Foreword
Miss Dani Kirby, Murray Centre and Library Manager
In this Reading List, you’ll find a curated selection of both Fiction and Non-Fiction texts chosen to challenge your thinking, deepen your understanding, and enhance your enjoyment of a particular subject. Each academic department has carefully recommended titles that will offer valuable insights and expand your knowledge, while the library team has selected a range of fiction books, grouped by genre, to inspire your imagination and love of storytelling.
We strongly encourage you to explore these books, as additional reading can significantly deepen your understanding and may even spark a genuine passion for a particular subject. Demonstrating wider reading is also a valuable asset in university interviews
At Downe House, we place great emphasis on Reading for Pleasure. In today’s fast-paced, screenheavy world, setting aside time has never been more important, to enjoy a good book. Reading offers the chance to escape, to reflect, and to recharge, helping you to develop empathy, creativity, mental wellbeing and strong language skills along the way.
We’d love to welcome you to visit the library, located above the Murray Centre, at any time during your day. Whether you'd like to recommend a favourite book, share your thoughts on something you’ve read, or simply get inspiration for what to try next, we’re here to help. There’s something for everyone to read on these shelves!
Take on the challenge: choose a few titles from this list (all available to borrow from the library unless otherwise specified) and read them throughout the year. Whether a book stays with you or doesn’t quite click, each one brings a fresh perspective. We’d love to hear what you think, so do drop by the library and share your thoughts with us!
A special thank you to our Graduate Library Assistant, Miss Vandenham, for putting this wonderful list together.
Happy reading!
SIXTH FORM
LVI and UVI - These books are recommended for ages 16+
Key
Advisory note: this book contains more challenging themes that some readers may find upsetting. If you are unsure, please seek advice from a member of staff.
EDI This book is part of our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion suggested Reading list.
Table of Contents
Fiction pg 4-10
Non-Fiction
Recommendations from the Art History Department pg. 11
Recommendations from the Business Department pg. 11-12
Recommendations from the Classics Department pg 12-13
Recommendations from the Economics Department pg. 13-14
Recommendations from the English Department pg. 14-15
Recommendations from the Geography Department pg. 16
Recommendations from the History Department pg. 17-18
Recommendations from the Modern Languages Department pg. 19
Recommendations from the Music Department pg 20
Recommendations from the PE Department pg. 20-21
Recommendations from the Performing Arts Department pg. 21-22
Recommendations from the Politics Department pg. 23
Recommendations from the Religious Studies Department pg. 23-24
Recommendations from the S.T.E.M. Departments pg. 24-29
FICTION
CONTEMPORARY
Chimamanda Ngozi Americanah – Fearless, gripping, spanning three continents and numerous Adichie lives, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Americanah is a richly told story of love and expectation set in today’s globalized world. EDI
Purple Hibiscus – Adichie’s first book, set in Nigeria, follows the fortunes of Kambili and Jaja in their privileged but suffocating world. As the country falls apart under a military coup, they move to their aunt’s house outside the city and discover a different world. A brilliant story about the emotional turmoil of adolescence and the powerful bonds of family. EDI
Naomi Alderman The Power – In this gender-twisting dystopian novel, all over the world, women are discovering they have the power to inflict pain and even death with a flick of their fingers. Suddenly, men find that they are losing control – but where will it end? This novel explores the true nature of power and if the inequality between sexes is based on fundamental differences or historic social conventions.
The Future The Future is a handful of friends- the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO, and an internet-famous survivalisthatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization.
Elspeth Barker O Caledonia - Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, oddly attired in her mother's black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw.
David Boling Guernica – An epic tale of love, family and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War. It creates an imaginary context for the famous painting of the devastation by Picasso.
Vera Brittain Testament of Youth –The passionate tale of a lost generation, this is one of the most famous autobiographies of the First World War. Very readable.
Anita Diamant
The Red Tent – A fascinating book giving an insight into women’s lives in biblical times. The story of Dinah and her mothers, the four wives of Jacob
Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Science Fiction, turned into the cult classic film Blade Runner
Bernadine Evaristo Girl, Woman, Other – (Booker Prize Winner 2019) – Tracks the lives of twelve very different characters. Mostly women, black and British, they tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers. ‘Masterful…a choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain.’ Elle EDI
Sebastian Faulks Birdsong – A moving story of love, war and survival follows young Englishman Stephen Wraysford as he arrives in France in 1910, falls in love with Isabelle then goes to fight on the Western Front. Life can never be the same again.
Bonnie Garmus Lessons in Chemistry – A wonderful debut novel set in 1960s America. Chemist, Elizabeth Zott, is no ordinary woman. As a scientist in an all-male research institute, an unmarried mother and ultimately a TV star, she fights sexism and misogyny at every turn. But Elizabeth Zott won’t lie down and take it. Funny, inspiring and powerful – a must-read!
Kristin Hannah The Women - At once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.
Jacqueline Harpman I Who Have Never Known Men - Deep underground, thirty-nine women are kept in isolation in a cage. Above ground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus?
Gill Hornby Miss Austen - Based on a literary mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics, Miss Austen is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the loves and lives of Cassandra and Jane Austen.
Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns – Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. EDI
Kazuo Ishiguro Never Let Me Go – Three friends spend their childhood at Hailsham a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. When they leave school, they are told their terrible fate.
Han Kang The Vegetarian - Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, 'The Vegetarian' is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire, and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
R.F. Kuang Yellowface
happens
Cesca Major The Silent Hours – Based on a true event, this historical novel, written by a DH alumna, moves between a French village during WW2 and 1952 as we learn the horrific story of what happened to make a woman being nursed at the Saint Cecilia Nunnery a mute. Haunting.
Imbolo Mbue
Maggie O’Farrell
How Beautiful We Were - A sweeping, wrenching story about the collision of a small African village and an America oil company. EDI
Hamnet – A wonderful novel that breathes life into the littleknown story behind Shakespeare’s most enigmatic play. Hamnet is the eleven-year-old son of a husband and wife in Stratford. The son dies from the plague in 1596 and four years later the husband writes a play called Hamlet. A beautifully written story of love and grief that shines a spotlight on the private life of our most famous playwright.
