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

Reading lists for AMES languages are not currently available.

If you will be combining with a European language, see the following summer preparation recommendations from the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages: Offer holders overview

The Chemical Engineering Faculty provides some reading suggestions.

At the end of August in the year you start at Cambridge, we will give you access to the online STEMBridge course. As part of this course, you will be asked to complete a number of mathematical problems that provide a representative set of revision problems for core mathematical skills. The course is normally about 40 hours of work and is intended for you to spread over four weeks, however if you are unavailable for parts of September, that is not a problem: we recommend that you spread it over at least two weeks but it is possible to do it all together if you want to. 

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 reading suggestions.

• 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.

Make sure you're familiar with your school maths and physics. Resources such as Isaac Science, Nrich Maths and I want to study Engineering remain useful.

At the end of August in the year you start at Cambridge, we will give you access to the online STEMBridge course. As part of this course, you will be asked to complete a number of mathematical problems that provide a representative set of revision problems for core mathematical skills. The course is normally about 40 hours of work and is intended for you to spread over four weeks, however if you are unavailable for parts of September, that is not a problem: we recommend that you spread it over at least two weeks but it is possible to do it all together if you want to. 

• 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

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

Offer holders overview

We will be in touch with a letter from the Director of Studies in the late July before you start about preparation for the course.

• 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.

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 if you'd like to do some reading. We'll send you a workbook in late August - we recommend not using the one on the Faculty page as a) it may well be an old version (depending on when you look) and b) the point is for you to work on it in the month before you start your course. 

See

• Preparatory work for Medicine
• Basic Science concepts for Medicine

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

Offer holders overview

We will be in touch with a letter from the Director of Studies in the late July before you start about preparation for the course.

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)

Remember that there is a study preparation page for Natural Sciences if you would like reading suggestions or problem solving websites. 

At the end of August in the year you start at Cambridge, we will give you access to the online STEMBridge course. As part of this course, you will be asked to complete a number of mathematical problems that provide a representative set of revision problems for core mathematical skills. The course is normally about 40 hours of work and is intended for you to spread over four weeks, however if you are unavailable for parts of September, that is not a problem: we recommend that you spread it over at least two weeks but it is possible to do it all together if you want to. 

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