Massive congratulations to our alumni authors who have had their books published.
Take a look at the latest books available from our alumni authors:
Linda Cracknell (English Literature and Fine Art, 1981) has published Sea Marked: Throwing a Line to a Costal Past.
A memoir of place, memory and motion, of seafarers, and the author’s connections to them and to the sea. Linda’s quest to learn more about her seafaring family history brings her to a blustery harbour. As she throws a line to pull in a boat, she is struck by the parallel with her mission to reel the past closer to the present, to find her place in a family tree full of mariners whose lives were defined by the ebb and flow of tides. Exploring coastlines from Scotland to Cornwall by boat and foot, she retraces the footsteps and paths of her ancestors across marshes, clifftops and waves. What begins as a quest for legacy takes Linda well beyond, as she discovers something more elemental and unconscious in her pull to the sea, imagining her blood as salt-saturated, sea-marked.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Dr Andrew English (PhD in History, 2016) has published Tracking the Iron Ghost: A History of the Locomotive Mississippi and its Times, 1834-2025.
A front-line participant in the Civil War, the small locomotive ‘Mississippi’ carried the first railgun used in war, and was later captured and put into service for the Union. After years of post-war work, the refurbished ‘Mississippi’ travelled to Chicago for presentation at the 1893 Columbian Exposition where she was displayed for millions. Throughout the next century, the little engine was displayed at exhibitions, state and county fairs, and museums where, despite her age and diminutive size, she always drew admirers. This history of a vestige of the early days of American railroads describes the hopes, painstaking labours, and crushing setbacks of early railroad building efforts in the Deep South.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Rory ffoulkes (Classical Studies, 2003) has published The seen and the unseen.
This is collection of eleven darkly atmospheric ghost and folk horror stories and it draws deeply on the ancient world — its myths, monsters, tragic figures and uncanny liminal spaces — weaving those influences into contemporary tales of dread. Rory’s academic immersion in Greek and Roman literature, drama and folklore informs the collection’s themes: the porous boundary between the living and the dead, undying commitment to honour, and the strange persistence of the ancient customs in modern lives.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Sam F Hutchins (PhD in English Literature, 2010) has published Boudica’s Shadow.
61AD. After Keara and her sister, Caitlyn, are brutally attacked by Roman officers in their own home, their mother’s rage knows no bounds. Queen Boudica of the Iceni raises an army of oppressed Britons who will defy Rome. During the conflict, the two sisters are faced with the same difficult choices – but they will pursue very different paths. Caitlyn will stay and protect her people. Keara will search for the missing Iceni gold – and the man responsible for the attack on her tribe. It is the Mauritanian Roman tribune, Titus, who finds himself caught up in the Britannic rebellion as he battles across tribal lands to capture Keara. But will the officer follow orders when he finally confronts the Iceni princess? Rome will be defied. There will be blood.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Dr Gaye Manwaring MBE FRSA (Zoology, 1966) has published Perhaps I Am a Poet: Read my poems and write your own.
Poetry has a unique way of supporting wellbeing. Reading a poem can engage your full attention. Poems can make you smile or cry, or help you see your own experiences more clearly. Writing poetry can be just as powerful – a creative process that is both healing in itself and rewarding in what it produces. This book brings together over a hundred of Gaye’s new poems in a wide range of styles and on many different themes. For some poems, Gaye shares what inspired them and analyse how their form and structure work. Alongside his poems, there is a rich collection of more than twenty writing activities designed to help you create your own verses and encouragement for your own poetic journey.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Dr Hiromi T. Rogers (PhD in Drama, 2001) has published Anjin: The Life and Times of Samurai William Adams, as Seen Through Japanese Eyes.
The year is 1600. It is April and Japan’s iconic cherry trees are in full flower. A battered ship drifts on the tide into Usuki Bay in southern Japan. On board, barely able to stand, are twenty-three Dutchmen and one Englishman, the remnants of a fleet of five ships and 500 men that had set out from Rotterdam in 1598. The Englishman was William Adams, later to be known as Anjin Miura by the Japanese, whose subsequent transformation from wretched prisoner to one of the Shogun’s closest advisers is the centrepiece of this book. As a native of Japan, and a scholar of seventeenth-century Japanese history, the author delves deep into the cultural context facing Adams in what is one of the great examples of assimilation into the highest reaches of a foreign culture.
This book is available to be purchased online.
John Stevens (Chemistry, 1980) has published his debut novel: The Bait Digger: Oarsman, Outlaw, Spy.
Whitstable, 1796. Seventeen-year-old Thomas wants nothing more than to dig bait, walk his dog, Jet, and earn a living. But when a stranger presses a mysterious package into his hands, he’s swept into a deadly game of espionage that will carry him across stormy seas to the heart of Revolutionary France.
Thomas is forced to play a dangerous game—alongside a French officer torn between duty and survival—where every ally could be a traitor and every decision could be his last. Will Thomas ever return home to pick up where he left off, on his beloved beach, whilst his country’s future hangs in the balance?
This book is available to be purchased online.
Dr Roger Trend (PhD in Earth Science Education, 1991) has published Cornwall’s Geology.
The geology of Cornwall is complex. Over the last 400 million years Cornwall has seen volcanoes and lava flows, regular submarine landslides, earthquakes and tremendous upheavals. At various times it’s had deep ocean basins, mountains as high as the Alps, hot desert plains and frost-shattered landscapes. And of course the minerals created have shaped the history of Cornwall through mining and quarrying over many centuries. But the beauty of it is that so much is visible, mainly because of the extensive coastal cliffs but also in the coastal and moorland tors, sometimes in bizarre shapes as in the Camel and the Cheesewring. There is much geology to see, and Roger’s book is an attempt to dive into what shaped the county.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Simon Vigar (Politics, 1991) has published The Four Wives of Windsor.
Diana. Camilla. Catherine. Meghan. Outsiders by birth, insiders by marriage. Four women united by their decision to enter the most famous family in the world, and by their place in the centre of its greatest upheavals. From Diana’s emotional revolution to Camilla’s unlikely ascent, from Meghan’s dramatic break to Catherine’s quiet consolidation of power, these are the true stories of the women who have shaped – and shaken – the modern royal family. Drawing on decades of experience as one of Britain’s most trusted royal correspondents, Simon takes readers behind palace walls to reveal the private tensions, public battles and shifting alliances that have shaped the House of Windsor. Insightful, revealing and rich with untold detail this is the story of the women who didn’t just marry into the Royal Family, but transformed it forever.
This book is available to be purchased online.
Dr Claire Yorke (MA Middle East Politics, 2006) has published Empathy in Politics and Leadership: The Key to Transforming the World.
Empathy has become a cliché of contemporary politics, often espoused but rarely understood. Yet the capacity to understand other worldviews is neither easy nor comfortable. Seeing through others’ eyes requires strength, courage, integrity, and an ability to reason across the harshest political divides—and, in a time of heightened marginalization, disconnection, and polarization, empathy in our leaders and across society is vitally important. Claire’s account draws on examples from across the world including model leaders like Nelson Mandela and Jacinda Ardern, as well as figures on the right such as Donald Trump who mobilize different forms of empathy. This book asks what distinguishes empathetic leaders from the rest, and examines why empathy is essential for a more human-centred politics.