The Marriage Portrait – O’Farrell paints just as evocative a picture of Renaissance Italy as she did of Shakespearean England, as Cosimo de’ Medici’s third daughter learns to navigate an opaque Florentine court and an enigmatic new husband. Her proximity to power places her in mortal danger.
Delia Owens Where the Crawdads Sing – Who is the marsh girl? Why does she haunt the beautiful backwaters of the North Carolina Coast? What does she know about the suspected murder of a young man found dead under a deserted watchtower? Delia Owens’s debut novel will have you reading until dawn. EDI
Laline Paull The Bees – A mix of The Handmaid’s Tale and the Hunger Games, this is the story of feisty bee, Flora 717. It plunges you into a world controlled by the mantra ‘accept, obey serve’. A great summer read which will alter your perception of bees.
Sally Rooney Normal People – (Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2018) Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. Connell is popular and well-liked; Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation, something life-changing begins.
Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children – Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India’s independence in 1947, Saleem is a special child with telepathic powers that link him to other ‘midnight’s children’. Saleem’s story is whirlwind of disasters and triumphs, mirroring the course of modern India’s history.
Lisa See The Island of Sea Women – Set on the Korean island of Jeju, we follow the lives of two women who join their village’s diving collective, from the 1930s through to modern day. This is a beautiful novel that illuminates a unique culture where women undertake the dangerous physical work to earn a living and the men stay at home to look after the children.
Zadie Smith White Teeth – Set amidst the racial and cultural tapestry of London, the story centres on two unlikely friends, veterans of WWII, and their families. Funny, generous and big-hearted, this became one of the most talked about debut novels of all time. EDI
Tara M. Stringfellow Memphis - Spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy. EDI
Olga Tokarczuk
Shelby Van Pelt
Drive your Plow over the bone of the dead - This novel takes place in a remote village in south-west Poland where Janina, an eccentric woman in her 60s, describes the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. When members of a local hunting club are subsequently found murdered, she becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this novel offers some thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, social injustice against people who are marginalised, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, and belief in predestination.
Remarkably Bright Creatures - An exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
Sarah Winman Still Life – As bombs fall in Italy in 1944, Ulysses Temper, a young British soldier and Evelyn Skinner, a 64-year-old art historian share an extraordinary evening in a Tuscan wine cellar. Their chance encounter will transform Ulysses’ life and all those who love him back in London. A glorious book full of unforgettable characters.
Asako Yuzuki Butter - Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, 'The Konkatsu Killer', Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, gripping exploration of misogyny, obsession and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
Gabrielle Zevin
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - In this exhilarating novel, two friends often in love, but never lovers come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame
CLASSICS
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice –This timeless romance novel explores the social constraints and prejudices of 19th Century England, focusing on the tumultuous relationship between the spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the haughty Mr Darcy.
Emma / Persuasion – More novels from Jane Austen that draw the reader into the Regency world of manners, marriages and women’s identity in society.
J.G.Ballard Empire of the Sun – An extraordinary account of a British boy’s life in a Japanese-occupied Shanghai during WWII.
John Barth Lost in the Funhouse – John Barth’s collection of short stories, Lost in the Funhouse, represents the height of postmodernism. It is playful, highly selfreferential and probably unlike anything that you have read before. The narrator, for example, frequently refers to the act of writing itself. As such, the author will use a certain metaphor and then the narrator will explain the reason behind using it. The narrator will also frequently break the fourth wall and address the reader and comment on the characters as narrative constructs. Whilst it is not for everyone, Barth’s ultimate aim in writing the stories in this manner is to question the very notion of reality and objective truth.
Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 – Seventy years after its original publication, this classic of world literature still resonates today. Set in a bleak, dystopian future where books have been outlawed, it tells the story of Guy Montag, a fireman tasked with setting fire to illegal books, whose life changes when he meets the gentle Clarisse.
Wilkie Collins
Charles Dickens
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Woman in White – An intricately constructed suspense filled tale of deceit and trickery set against a background of Victorian madness and melodrama
Bleak House – The obscure legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is at the centre of what some regard as the best of Dickens’s novels.
Great Expectations – A profound coming-of-age tale that follows the life of orphan Pip who rises from unfortunate circumstances through an anonymous benefactor, confronting themes of wealth, class, love and betrayal.
Our Mutual Friend – A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, this is Dickens’s last complete book. The pretensions of the nouveaux riche, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt are its typically Dickensian themes.
The Old Curiosity Shop – A moving Victorian tale with heartfelt melodrama.
The Brothers Karamazov – Encased within this tomb, based on the lives of the Karamazov Brothers who are dealing with the murder of their father, are some of the greatest Philosophical and Theological thought experiments in the history of literature. The dialogues between Dmitri and Alyosha cast a piercing eye on the nature of human freedom and suffering and in turn plunge a spear into the heart of mankind’s relationship with God.
Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sherlock rises to the challenge in this chilling tale.
George Eliot
F.Scott Fitzgerald
The Mill on the Floss; Middlemarch – Eliot was able to perfect what has since become known as literary realism. Her novels, the most perfect of which is Middlemarch, were able to render the minutiae of everyday life in a manner that is both beautiful and evocative. Like Wordsworth who came before her, Eliot’s ambition was to elevate the ordinary into the realm of the extraordinary and this aim was certainly achieved.
Tender is the Night – The tragic tale of a young actress, Rosemary Hoyt, and her complicated relationship with a glamorous American couple. (Classic Literature)
E M Forster A Passage to India – When Adela Quested and her elderly companion arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by the insular and prejudiced ‘AngloIndian’ community. Determined to escape and see the ‘real India’, they seek the guidance of the charming Dr Aziz.
E M Forster
Howard’s End –‘Only connect’ is the idea at the heart of this book, a heartbreaking tale of three families at the beginning of the twentieth century. Frequently cited as E.M.Forster’s finest work, it brilliantly explores class warfare, conflict and the English character.
