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Our books make the perfect present
It is the time of year when we start thinking about finding the perfect gift for our friends and family. Cambridge University Press is here to help, with thousands of books that shed light on a huge range of fascinating topics.
All are available to buy online or in-person from our bookshop in Cambridge, which stocks thousands of titles and has access to many thousands more as print-on-demand editions from our back catalogue. To help inspire you, we take a closer look at some of our top picks of the past year below.
Alastair Lynn from the Cambridge University Press Bookshop, said: “A book is a great way to show someone that you’ve really thought about their present and bought them something that chimes with their passions and interests. They can also enjoy reading it long after the big day – a book is a present that you get to open more than once!”
He added: “Of course not everyone can get to our shop on Trinity Street in Cambridge – though we’d love to see as many people as possible – but our website is a great place to browse not just our many thousands of books, but other gifts like stationery, bags, badges, cushions and more.”
This year is the 30th anniversary of our bookshop, which opened in 1992 to showcase the full range of Cambridge University Press publishing. The shop itself has been around since 1581 when it was run by a William Scarlett. The first University printer, Thomas Thomas, was based just over the road on what was Regent Walk and is now Senate House Lawn, in an area that was really the bookselling centre of the town. Over the centuries, 1 Trinity Street was notably run by Macmillan and Bowes (and then Bowes and Bowes) from the mid-nineteenth century. Today, it showcases over 50,000 different Press titles.
...a book is a present that you get to open more than once!
Through vivid personal contacts, reminiscences and zesty anecdotes, Alyn Shipton describes his life in jazz as a player, broadcaster and observer, recalling friendships with legendary musicians, while revealing fresh discoveries about such luminaries as Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Abbey Lincoln and Geri Allen. On Jazz powerfully evokes the atmosphere of clubs and dancehalls, and takes us behind the scenes and up onto the stage, so that this electrifying world is unforgettably spotlighted as never before.
‘On Jazz covers a spectacularly extensive waterfront … this book is not a smorgasbord, it’s a feast.’ - Ben Thompson, Mojo
25 Million Sparks takes readers inside the Za'atari refugee camp to follow the stories of three courageous Syrian women entrepreneurs: Yasmina, a wedding shop and salon owner creating moments of celebration; Malak, a young artist infusing colour and beauty throughout the camp; and Asma, a social entrepreneur leading a storytelling initiative to enrich children's lives. Anchored by these three inspiring stories, as well as accompanying artwork and poetry by Malak and Asma, the narrative expands beyond Za'atari to explore the broader refugee entrepreneurship phenomenon in more than twenty camps and cities across the globe. What emerges is a tale of power, determination, and dignity – of igniting the brightest sparks of joy, even when the rest of the world sees only the darkness. A significant portion of the proceeds from this book are being contributed to support refugee entrepreneurs and general refugee causes in Za'atari and around the world.
Andrew Leon Hanna inspires readers with examples of bravery, creativity and resilience.’ - Financial Times
On the night of 23 February 1820, twenty-five impoverished craftsmen assembled in an obscure stable in Cato Street, London, with a plan to massacre the whole British cabinet at its monthly dinner. The Cato Street Conspiracy was the most sensational of all plots aimed at the British state since Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It ended in betrayal, arrest, and trial, and with five conspirators publicly hanged and decapitated for treason. Vic Gatrell explores this dramatic yet neglected event in unprecedented detail through spy reports, trial interrogations, letters, speeches, songs, maps, and images. Attending to the 'real lives' and habitats of the men, women, and children involved, he throws fresh light on the troubled and tragic world of Regency Britain, and on one of the most compelling and poignant episodes in British history.
'A panoramic and thrilling study of an overlooked part of British history.' - Catherine Ostler, Daily Telegraph
The Lost Paratroopers of Normandy tells the inspiring yet heartbreaking story of ordinary people who did extraordinary things in defence of liberty and freedom. On D-Day, when transport planes dropped paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions hopelessly off-target into marshy waters in northwestern France, the 900 villagers of Graignes welcomed them with open arms. These villagers – predominantly women – provided food, gathered intelligence, and navigated the floods to retrieve the paratroopers' equipment at great risk to themselves. In this moving book, historian Stephen G. Rabe, son of one of the paratroopers, meticulously documents the forgotten lives of those who participated in this integral part of D-Day history.
'… this history combines heroism and tragedy in equal measure. WWII buffs will be engrossed.’ - Publishers Weekly
James Joyce's Ulysses is considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. This new edition - published to celebrate the book's first publication - helps readers to understand the pleasures of this monumental work and to grapple with its challenges. Copiously equipped with maps, photographs, and explanatory footnotes, it provides a vivid and illuminating context for the experiences of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom, as well as Joyce's many other Dublin characters, on June 16, 1904. Featuring a facsimile of the historic 1922 Shakespeare and Company text, this version also includes Joyce's own errata as well as references to amendments made in later editions. Each of the eighteen chapters of Ulysses is introduced by a leading Joyce scholar. These richly informative pieces discuss the novel's plot and allusions, while also explaining crucial questions that have puzzled and tantalized readers over the last hundred years.
‘You could do worse than put the Cambridge Centenary Ulysses in a few Christmas stockings...’ – The Australian Book Review
Historian Susan L. Carruthers looks at the phenomenon of the 'Dear John letter' - break up letters written to soldiers by their partners - in American military culture. Drawing on personal letters, oral histories, and psychiatric reports, as well as popular music and movies, she presents a sweeping history of emotional life in wartime that explores the interplay between letter-writing and storytelling, breakups and breakdowns, and between imploded intimacy and boosted camaraderie. Incorporating vivid personal experiences in lively and engaging prose – variously tragic, comic, and everything in between – this compelling study will change the way we think about wartime relationships.
'...makes a persuasive case that the culture of the “Dear John” letter has helped make women, not war, the culprit for love’s breakdown under pressure.' - Publishers Weekly
Visit the Cambridge University Press Bookshop’s website to see more great books. The shop itself can be found at 1 Trinity Street, Cambridge.
