Summer reading & preparation suggestions for offer holders

Please see the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic's suggested reading page.

Please see the Department of Archaeology suggested reading page.

• Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Vintage, 1997. 
• Escobar, Arturo. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press, 2018. 
• Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture, Settings and Rituals, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Tonkiss, Fran. Cities by Design: The Social Life of Urban Form. Polity, 2014.
• Sharr, Adam. Modern Architecture: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018

Please see the following Departments for their suggested reading pages:

• Arabic
• Persian
• Hebrew
• Chinese
• Japanese

Please see the Faculty of Classics' suggested reading page.

Charles Petzold (2000) Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software Microsoft Press

David Harel Algorithmics Addison Wesley

Students are encouraged to remain confident in A level (or equivalent) material, particularly the Maths background, and also to code as much as they can, if possible.

Please see the Department of Design's suggested reading page.

• Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
• Misbehaving by Richard Thaler
• This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff
• The Art of Statistics: Learning from Data by David Spiegelhalter

Bartlett, S., & Burton, D., eds. (2016). Introduction to Education Studies. 5th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Bennett, A., & Royle, N. (2016). An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 6th ed. New York: Routledge.

Jarvis, P., & Watts, M., eds. (2012). The Routledge International Handbook of Learning. New York: Routledge.

Noddings, N. (2016). Philosophy of Education. 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

Please see the Department of Engineering's suggested reading page.

• Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, trans. Barry Windeatt, for Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford, 1998)
• Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, trans. David Wright with intro. by Christopher Cannon, for Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford, 2011).
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. Simon Armitage (Norton, 2009)
• Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript, ed. Helen Cooper, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford, 1998, repr. 2008).
• J.A. Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, (Oxford, 1982)
• David Wallace, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (Cambridge, 2002)

• Alley, Richard (ed.) (2014) The two mile time machine: ice cores, abrupt climate change, and our future
• Criado Perez, Caroline (2019) Invisible Women
• Hulme, Mike (2009) Why we disagree about climate change
• Oppenheimer, Clive (2011) Eruptions that shook the world

These items are intended as introductions to thinking about history as a craft and a discipline. There is very little compulsory reading in the Cambridge History course; we very much encourage students to pursue their own particular interests through their reading and to dip into new topics that seem appealing. All reading is helpful reading.

• Ulinka Rublack (ed.), A Concise Companion to History (Oxford, 2011).
• Carolyn Steedman, Dust (Manchester, 2001).
• Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (London, 2000 - or any subsequent edition).
• 'You're Dead to Me' podcast, BBC

• John Arnold, History: A Very Short Introduction
• Richard Whatmore, The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction
• Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short Introduction
• David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

Ways of Seeing / John Berger. London: Penguin Books, 1972.

The Story of Art Without Men / Katy Hessel. London: Hutchinson Heinemann, 2022.

The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft / Anne Friedberg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance / Erwin Panofsky. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1972

Please see the Faculty of Human, Social and Political Sciences' suggested reading page.

See the page on preparing for the Land Economy degree on the Land Economy website.

Please see these reading suggestions made by students at the Faculty of Law. 

See the Department Preliminary reading list.

Please see the Faculty of Mathematics' suggested reading list.

See

• Preparatory work for Medicine
• Basic Science concepts for Medicine

See the following summer preparation recommendations
from the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages:

French post A-level (or equivalent) /
(there's no French from scratch)
German post A-level (or equivalent) / 
German from scratch
Italian post A-level (or equivalent) / 
Italian from scratch
Portuguese post A level (or equivalent) / 
Portuguese from scratch
Russian post A-level (or equivalent) / Russian from scratch
Spanish post A-level (or equivalent) / Spanish from scratch

• Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2021)
• Richard Taruskin and Christopher Gibbs, The Oxford History of Western Music: College Edition
• J. P. E. Harper-Scott and Jim Samson (eds), An Introduction to Music Studies (Cambridge 2009)
• Philip V. Bohlman, World Music: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2002)

See the suggested reading list for the
Natural Sciences Tripos.

Please see the Faculty of Philosophy's suggested reading list.

• Making up the mind Frith, C. 2007 (Blackwell)
• Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind Magnun, Gazzagina, Ivry
• A framework for consciousness Francis Crick and Christof Koch

See the Faculty introductory reading list