A Room with a View – An Edwardian tale of love with satirical elements and an Italian setting.
Elizabeth Gaskell North and South - A tale of love, growth, and change Gaskell skilfully fuses individual feeling with social concern and, in Margaret Hale, creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native – The story of proud and passionate Eustacia’s doomed marriage
Joseph Heller Catch 22 – A classic satire set at the end of WWII.
Susan Hill Strange Meeting – An absorbing story of friendship in the trenches. EDI
The Woman in Black – A spine-tingling recipe for sleeplessness!
Henry James The Europeans – A subtle and gently ironic examination of manners and morals, the impact of Old World experience on New World innocence.
James Joyce Ulysses; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; The Dubliners – This is the apotheosis of the modernist novel and Joyce seeks to record as precisely as possible the inner-most workings of one’s mind. What matters is not the object being perceived, but rather the perceiver and with this he instituted a radical conceptual shift from what came before. This philosophical mission was epitomised by his use of stream-of-consciousness in Ulysses, but it is for good reason that this novel has a reputation for being one of the most complex ever written.
Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Set in the ward of a 1950s psychiatric hospital, the protagonist is a man who suffers from schizophrenia. Through his eyes, we see the reality experienced by the patients; their living conditions and the medical treatments they are subjected to.
Toni Morrison Beloved – It is the mid-1800s and as slavery looks to be coming to an end, Sethe is haunted by the violent trauma it wrought on her former enslaved life at Sweet Home, Kentucky. Her dead baby daughter, whose tombstone bears the single word, Beloved, returns as a spectre to punish her mother, but also to elicit her love. Told with heart-stopping clarity, mixing horror and beauty, Beloved is Toni Morrison's enduring masterpiece. EDI
Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire; Lolita; Ada – Nabokov is, without a doubt, one of the most skilful and beautiful prose stylists that ever lived. This is exemplified by his highly controversial novel Lolita, which charts a grown man’s nefarious relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl. Nabokov’s project in writing the novel was to see whether he could transform something morally repugnant into something beautiful by language alone.
Irène Némirovsky Suite Française – In 1941, sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France, Némirovsky's death in Auschwitz in 1942 prevented her from seeing the day, sixty-five years later, that the existing two sections of her planned novel sequence, Suite Française, would be rediscovered and hailed as a masterpiece.
George Orwell
1984 – A chilling depiction of a dystopian future where society is under complete surveillance by a totalitarian regime led by Big Brother. The book delves into the dangers of absolute authority and the power of propaganda.
J.D.Salinger Catcher in the Rye – This iconic novel portrays the internal struggle of teenager Holden Caulfield who, disenchanted with the adult world’s hypocrisy and superficiality, seeks to protect the innocence of himself and are stories that link across time but can be read in either order EDI
Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels; A Tale of the Tub; ‘A Modest Proposal’ – Like Pope, Swift is a master satirist. His essay ‘A Modest Proposal’ proposes to solve the Irish famine by selling children to the rich as food. The suggestion was, of course, not serious, but rather is an attempt to poke fun at the attitudes towards the poor of the time.
W M Thackeray Vanity Fair – Join Becky Sharpe the first modern heroine in her adventures
Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina – A breathtaking tapestry of late nineteenth century Russian life.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – A dying lawyer reflects on his life and his relationships. Existentially hard-hitting and sceptical look at life - this book will not cheer you up!
Edith Wharton
Oscar Wilde
The Age of Innocence (1921 Pulitzer Prize) – An upper-class East Coast American couple's impending marriage is threatened by the arrival of her scandal-plagued cousin from Europe.
The House of Mirth – The story of Lily Bart, a wealthy socialite imprisoned within the society in which she lives. An American classic with a strong heroine.
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty.
Thornton Wilder The Bridge of San Luis Rey –Tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who has witnessed the tragic accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die
Richard Yates Revolutionary Road – Frank and April are a bright young couple who are bored by the banalities of suburban life and long to be extraordinary. But the changes they make lead to betrayal and tragedy.
Émile Zola The Dream – A tale of the impossibility of love in the face of social constraints
NON-FICTION– Sorted by Department
Suggestions from the Art History Department
Jill Burke
How to be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity – An alternative history of the Renaissance as seen through the emerging literature of beauty tips, focusing on the actresses, authors and courtesans who rebelled against the misogyny of their era.
Katy Hessel The Story of Art Without Men – This exciting revisionist history of art turns the limelight on women artists’ creativity and the way it has shaped and enriched our world.
Neil MacGregor A History of the World in 100 Objects – Produced to complement the Radio 4 series, this book describes objects which provide a fascinating insight into many historical cultures around the world.
Charlotte Mullins A Little History of Art – An extraordinary journey through 100,000 years of art’s crucial place in understanding our collective culture and history.
Grayson Perry Playing to the Gallery: Helping Contemporary Art in its Struggle to Be Understood – Based on his hugely popular BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures, this funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but seem too embarrassing to ask.
Matthew Rice Rice’s Language of Buildings – This beautifully illustrated book covers the grammar and vocabulary of British buildings, explaining the evolution of style from Norman castles to Norman Foster.
Suggestions from the Business Department
John Carreyou Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos one of the biggest corporate frauds in history a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.
Bill Gates
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster – In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical - and accessible - plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster.
S & B Hashemi
Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic From Our Kitchen Table: 57 Real-life Laws on entrepreneurship – A fantastic introduction to business; Sahar Hashemi and her brother Bobby gave up professional jobs to follow their dream to build the best coffee shop chain in Britain. This book is like one long case study that covers much of the AS course material including risk, entrepreneurship and business structure in a very easy to read format
Innocent A Book About Innocent: Our Story and Some Things We've Learned –Richard Reed, Jon Wright and Adam Balon met at Cambridge, found “proper jobs” after graduating but fostered a desire to start a business together. This book charts their progress from starting the business in 1999 and selling twenty-four bottles a day to the millions they now sell every week.
