHEIMER
(Geography; Sidney Sussex)

HELEN OYEYEMI
(Corpus Christi 2003)

[new!] Mr. Fox ($25.95, Riverhead Books, September 2011)

“Each of the nine stories that comprise Helen Oyeyemi’s latest novel, Mr. Fox, is a variation on a European fairy tale about a serial wife-killer who is eventually outwitted and exposed by his intended victim and bride-to-be….Oyeyemi elegantly reshapes each of the interwoven stories to blend this postmodern critique with age-old fears and anxieties about the potential for self-loss and self-destruction in our most intimate relationships….In this fourth novel, Helen Oyeyemi shows that she has hit her stride as a writer of remarkable empathy, intelligence, and wit.” – California Literary Review

“Oyeyemi exuberantly opens doors into other realms, minds and eras — and uncovers beautiful truths at every twisted turn.” – NPR

Click here to view a video of Helen Oyeyemi talking at CAm Day NY 2011.

White is for Witching: A Novel  ($25, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, June 2009)

‘[A] neo-gothic tale revolving around Miranda and Eliot Silver, fraternal twins of Haitian descent raised in a British house haunted by generations of afflicted, displaced family members, including their mother...passionate and unusual.... Unconventional, intoxicating and deeply disquieting.” – Publishers Weekly

“[A] challenging read laced with thought-provoking story lines that end, like Miranda’s fate, mysteriously.” – Booklist

“[A] delightfully unconventional coming-of-age story.... Oyeyemi clearly appreciates that some crimes...are so heinous that the conventions of realist fiction seem woefully inadequate to describe them. She makes us glad to suspend disbelief.” – New York Times Sunday Book Review  

The Opposite House (Nan A. Talese, $23.95). Second novel from this recent Cambridge graduate.

“The novel’s lyrical and stylistic experimentation speaks to Oyeyemi’s depth of talent.” – Publishers Weekly

“Displays the young writer's amazing sure-handedness that is far beyond her years.” – Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The Icarus Girl ($23.95, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). The first novel by a Nigerian-born Cambridge student.

"A sensitive and precocious debut." – Booklist

"Her debut novel provides evidence of a vivid imagination capable of moving freely between cultures and continents...a haunting and suspense-filled story." - Washington Post Book World

The University of Cambridge: An 800th Anniversary Portrait  ($95, Third Millennium International). 

Official commemorative book published for the University’s 800th anniversary in 2009. Includes contributions from eminent Cambridge figures in a variety of fields and generations, offering thoughts and impressions on experiences at Cambridge from a wide range of former students.

ALISON PARGETER
(Centre of International Studies; Pembroke), editor

[new!] The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition ($29.95, Saqi Books, December 2010)

"She has a sure grasp of the political dynamics of the Middle East, the soil from which the Brotherhood sprang. As her subtitle suggests, she regards it as an essentially reactionary movement unable to break with its past.... The portrait of the Brotherhood that emerges from her book is scarcely attractive.... The Islamists have become ‘part of the furniture', as Ms. Pargeter puts it; besides, there are few credible alternatives. It is better to talk to them, carefully and without illusions." - The Economist

Guernica and Total War ($22.95, Harvard Univ. Press)

“[L]ooks at the history of and cultural response to the spread of airborne military assaults on civilians...a rich and engaging study...a slim book of considerable rewards.” – Bloomberg News

 [new!] Fame: What the Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity ($16, Picador, October 2010).

“Payne (former deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph) offers an erudite and vastly entertaining look at how the Western cultural obsession with and ‘shared human responses’ to celebrity haven't really changed in the last few millennia….A charming, contrarian, and very witty look at how our stargazing can be ‘something that bonds us, and which expresses something about how our civilization works.’ ”  -- Publishers Weekly.

On Royalty: A Very Polite Inquiry into Some Strangely Related Families (Public Affairs, $26.95). Host of the BBC-TV’s “Newsnight” and “University Challenge.”

