Alumni authors

Many former Birkbeck students have published books in both their academic fields and beyond. If you have written a book and you would like us to publicise it here, please contact us.

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Fiction

Grace Williams says it loud (Emma Henderson, MA Creative Writing, 2006)

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, 2011
Grace Williams Says It Loud tells the story of a severely mentally and physically disabled young girl, sent to live in a mental institute at the age of 11.
Set in the 1950s, it explores the stigma attached to disability and the consequences for Grace in particular. Nothing really happens as such, and that is sort of the point. Grace was confined within the Briar Institute for most of her adolescence, and her relationship with a fellow patient, Daniel, is at the centre of her life and of the book. An epileptic who lost his arms in a car accident, Daniel injects some love and life into Grace's existence. Human relationships are explored in detail: from the Briar staff who regard the patients as little more than animals, to Grace's parents who love her but cannot cope with her care.
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The Magnificent Mrs Tennant (David Waller, MA Victorian Studies, 2004)

Gertrude Tennant's life was remarkable for its length (1819-1918), but even more so for the influence she achieved as an unsurpassed London hostess. The salon she established when widowed in her early fifties attracted legions of celebrities, among them Gladstone and Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Thomas Huxley, John Everett Millais, Henry James, and Robert Browning. In her youth she had a fling with Gustave Flaubert, and in her later years she became the redoubtable mother-in-law to the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. But as a woman in a male-dominated world, Mrs. Tennant has been remembered mainly as a footnote in the lives of eminent men.
This book recovers the lost life of Gertrude Tennant, drawing on a treasure trove of recently discovered family papers - thousands of letters, including two dozen original letters from Flaubert to Gertrude, dozens of diaries, and many other unpublished documents relating to Stanley and other famous figures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. David Waller presents Gertrude Tennant's life in colourful detail, placing her not only at the heart of a multi-generational, matriarchal family epic but also at the centre of European social, literary, and intellectual life for the best part of a century.
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For the Messengers (Dr Jude Cowan, PhD Visual Arts and Media, 2008)

In early 2008 Jude Cowan began to write poems in response to the un-packaged daily news footage she was archiving for the Thomson Reuters news agency. She continued throughout what proved, globally, to be a tumultuous and historic year.
For the Messengers draws together this work and is a startling document. Cowan has a talent for locating the key details which cut to the human centre of a story and levels a sharp eye and subtle wit wherever she turns her gaze. These skills, allied with a sure poetic gift, help her do justice to the day-to-day journalistic footwork which this book illuminates and celebrates.
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Shop Girl Diaries (Emily Benet, Dip. Journalism, 2009)

Shoppers, suitors and chandeliers make up Emily Benet's comic world. Selling lightbulbs in her mother's London shop conceals her burning ambition to become a writer. Till-side accounts of the general public's desire for retail therapy and light switches form the backdrop to Benet's well-lit tour of the credit crunch, as the shop faces closure and the real-life transition from retail assistant to published writer all comes true, with some salsa dancing thrown in for good measure.
Charming, scatty and endearing, Benet's diary reveals more about Britain's current climate than diamante fittings might suggest. This new book is an adaptation of Benet's hugely popular Shop Girl Blog and already has thousands saying she's the new Bridget Jones, but with one difference: she's a real-life shop assistant in a very real shop.
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29 Ways to Drown (Niki Aguirre, MA Creative Writing, 2005)

Influenced by a Latin American literary tradition steeped in magic realism, but embracing a personal history that has included living in Chicago, Cadiz, Guayaquil and London, this collection of short stories reveal a writer with an incredible range, humour and balance.
Her stories convey a gritty, often scientifically-sophisticated world with a touch of surrealism. Shamans parade the pages side-by-side with lovesick film buffs, papers and humans fly at will, and intellectual and professional quests lead to self-destruction.
Whether it is a boy trapped at age 14 after a botched attempt to capture time, an organic seed distributor entrapping an errant lover with a replica pre-Columbian artefact, or a woman attempting to drown herself in a water aerobics class in London, these stories grip by their absolute logic and the sheer absurdity of the inevitable truths they unravel.
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Out of a Clear Sky (Sally Hinchcliffe, MA Creative Writing, 2004)

Reviewed by Joanna Hines for the Guardian, February 2009: If the prospect of 'getting a crash course in the logistics of a medium sized twitch' is alien to you, then you're obviously not a serious birdwatcher.
The narrator of Hinchcliffe's debut novel is, and her hobby is nearly the death of her. After a troubled childhood in Tanzania, Manda has found companionship, love and purpose among the twitchers of Maidenhead, but happy days among semi-palmate sandpipers end abruptly when her long-term boyfriend flies off in pursuit of an Essex girl, and she herself is threatened by a binocular-wielding stalker.
Manda's African past, with its slowly unfolding tale of her elusive father and alcoholic mother, is interwoven with an increasingly dangerous present. The watchers become both predators and prey in this confident and well-paced novel, which builds to its gruesome climax with leisurely menace. Those inoffensive-looking dunnocks are inveterate adulterers, ravens are murderous and cuckoos are famously hostile to married life.
But their human devotees are much worse.
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Stay God (Nik Korpon, MA Creative Writing, 2007)