Walter Isaacson
Steve Jobs – Tells the story of the rollercoaster life and intense personality of this creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionised six industries –personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing.
Geoffrey Liker
Anita Roddick
Klaus Schwab
The Toyota Way - The bestselling guide to Toyota’s legendary philosophy and production system―updated with important new frameworks for driving innovation and quality in your business.
Body and Soul: Profits with Principles - The Amazing Success Story of Anita Roddick & The Body Shop – Controversial businesswoman and environmentalist Roddick, creator of The Body Shop (located in England, America, and 36 other countries), tells her amazing success story and explains her philosophy of commerce with a conscience.
Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution - Drawing on contributions from 200 top experts in fields ranging from machine learning to geo-engineering to nanotechnology, to data ethics, Schwab equips readers with the practical tools to leverage the technologies of the future to leave the world better, safer, and more resilient than we found it.
Recommendations from the Classics Department
These books are available from the Classics Department
Pat Barker
Constanza Casati
Daisy Dunn
The Silence of the Girls - There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan War whose voice has been silent - until now. Discover the greatest Greek myth of all - retold by the witness that history forgot . . .
Babylonia - The Orphan Queen Who Changed the Fate of an Empire - An Addictive and Stirring Tale.
The Missing Thread - Spanning 3,000 years, from the birth of Minoan Crete to the death of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, a magisterial new history of the ancient world told, for the very first time, through women.
Natalie Haynes Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth - These are the stories of the Greek goddesses. As fearsome, powerful and beloved as their male counterparts, it’s time to look beyond the columns of a ruined temple to the awesome power within . . .
Rosie Hewlitt Medea - From an unmissable new voice comes the powerful and epic story of mythology's darkest heroine.
Ferdia Lennon
Glorious Exploits – An unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.
Clair North House of Odysseus - An exquisite and gripping new tale that breathes life into ancient myth. This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before.
Jennifer Saint Hera - Often portrayed as the jealous wife or the wicked stepmother, this retelling captures the many sides of Hera, vengeful when she needs to be but also compassionate and most importantly, an all-powerful queen to the gods.
Recommendations from the Economics Department
Duncan Clark Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built - An engrossing insider's account of how a teacher built one of the world's most valuable companiesrivalling Walmart and Amazon - and forever reshaped the global economy.
Prof. Paul Collier The Bottom Billion – In this elegant and impassioned synthesis from one of the world's leading experts on Africa and poverty, economist writes persuasively that although nearly five billion of the world's people are beginning to climb from desperate poverty and to benefit from globalization's reach to developing countries, there is a "bottom billion" of the world's poor whose countries, largely immune to the forces of global economy, are falling farther behind and are in danger of falling apart, separating permanently and tragically from the rest of the world.
Prof. Diane Coyle
Dambisa Moyo
GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History – This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives but that hardly anyone actually understands.
Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa –“We all want to help. Over the past fifty years $1 trillion of development aid has flowed from Western governments to Africa, with rock stars and actors campaigning for more. But this has not helped Africa. It has ruined it.”
How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly - and the Stark Choices Ahead.
Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What It Means for the World
Some excellent videos to watch about the ideas of Dambisa Moyo:
Paul Ormerod Positive Linking: How Networks can Revolutionise the World – A good introduction to network economics.
Jonathan Portes 50 Capitalism Ideas You Really Need to Know - Here is the essential one-volume guide to capitalism: its strengths and weaknesses, past and future - a future that will affect us all.
Dr Linda Yueh Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today – A new book from a leading economist with her perspectives on contemporary issues. Linda Yueh is a Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School, and visiting professor at LSE. Dr. Yueh has been an advisor to, among others, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the Asian Development Bank.
Muhammad Yunus World of Three Zeroes - Offers a challenge to young people, business and political leaders, and ordinary citizens everywhere to improve the world for everyone before it’s too late.
Suggestions from the English Department
POETRY
Margaret Atwood Eating Fire - This omnibus edition presents a selection of her poetry from 1965 to 1995, including 'Morning in the Burned House'.
James Fenton (ed.) The Faber Book of Love Poems – A collection of love poetry that will support and develop those studied at A Level. Also a favourite spot for the chief examiner to find poems for the unseen poetry exam question!
Chris Riddell Poems to Live your Life By - This gorgeously illustrated collection includes forty-six poems and is divided into sections covering: musings, youth, family, love, imaginings, nature, war and endings. Chris Riddell brings them to life with his exquisite, intricate artwork in this beautiful anthology.
PLAYS
Peter Ackroyd Shakespeare: The Biography – An accessible and fascinating biography of Shakespeare written by a writer about a writer. It gives detailed insights into the world Shakespeare inhabited.
Henrik Ibsen A Doll’s House – Ibsen’s plays often have extraordinary female characters, and this is no exception. The play focuses on a woman trying to find self-fulfilment in a male-dominated world.
Christopher Marlowe Doctor Faustus – A contemporary of Shakespeare, Marlowe explores what it is to be evil and the temptations offered by knowledge and wealth.
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest – One of Wilde’s most enjoyable comedies, Jack Worthing looks for the truth about his birth after being found in ‘a handbag’.
Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie – This beautiful and tragic memory play set in St Louis in 1937, explores the life of Tom, his mother and his sister Laura who keeps a ‘glass menagerie’ of animal figurines which come to represent the fragility, tragedy and beauty of their owner.
W. Shakespeare Hamlet and Macbeth – Two of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies and useful comparisons with Othello. Enjoy Shakespeare’s masterful creation of two tragic heroes.
PROSE
George Orwell 1984 – Arguably the most famous dystopian novel, 1984 tells the story of Winston who lives on Airstrip One under a totalitarian government known as ‘The Party’ and their mysterious leader ‘Big Brother’ who is always ‘watching you’.
Aldous Huxley Brave New World – Set in 2540CE, Huxley’s novel presents a nightmarish society where everyone is always happy; thanks to cloning, governmentissued drugs and pre-conditioned societal classes.
Anne Bronte The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – This novel follows the story of Helen who creates a new identity to escape domestic abuse.