“Paxman proves a very knowledgeable and tartly entertaining guide to a magical realm that is stranger than fiction.” – Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating and amusing.”—The New York Times

ALLISON PEARSON
(Clare)

[new!] I Think I Love You ($24.95, Knopf, February 2011)

"Pearson's insights into friendship, celebrity worship from the inside out, and the knocks you take in life create a winning novel of hope, lost and found." - Publishers Weekly

"Pearson is at her best in capturing the way teenage girls use their romantic obsessions with celebrities to work out their fears about real relationships with the opposite sex." - Booklist 

“Ms. Pearson writes with such humor and affection for her characters that we’re perfectly happy to sit back and see how she steers her people toward that happy ending.” – Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times

JULIE PERIGO
(New Hall)

Winners in the Second Half: A Guide for Executives at the Top of their Game ($39.95, Jossey-Bass/Wiley, September 2008). Career guidance for executives over fifty, from an international executive-recruiting consultant.

“The book gains depth with chapters on government and society, organisations and individuals...finishing on a note of ‘Remaining a winner throughout’.... Perigo has filled a niche which is only going to become bigger.” – City A.M. (London)

Gods Behaving Badly: A Novel (Little, Brown, $23.99). The author of this first novel, about ancient Greek gods and goddesses surviving in modern-day London, read Archeology and Anthropology at Cambridge.

“A delightful debut.... Fanciful, humorous and charming, this satire is as sweet as nectar.” – Publishers Weekly

“Phillips has an Olympian sense of absurdity, and there's enough ambrosial wit here to seduce most mortals for an afternoon or two on the divan.” – Washington Post Book World

NICHOLAS PHILLIPSON
(St. Catharine's)

[new!] Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life ($32.50, Yale Univ. Press, October 2010). A Financial Times "non-fiction favourite of 2010." The author, who teaches at Edinburgh, earned a BA and PhD at Cambridge.

"A fascinating book.... Adam Smith finally has the biography that he deserves, and it could not be more timely." - The Wall Street Journal

"Lively...well-observed.... It would take a ‘skillful pencil' to bring Smith to life, warned one of his friends. In bringing Smith's ideas to life, Phillipson shows that his pencilwork is skillful indeed. " - The Economist 

Click here to view video of Nicholas Phillipson on the C-Span Video Library.

SAM PICKERING
(St. Catharine's)

Indian Summer: Musings on the Gift of Life ($19.95, University of Missouri Press). Sam Pickering is best known as the inspiration for the teacher in the film Dead Poets Society.  He teaches English at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

"Funny, painful, insightful, and sometimes surprising conclusions of a man who actually knows how to think – and who entices readers to join him." – Bill Tammeus, Kansas City Star

Click here to view video of Sam Pickering on the C-Span Video Library.

"Pedagogical advice couched in folksy language and peppered with personal anecdotes, tall tales and family stories." – Publishers Weekly

JOANNA PITMANN
(St. John's 1983)

On Blondes ($24.95, Bloomsbury USA)

This "history of blondes, from Greek times through the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, the Victorian era and into the 20th century...proves once and for all: there is definitely more to blondes than meets the eye." - The New York Times

GEORGE PLIMPTON
(King's)

The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, and Other Excursions and Observations, edited by Sarah Dudley Plimpton ($24.95, Random House). Essays and reportage from the founder of the Paris Review.

"A cocktail party of a book." – The New York Times

Click here to view video of George Plimpton on the C-Span Video Library.

World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism ( $24.95, Doubleday, September 2007)

“An impassioned defense of President Bush’s foreign policy.... Podhoretz’s take-no-prisoners writing style will delight his partisans while infuriating his ideological opponents.”—Publishers Weekly

Click here to view video of Norman Podhoretz on the C-Span Video Library.

JOHN POLKINGHORNE
(Trinity, Queens')

Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion ($24, Yale University Press). Physicist and Anglican priest, Reverend Polkinghorne was President of Queens’ College from 1989 to 1996 and winner of the Templeton Prize in 2002.

