Massive congratulations to our alumni authors who have have had their books published.

Take a look at the latest books available from our alumni authors:

Henry John Bewley (Chemistry and Physics, 1986) has published: The Penitentā€™s Rose: A collection of short stories on guilt.

Guilt is tackled from a unique perspective in this collection of thirty-five short stories as the reader is taken to a diverse range of subjects. In spring, a time of rebirth for nature, the cheery purple flowers open. People carry guilt in a myriad of forms but the spring crocus, the penitentā€™s rose, gives hope as it symbolises a possibility of healing.

The book is available to purchase online.

Tim Brooks (History, 1999) has published their debut novel: The Batmaker of Copenhagen.

This is the unique story of a cricketing hero who risks his life to save the sport he loves. Defying the Gestapo and risking his life to keep cricket alive, Frederick Hanson embarks on a quest to find willow. Based on a true story, it combines an espionage thriller and a tribute to the passion that cricket inspires in us all.

This book is available to purchase online.

Sarah Easter Collins (BA English and Fine Art, 1990 and PGCE, 1991) debut novel Things Don’t Break On Their Own will be published on 20/6/24.

She could be anyone. She could be you.’ Nobody ever found out what happened to Laika Martenwood, the girl who vanished without a trace on her way to school one morning. But for her sister Willa, life shattered into tiny pieces that day, and she has never been able to put them back together again.

This book is available to pre-order online.

Roger Crittenden (Sociology, 1961) has published Fine Cuts: Interviews on the Practice of European Film Editing, which has also recently had a Chinese translation published.

This book reveals the experiences of many of the greatest living European film editors through Roger’s warm and perceptive interviews which offer a unique insight into the art of editing – direct from masters of the craft. In their interviews the editors relate their experience to the directors they have worked with, including Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick and many more.

This book is available to purchase online.

Frank Gardner OBE (Arabic and Islamic Studies, 1984) has recently published his new spy novel: Invasion.

Against the background of escalating tension between China and Taiwan, the BBC’s security correspondent and author of ‘Outbreak’ and ‘Crisis’ weaves a taut and compelling story of espionage and duplicity. The world is on high alert. Across the Strait from Taiwan, Chinaā€™s armed forces appear to be readying for war. Could the Peopleā€™s Republic be preparing to invade its island neighbour? Find out in this fourth instalment featuring the fictional SBS officer-turned MI6 operative Luke Carlton.

This book is available to purchase online.

Kim Hillyard (Drama, 2008) has recently published her fifth picture book: Frida the Rock-and-Roll Moth.

Frida is a moth. She lives in the garden shed and she LOVES to rock out BUT she has no one to rock out with until one day when THE BIG BRIGHT LIGHT appears! The story follows Frida on her journey to find the confidence to be herself and take part in the way that only she can!

This book is available to purchase online.

Carla Jenkins (MA Creative Writing, 2021) has published her debut novel: Fifty Minutes.

Therapy was meant to solve her problems, not make them worse… Smart twenty-year-old Dani is desperate to overcome her eating disorder, leave her dead-end job and return to her hard-won place at university. Using her limited earnings, she decides to start seeing a psychotherapist. Richard Goode is educated, sophisticated and worldly-everything Dani aspires to be. As he intuitively unpicks her self-loathing, Dani assumes the fantasies she’s developing about him live only in her head. That is, until things take a shocking turn…

This book is available to purchase online.

Brian Murdoch (German, 1965) has published two new translations: Catullus: The Poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus and Three Political Tales from Medieval Germany: Duke Ernst, Henry of Kempten, and Reynard the Fox.

‘Catullus’ is a translation into English verse of the poems of the Latin writer Catullus (first century BCE). Catullus’s poems vary from two-line epigrams to much longer pieces, and they range in subjects from declarations of love (and celebrations of sex), to moving personal poems and also scurrilous attacks on others, including Julius Caesar himself. ‘Three Political Tales’ offers an introduction to and prose translations of three texts that demonstrate just how precarious things can be even in a rigidly structured society (here the medieval Holy Roman Empire). Two of them are adventure stories, but carry a message about the care needed to prevent the escalation of violence; the third is a bleak warning against unscrupulous advisors. 

These books are available to be purchased online: ‘Catullus‘ and ‘Three Political Tales‘.

Ayşe Osmanoğlu (History and Politics, 1992) has published: A Farewell To Imperial Istanbul.

Set against the majestic backdrop of Imperial Istanbul in the aftermath of the First World War, this is a captivating tale of family, duty and the resilience of the human spirit. In Ä°stanbul, 1922, as the Ottoman Empire crumbles in the wake of the Great War, the fate of the Imperial capital and the House of Osman come under threat.

This book is available to purchase online.

Sue Walker (Italian with French, 2004) has published her debut novel: The Man with the Golden Tongue.

ā€œDonā€™t touch ā€“ itā€™s poisonous,ā€ thirteen-year-old Jess Ponder, the Schoolsā€™ Secret Agency ā€˜Double A-Starā€™ agent, tells schoolmate and master of the forged sick-note, Leo Sleepwell, when he sees a trail of dried, gold saliva on the seal of an envelope. The letter it contained was sent to Jess by the notorious Nine-carat, aka ā€˜The Man with the Golden Tongueā€™.

This book is available to purchase online.

Anam Zafar (French and Arabic, 2018) has published their first full-length translation of graphic novel –Yoghurt and Jam: Or How My Mother Became Lebanese – alongside co-translator Nadiyah Abdullatif.

Lena Merhejā€™s graphic memoir ‘Yoghurt and Jam’ is set in Lebanon, where tradition pairs yoghurt with cucumber and salt. Discovering how her mother likes her yoghurt sparks a captivating exploration of what led her mother from Germany to Lebanon, as well as triggering Lenaā€™s quest for self-discovery. Blending humour with poignant reflections, Lena delves into her motherā€™s life as a doctor during the Lebanese Civil War, challenging East-West clichĆ©s and embracing the complexities of hybrid identity.

This book is available to purchase online.

Dr Walker Zupp (PhD in Creative Writing, 2023) has published their third novel: Fibber.

A forgotten past, a future history… The Tectum is a giant stone head in the wastelands of England, designed by the government to shelter citizens from a Belgian invasion. Crisis brews when Fibber, a poet-turned-civil-servant, arrives to take charge of the Tectum – typewriters fall out of the walls, whilst a doomed production of Othello is staged on the top floor. As Fibber struggles for control, a group of escapees battle the elements outside, unable to thwart the government’s plans for the Tectum…

This book is available to purchase online.