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre – A wonderfully Gothic read, this novel follows Jane through her life from childhood to the home of the mysterious Mr Rochester and his house, Thornfield Hall, which holds shocking secrets.
Recommendations from the Geography Department
Paul Collier The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It – Collier identifies and explains the four traps that prevent the world’s poorest billion people from growing and receiving the benefits of globalisation. Collier argues that we cannot take a ‘headless heart’ approach to these seemingly intractable problems; rather that we must harness our moral outrage to come to a reasoned and thorough understanding of the complex and interconnected problems that are faced by the world’s poor.
Danny Dorling Geography - This is a book for anyone who wants to know more about why our world is the way it is today, and where it might be heading next.
Bear Grylls Mud, Sweat and Tears - This is the extraordinary life story of the world's most intrepid young explorer, Bear Grylls. It tells how he has always sought the ultimate in adventure.
John Krakauer Into the Wild - In April 1992, Chris McCandless set off alone into the Alaskan wild. He had given his savings to charity, abandoned his car and his possessions, and burnt the money in his wallet, determined to live a life of independence. Just four months later, Chris was found dead. An SOS note was taped to his makeshift home, an abandoned bus. In piecing together, the final travels of this extraordinary young man's life, Jon Krakauer writes about the heart of the wilderness, it’s terribly beauty and its relentless harshness
Tim Marshall Divided – Every story has two sides and so does every wall. We’re in a new era of tribalism and the barricades are going up. Money, race, religion, politics: these are the things that divide us. Trump’s wall says as much about America’s divided past as it does about the future; the Great Wall of China separates ‘us’ from ‘them’; in Europe, the explosive combination of politics and migration threatens liberal democracy itself. Marshall delves into our past and our present to reveal the fault lines that will shape our world for years to come.
Dambisa Moyo Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa – We all want to help. Over the past fifty years $1 trillion of development aid has flowed from Western governments to Africa, with rock stars and actors campaigning for more. But this has not helped Africa. It has ruined it. Dead Aid shows us another way. Using hard evidence to illustrate her case, Moyo shows how, with access to capital and with the right policies, even the poorest nations can turn themselves around. First, we must destroy the myth that aid works - and make charity history.
Recommendations from the History Department
Hakim Adi
Black British History: New Perspectives – A collection of essays from both established and emerging scholars of Black British history An invaluable resource for both future scholarship and those looking for a useful introduction to Black British history. EDI
Julia Boyd A Village in the Third Reich - Witness the rise of the Third Reich through the perspective of outsiders – extraordinary tales from visitors and travellers drawn to the 'New Germany' of the 1930s.
Suzannah Lipscomb What Is History, now? - Overs topics such as the history of racism and antiracism, queer history, the history of faith, the history of disability, environmental history, escaping imperial nostalgia, hearing women's voices and 'rewriting' the past
Margaret MacMillan The Uses and Abuses of History - History is often hijacked through suppression, manipulation, and, sometimes, even outright deception. MacMillan's book is packed full of examples of the abuses of history. In response, she urges us to treat the past with care and respect.
David Olusoga
Black and British: A Forgotten History – Historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean. EDI
Sathnam Sanghera Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain – The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to our understanding Britain. At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera urges us to step back and see where we came from, so that we can then begin to understand who we are and what unites us. EDI
Shashi Tharoor Inglorious Empire – It stacks up the arguments in a most compelling manner and is a relatively easy read for anyone interested in Empire. EDI
CHINA
Jung Chang
Wild Swans – The classic autobiographical account of three generations of Chinese women living through the turmoil of the twentieth century. EDI
Big Sister, Little Sister, Read Sister - Meet the three women who helped shape the course of modern Chinese history, a gripping story of sisterhood and betrayal from the bestselling author of Wild Swans.
Barbara Demick Eat the Buddha – The Tibetan tragedy as it played out in one town on the edge of the Tibetan plateau.
Frank Dikötter The Tragedy of Liberation, Mao’s Great Famine and The Cultural Revolution – This trilogy encompasses the latest research on some of the key events in Mao’s rule of China, in an engaging and readable way.
Frank Dikötter China after Mao – The author turns his attention to the period since 1976.
Maurice Meisner Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic - In this muchanticipated revision, Maurice Meisner again provides piercing insight and comprehensive coverage of China's fascinating and turbulent modern history.
TUDOR ENGLAND
John Guy Tudor England - Based on the most thorough knowledge of the sources and literature relating to the Tudors, this book takes note of fresh debates on the progress of the English Reformation, and on the strengths and weaknesses of Tudor government at national and local level
D.MacCulloch
Thomas Cromwell: A Life - The most complete life ever written of this elusive figure, making connections not previously seen and revealing the channels through which power in early Tudor England flowed.
Tudor Church Militant - Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation – This recent publication reminds of the significance of Edward’s reign and makes a persuasive case for the centrality of the ‘boy-king’ within it.
Thomas Penn Winter King: the Dawn of Tudor England – This book provides a good summary of the reign of Henry VII and a recent interpretation of the difficulties experienced by Henry throughout his reign.
David Starkey
Elizabeth: Apprenticeship - An abused child, yet confident of her destiny, passionately sexual yet, she said, a virgin, famed as England's most successful ruler yet actually doing little, Elizabeth I is full of contradictions. Starkey turns the paradox into a person.
NEA
Katherine Pangonis Queens of Jerusalem – A history of the Crusader States through the eyes of the women who ruled them. EDI
Matthew Carr Blood and faith: the purging of Muslim Spain – A lively account of sixteenth-century Spain
John H. Elliot Imperial Spain 1469-1716 - The story of Spain's rise to greatness from its humble beginnings as one of the poorest and most marginal of European countries is a remarkable and dramatic one.
Sarah Gristwood Game of Queens - Unravelling a gripping historical narrative, Gristwood reveals the stories of the queens who had, until now, been overshadowed by kings.
Janina Ramirez Femina: a new history of the Middle Ages, through the women written out of it - Reveals the power and influence of medieval women who have been written out of our history. From royalty and religion to fame and fury, see the medieval world - and the women erased from it - with fresh eyes.