“Balancing intellectual modesty with openness about his own Christian faith, Polkinghorne's reflections will engage both thoughtful believers and inquirers into issues of faith and reason.” - Publishers Weekly

JOHN POLLARD
(Trinity Hall)

Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: Financing the Vatican, 1850-1950 ($36.99, Cambridge University Press). Explores the transformation of the Vatican into a major financial power and the role money played in the development of the modern papacy. Dr. Pollard, a leading historian of the papacy, is College Archivist and Staff Fellow in History at Trinity Hall.

"This excellent book treats an important though neglected subject with care and sophistication. It deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history of the Papacy." - The Catholic Historical Review

"Pollard has carried out extensive research for this study and has mined accessible archives in England, Italy, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United States....On the basis of his thorough research, he is able to challenge a number of the interpretations of earlier writers on the subject. The book is well organized and well written and is enlivened by flashes of Pollard's droll sense of humor." -The International History Review

"Pollard has written an informed and thoughtful study that constitutes a significant advance over previous secondary scholarship." - Business History Review

RACHEL POLONSKY
(Slavonic Studies; Emmanuel)

[new!] Molotov’s Magic Lantern: Travels in Russian History  ($28, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, January 2011). The author teaches Russian at Cambridge.

“British writer Polonsky moved to Moscow and took up residence in a once-opulent old building that had been a favorite of the Soviet elite, including the monstrous Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s second in command. Invited into Molotov’s apartment, still owned by his granddaughter, Polonsky is morbidly fascinated by Molotov’s belongings, including a magic lantern and a stash of books from his formerly enormous library. And so begins Polonsky’s book-steered journey through modern Russian history.” – Booklist.

“Perceptive and erudite . . . the author has grit, charm and style—and a gift for traveller’s tales.” —The Economist

SOPHIE ANNA POWELL
(Trinity 1998)

The Mushroom Man ($23.95, Putnam Penguin)

"...the spirit of the book is infectious, and Powell has done a fine job of casting her spell." - New York Times Book Review

"A charming debut...a touching comedy that explores childhood fantasies as well as messy adult truths about family relationships." - Publishers Weekly

PETER RABY
(Homerton 1958)

Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life ($24.95, Princeton University Press). A biography of the Victorian naturalist, contemporary of Darwin.

"With this marvelously readable biography of Alfred Russel Wallace, Raby has rescued that forgotten pioneer from oblivion.... In capturing the cross-grained complexities of this exceptional collector of beetles and birds, Raby gives readers a fascinating specimen of the most mysterious and unpredictable species of all." - Booklist

"Even by Victorian standards, Wallace was a titan of self-effacement.... If this well-researched and graceful biography doesn't solve the riddle of Wallace, it nicely conveys the riddle's many dimensions.... [Wallace was] a man, in short, who occasionally struck colleagues as a crackpot; and yet, in the end, a man who was in some ways more admirable than the much-admired Darwin."  - New York Times Book Review

DHOOLEKA S. RAJ
(Lucy Cavendish 1993)

Where Are You From? Middle-Class Migrants in the Modern World ($26.95, University of California Press). An examination of first- and second-generation middle-class South Asian families living in London. Raj is a Visiting Scholar in Women's Studies at Harvard, and was Smuts-Hinduja Fellow at the Center for South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow-Commoner at Lucy Cavendish.

"An engagingly written, original, and wide-ranging approach to the study of an ethnic minority population." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

V.S. RAMACHANDRAN
(Trinity)

[new!]  The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human ($26.95, W.W. Norton, January 2011).  The author is director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and a professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his PhD at Cambridge (Trinity College) in 1978.

"Ramachandran, a neurologist and scientist, skillfully walks the line between intriguing storytelling and detailed science in these readable tales of unusual patients. How he and others make sense of what's going on in these people's brains is a starting point for understanding normal brain function and its evolution. To him, drama lurks in the anatomy of each part of the brain...." - ScienceNews

Click here to view video of V.S. Ramachandran in the C-Span Video Library.

AHMED RASHID
(Fitzwilliam)

Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia ($27.95, Viking Penguin, May 2008). A Financial Times "Favourite Book" of 2008.