Giles Tremlett
Isabella of Castille – The life of one of the most powerful women in the late Middle Ages. EDI
Recommendations from the Modern Languages Department
Niccolo Ammaniti Io Non Ho Paura – In this immensely powerful, lyrical and skilfully narrated novel, set in southern Italy, nine-year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he daren’t tell anyone about it.
Albert Camus La Peste – The story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition.
Delphine de Vigan No et Moi – A perceptive and moving story of the friendship between the heroine, a precociously intelligent 13-year-old and the homeless girl she befriends.
Laura Esquivel Como Agua Para Chocolate – Each chapter is titled for a month of the year and then kicks off with a new Mexican recipe; learn Spanish through culinary immersion! The story itself follows a young Mexican woman, Tita, through her coming of age and her constant struggle to earn her independence from her traditional family.
Romain Gary La Vie Devant Soi – A beautiful and moving story of love, coming of age and courage in the heart of a diverse Parisian underworld community through the eyes of a child. Brilliant and unforgettable.
Faiza Guène Kiffe Kiffe Demain – A warm and uplifting story of a modern, secondgeneration French Moroccan teenager. A funny and insightful tale of the everyday life and concerns of a 15- year-old, living with her mum in a Paris HLM suburb.
Leila Silmani Le Pays Des Autres - A passionate interracial love story between a Moroccan soldier who fought for France in World War II and a French woman whose fierce desire for autonomy parallels colonial Morocco's fight for independence.
Patrick Süskind Das Parfum – Following the journey of a boy with an exquisite sense of smell which drives him to gruesome deeds, Süskind’s novel transports you back to 18th century France, and the sprawling, stinking city of Paris. A big international success.
Recommendations from the Music Department
Jan Caeyers
Robert Gauldin
Julian Horton
Jeremy McCarter
Charles Rosen
Willy Russell
Christopher Tarrant
Oliver Sacks
Beethoven: A Life - The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.
Harmonic Practice in Tonal Music - A concise yet comprehensive treatment of harmonic and voice-leading principles using tonal compositions from traditional, folk, popular, jazz, rock, and classical repertories of the 17th-20th centuries.
The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony - This Companion offers an accessible guide to the historical, analytical and interpretative issues surrounding this major genre of Western music, discussing an extensive variety of works from the eighteenth century to the present day.
Hamilton: The Revolution - Gives readers an unprecedented view of both revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it.
The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven - Gives readers an unprecedented view of both revolutions, from the only two writers able to provide it.
Blood Brothers: A Musical - The story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a blood-bath.
The Symphony: From Mannheim to Mahler - A fascinating and accessible guide that considers the development of the symphony from a number of different perspectives: analytical, historical, and critical.
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain –‘A humane discourse on the fragility of our minds, of the bodies that give rise to them and of the world they create for us. This book is filled with wonders.’ Daily Telegraph
Recommendations from the PE Department
David Epstein
Tim S.Grover
Phil Jackson
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance – Explores the effects of genetics and training on human athleticism.
Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable – Grover is a renowned sports trainer who reveals the mindset and strategies of the world’s most relentless athletes and achievers. He challenges readers to push past their limits and achieve their full potential.
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success – Phil Jackson was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Eleven Rings explores his methods of motivation and highlights a holistic approach to life that can inspire others.
James Kerr Legacy: What the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life - Goes deep into the heart of the world's most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business.
Helen Mort A Line Above the Sky – A meld between memoir and nature writing to create what will surely become a classic of the genre; it asks why humans are compelled to climb and poses other, deeper questions about self, motherhood and freedom.
Prof Steve Peters The Chimp Paradox – This is an incredibly powerful mind management model that can help you become a happy, confident, healthier and more successful person. Prof Steve Peters explains the struggle that takes place within your mind and then shows how to apply this understanding to every area of your life so you can:
▪ Recognise how your mind is working
▪ Understand and manage your emotions and thoughts
▪ Manage yourself and become the person you would like to be
Azeem Rafiq It’s not Banter, It’s Racism - Goes deep into the heart of the world's most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business.
Matthew Syed Black box thinking – This is a new approach to high performance, a means of finding an edge in a complex and fastchanging world. It is not just about sport, but has powerful implications for business and politics, as well as for parents and students. In other words, all of us. Drawing on a dizzying array of case studies and real-world examples, together with cutting-edge research on marginal gains, creativity and grit, Matthew Syed tells the inside story of how success really happens - and how we cannot grow unless we are prepared to learn from our mistakes.
Suzanne Wrack A Woman’s Game: The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Women’s Football – The astonishing history of women’s football: from the game’s first appearance in England in the late nineteenth century to the incredible teams that, at their height, drew 53,000 spectators to Goodison Park, through to its 50-year ban in the UK and the aftershocks when restrictions were lifted.
Suggestions from the Performing Arts Department
PLAYS
Caryl Churchill Top Girls – Arguably Churchill's most well-known play, Top Girls directly engages with Thatcherism and the role of women in modern society; what does it mean and what does it take for a woman to succeed?
Federico Garcia Lorca
Henrik Ibsen
Arthur Miller
Blood Wedding – One of Lorca's most famous plays that explores the role of women in society. An excellent addition to the A Level text Yerma.
A Doll’s House - Ibsen's 1879 play shocked its first audiences with its radical insights into the social roles of husband and wife. His portrayal of the caged 'songbird' in his flawed heroine Nora remains one of the most striking dramatic depictions of the late 19th century woman.
A View from the Bridge - A tragic masterpiece of the inexorable unravelling of a man, set in a close-knit Italian-American community in 1950s New York.
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire - The tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski.
REFERENCE
Michael Billington The Life and Work of Harold Pinter - A biography of the playwright Harold Pinter and a study of his work as writer, actor and director. His political beliefs are viewed from the perspective of his life, which he began as an only child in Hackney, where he was one of a group of youths delighting in intellectual wordplay and badinage.
Augusto Boal Games for Actors and Non-Actors - This is a vital handbook for theatre makers and activists of all kinds who want to deepen their understanding of the theory and practice of Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. It is also an excellent introduction for those new to the system.
Miranda Hart I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest with You - Packed with hard-won wisdoms and gentle truths, this is Miranda’s honest exploration of the lessons she has learned on her journey from illness to recovery
Toril Moi
Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism - Situates Ibsen in his cultural context, emphasizes his position as a Norwegian in European culture, and shows how important painting and other visual arts were for his aesthetic education.
Don Shiach American Drama 1900-1990 - This book is written for those beginning a study of American literature as part of an advanced course in English, or for anyone interested in American drama in the 20th century.
Recommendations from the Politics Department
Rachel Carson
Silent Spring - Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides
Iain Dale The Presidents - Features essays, written by a range of academics, historians, political journalists and serving politicians, on all 46 American Presidents who have held the office over the last 230 years - from George Washington to Joe Biden.
John Locke Two treatises on government - Among the most influential writings in the history of Western political thought, John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration remain vital to political debates today, more than three centuries after they were written.
Caroline Lucas Honourable Friends – An insider’s account of the daily life of an MP.
Melanie Phillips
Steve Richards
The Ascent of Woman: A history of the suffragette movement - Tells the story of the fight for women's suffrage in a way which sets the high drama of those events in the context of the moral and intellectual ferment that characterised it.
The Rise of the Outsiders – An interesting analysis of the impact of figures such as Corbyn, Macron and Trump on modern politics.
Anthony Seldon The Impossible Office? – A history of British Prime Ministers.
Blair Unbound - In this riveting account, Anthony Seldon a recognized expert of British politics follows the career of Tony Blair starting from its pinnacle at September 11 right up to his handing of the reins over to his arch rival, Gordon Brown.
Tim Shipman All Out War – An account of the Brexit referendum and its consequences by a journalist at the heart of the action.
Richard Valelly
Tony Wright
American Politics – A Very Short Introduction
British Politics – A Very Short Introduction
Recommendations from the Religious Studies Department
David Baddiel
The God Desire - A philosophical essay that utilises Baddiel’s trademarks of comedy, storytelling and personal asides, The God Desire offers a highly readable new perspective on the most ancient of debates.
Sarah Bakewell At the Existentialist Café - Tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas.
Rebecca Buxton
Philosophy Queens - For anyone who has wondered where the women philosophers are, or anyone curious about the history of ideas it's time to meet the philosopher queens. (Available from the RS Department)
Jonathan Haidt The Rightous Mind - Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.
FICTION
Shusaku Endo
Yaa Gyasi
Mohsin Hamid
Kamila Shamsie
Silence - As empathetic as it is powerful, Silence is an astonishing exploration of faith and suffering and an awardwinning classic.
Transcendent Kingdom - A searing story of love, loss and redemption, and the myriad ways we try to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our collective pasts.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - A vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world. (Available from the RS Department).
Home Fire - An urgent, fiercely compelling story of loyalties torn apart when love and politics collide.
Elif Shafak There Are Rivers in the Sky - A rich, sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times, about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris – their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh.
Recommendations from the S.T.E.M. Departments
BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
David Beeling The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth’s History – Global warming is difficult to measure, even among the majority of scientists who agree that it is taking place. This book reveals the crucial role that plants have played in determining atmospheric change and how looking at the distant past can help us to predict the future.
Nessa Carey
The Epigenetics Revolution – At the beginning of this century enormous progress had been made in genetics. The Human Genome Project had finished sequencing human DNA. The cutting-edge of biology, however, is telling us that we still don’t even know all of the questions. It turns out that cells read the genetic code in DNA more like a script to be interpreted than a mould to be replicated. This is epigenetics and Carey reveals the amazing possibilities it offers us all.
Richard Dawkins The Ancestor’s tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution – This is a comprehensive look at evolution, ranging from the latest developments in the field to his own provocative views. Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are and how intimate our relationship is with the rest of the living world.
Giulia Enders Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ –This gives the alimentary canal a long-overdue moment in the spotlight. Enders explains the gut’s magic and we learn how the gut’s reactions are intimately connected with our wellbeing.
Henry Gee A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters –An enlightening story of survival and persistence, highlighting the delicate balance within which life has always existed and continues to exist today. It is our planet as you’ve never seen it before.
Adam Kay This Is Going to Hurt – This is the first-hand account of the life of a junior doctor in all its joy, pain, sacrifice and maddening bureaucracy. Honest, funny, heartbreaking and scary at times, this is everything you wanted to know (and a few you didn’t) - about life on and off a hospital ward.
John Kennedy Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History - In this revelatory book, Dr Jonathan Kennedy argues that germs have shaped humanity at every stage, from the first success of Homo sapiens over the equally intelligent Neanderthals to the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam.
Alice Roberts Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials – Using new advances in genetics, Professor Alice Roberts explores the ancestry of Britain through seven burial sites that help us to better understand the human experience that binds us all together.
Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and Other Clinical Tales –Dr Sacks recounts the stories of patients struggling to adapt to the often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder. Here are people who no longer recognise everyday objects or those they love. These brilliant tales illuminate what it mean to be human. EDI
Neil Shubin Your Inner Fish - The unexpected story of how one creature's journey out of the water made the human body what it is today - and one man's voyage of discovery in search of our origins.
Rebecca Skoots The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southern tobacco farmer but scientists know her as HeLa. Her cells were taken without her knowledge, grown in culture and are still alive today. They were vital in developing the polio vaccine and have been bought and sold by the billions for scientific research. Skoots uncovers the family history and captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. EDI
CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT
Peter Atkins Atkins’ Molecules - With engaging prose Peter Atkins gives a non-technical account of an incredible range of aspects of the world around us, showing unexpected connections, and giving an insight into how this amazing world can be understood in terms of the atoms and molecules from which it is built.
Lewis Dartnell Life in the Universe - Astrobiology, the study of life and its existence in the universe, is one of the hottest area s of scientific research. Lewis Dartnell considers some of the fascinating questions facing researchers today. Could life exist anywhere else in the universe? What might aliens really look like? Dartnell explains why Earth is uniquely suited for life and reveals our profound connection to the cosmos.
John Emsley Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements – Both a reliable reference source and a high browsable account of the elements, Nature's Building Blocks offers a pleasurable tour of the very essence of our material world.
John Farndon
The Great Scientists - Ranging across the spectrum of scientific endeavour, this book includes the fields of physics, biology, chemistry and genetics. This is the story of the ideas that have shaped the world and the ideas that will shape the future.
Tom Jackson The Periodic Table Book - Packed with more than 1,000 incredible images and full of fascinating facts, this children's book takes you on a visual and vibrant journey of all the chemical elements that make up our world.
Sam Kean The Disappearing Spoon – Follow carbon, neon, silicon and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.
Derek B. Lowe
A.F. Parsons
The Chemistry Book - From atoms and fluorescent pigments to sulfa drug synthesis and buckyballs, this authoritative chronology presents 250 milestones in the world of chemistry
Keynotes in Organic Chemistry - This concise and accessible textbook provides notes for students studying chemistry and related courses at undergraduate level, covering core organic chemistry in a format ideal for learning and rapid revision.
Peter Wothers Why Chemical reactions happen? – An excellent book to bridge the gap between to A Level and University study. Unlike textbooks, this book draws together the key ideas form various topic areas in an attempt to underpin and explain why chemical reactions occur. A must read for all those wishing to pursue a Chemistry-related degree at University.
COMPUTING/ICT DEPARTMENT
Kate Crawford Atlas of AI: power, politics, and the planetary cos of artificial intelligenceThis is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.
Marcus Du Sautoy The Creativity Code: how AI is learning to write, paint and think - Will a computer ever compose a symphony, write a prizewinning novel, or paint a masterpiece? And if so, would we be able to tell the difference?
Walter Isaacson
Melanie Mitchell
The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the DigitalRevolution - What talents allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their disruptive ideas into realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed, and others fail?
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans - Provides readers with an accessible and clear-eyed view of the AI landscape, what the field has actually accomplished, how much further it has to go and what it means for all of our futures.
Michael Wooldridge A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence - From Oxford''s leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial Intelligence.
The Road to Conscious Machines: the story of AI - In this myth-busting guide to AI past and present, one of the world's leading researchers shows why our fears for the future are misplaced.
MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
Ben Derbyshire
Keith Devlin
Martin Gardner
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Rieman and the Greatest unsolved problem in Mathematics - Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world.
The Math Gene - If people are endowed with a "number instinct" similar to the "language instinct" as recent research suggests then why can't everyone do math? In The Math Gene, mathematician and popular writer Keith Devlin attacks both sides of this question.
Mathematical puzzles and Diversions - These clearly and cleverly presented mathematical recreations of paradoxes and paperfolding, Moebius variations and mnemonics both ancient and modern delight and perplex while demonstrating principles of logic, probability, geometry, and other mathematical field.
Douglas Hofstadter Godel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid - Linking together the music of Bach, the graphic art of Escher and the mathematical theorems of Godel, as well as ideas drawn from logic, biology, psychology, physics and linguistics, Hofstadter illuminates the nature of the human thought process.
Andrew Hodges
Robert Kaplan
Ben Orlin
Alan Turing: The Enigma - This is a biography of Cambridge mathematician, mastermind code-breaker and inventor of the super-computer, Alan Turing.
The Nothing that Is: A Natural History of the Zero - In the tradition of Longitude, a small and engagingly written book on the history and meaning of zero
Change Is the Only Constant - An engaging and eloquent exploration of the intersection between calculus and daily life, complete with Orlin's sly humour and memorably bad drawings.
John Allen Paulos Once Upon a Number: the hidden mathematical logic of stories - Explores the ways in which statistical analysis and mathematical logic apply to everyday life.
Simon Singh Fermat’s Last Theorem - For over 350 years, proving Fermat's Last Theorem was the most notorious unsolved mathematical problem, a puzzle whose basics most children could grasp but whose solution eluded the greatest minds in the world.
Ian Stewart From Here to Infinity - The Problems of Mathematics, renowned mathematician Ian Stewart gives math buffs and non-technical readers-as well as students of the subject-the perfect guide to today's mathematics.
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Jim Al Khalili
Cox and Forshaw
Black holes, Wormholes and Time machines – A really clear and wellwritten description of how General Relativity has completely changed our ideas about space and time.
Why does E = mc2? – The authors delve below the surface to show where Special Relativity came from and how it leads to this remarkable formula.
Richard Feynman Six Easy Pieces – Feynman’s undergraduate lectures at Caltech in the early 1960s were recorded and transcribed; here are six of the more straightforward. A unique Physics communicator.
Manjit Kumar
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality – Manjit Kumar takes us calmly and logically into the centre of the debate about the nature of reality through the middle of the last century. The
relationship between Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr is viewed through the light of their different visions of what Physics can and cannot tell us about what reality is.
Carlo Rovelli Reality is Not What it Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity – A truly amazing piece of writing. Rovelli’s poetic interest and his lyricism combine with marvellous elucidations of ancient work, such as that of Democritus and his own work in Loop Quantum Gravity.
ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS
David MacKay Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air – If you’ve thrown up your hands in despair thinking there is no solution to the sustainable energy crisis, then read this – an honest, realistic and humorous discussion of all our energy options.
Henry Petroski Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing – A delve into the mystery of invention, to explore what everyday artefacts and sophisticated networks can reveal about the way engineers solve problems.
J. E. Gordon Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down – For anyone who has wondered why suspension bridges don’t collapse or how dams hold back thousands of gallons of water, Gordon strips engineering of its confusing technical terms and communicates its founding principles in accessible, witty prose.
Mark Miodownik Stuff Matters – Exploring the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World – From the teacup to the jet engine, the silicon chip to the paper clip, everything is made of something. Miodownik will inspire amazement and delight at mankind’s creativity.