Damon lives a content life, playing video games and dealing drugs from his second-hand store while his girlfriend, Mary, drops constant hints about marriage. If only he could tell her his name isn't really Damon. If only he could tell her who he really is. But after he witnesses a friend's murder, a scarlet woman glides into his life, offering the solution to all of his problems.
His carefully constructed existence soon shatters like crystal teardrops and he must determine which ghosts won't stay buried - and which ones are trying to kill him - if he wants to learn why Mary has disappeared.
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Goodbye, Mango Sergeant (Keith Walker, Dip. Economics, 1965)

In the mid-1960s, Keith Walker said goodbye to the land of his birth to join his mother in England. It was the time of love and 'flower power', but life in London for a young, black man was cold, bleak, unfriendly and presented a whole new set of challenges. Every day was a struggle in his new, adopted home, but Keith accepted his fate and decided to do the best he could. Now, nearly 50 years on, he looks back on his life, its joys, its sadness and, finally, its success.

The book is available to Birkbeck alumni at 50% discount for £4.50 (free UK delivery). To purchase a signed copy please send a cheque, or money order to: Keith Walker, P.O Box 216, Dartford, Kent DA1 1WY.

The woman who saved the children (Clare Mulley MA Social and Cultural History, 2006)

'I don't care for children...the little wretches', Eglantyne Jebb wrote bitterly as a young schoolteacher in 1900.
She would never have children of her own, and had no great fondness for those of her family and friends. Yet this unlikely children's champion devoted her life to establishing the Save the Children movement and promoting children's human rights around the world. In her prize-winning biography The Woman Who Saved the Children, Clare Mulley tells the story of how and why a charismatic spinster revolutionised the way the world treats children.
Eglantyne's short life was full of humour and tragedy, passion and pain. Her journeys took her from illicit romance in Cambridge to espionage in Serbia, and from private spiritualism in Shropshire to public arrest in Trafalgar Square. With the help of supporters including George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, and Pope Benedict XV, she managed to save millions of young lives and changed the mindset of a generation, before dying aged just 52, her hair prematurely white but her passion undimmed.
Meticulously researched, fresh, and immediate, Mulley's account of the adventures and tribulations of a humble revolutionary is a deeply moving testament to the power of humanitarian spirit.
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John Ruskin, Henry James and the Shropshire Lads (Dr Cynthia Gamble, PhD French, 1997)

This fascinating book leads us to Shropshire's 'beautiful little places' that inspired great writers, painters, politicians, diplomats and clergymen.
In the first part of the book, John Ruskin, the greatest of the great Victorians, is presented among his stimulating circle of interesting and unusual Shropshire friends such as Broseley-born Osborne Gordon, his sister Jane and her husband John Pritchard; Edward Cheney of Badger Hall, Venice and London. Ruskin's own visits to Shropshire from an early age were inspirational: he returned and sketched among the ruins of Wenlock Priory.
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Estrella Damn (Matthew Loukes, MA Creative Writing, 2005)

Slim Gunter tries to help people. People like Estrella Woolf. They have too much money, too few scruples and attract trouble like a night-bus. When Slim investigates the theft of a Tibetan artefact he doesn't expect to get more out of it than enough money to pay the rent and settle the tab in the off licence. What he actually gets is a case involving strong drugs, rats in hats, bad policemen, Maltese crooks, pornography, a trip to the seaside, and murder. Big Eddie Scarborough, academic Barclay Lloyd and Slim's sweetheart Lady join forces to find out what is really going on. But nobody's telling the truth and everyone has something to hide, including Slim.
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Non-fiction

Trading the Fixed Income, Inflation and Credit Markets: A Relative Value Guide (The Wiley Finance Series) (Troy Bowler, MSc Economics, 1991)

Trading the Fixed Income, Inflation and Credit Markets is a comprehensive guide to the most popular strategies used in wholesale financial markets, answering the question: what is the optimal way to express a view on expected market movements?
This relatively unique approach to relative value highlights the pricing links between different products and how these relationships can be used as the basis for a number of trading strategies.
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Russia: 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East (Martin Sixsmith, Dip. Applied Psychology, 2006)

Accompanying a landmark BBC Radio 4 series, and marking the 20th anniversary of the dissolution of the USSR, Russia is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex political and cultural landscape of Russia, and its unique place in the modern world.
Combining in-depth research, travel and interviews with his personal experiences as BBC Moscow Correspondent for many years, Sixsmith tells Russia's full and fascinating story, from its shaky beginnings in the ninth century to the first years of the twenty-first, skilfully tracing the conundrums of modern Russia to their roots in its troubled past. Covering politics, music, literature and art, he explores the myths Russians have created from their history, and uncovers the roots of Russia's split personality in the influences that have divided it for centuries.
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Cold Region Hazards and Risks (Colin A. Whiteman, BSc Geography, 1974 and PhD Geography, 1990)

Whiteman's text brings together, for the first time, information about a vast array of hazards associated with ice and snow, spanning both well known phenomenon (e.g. avalanches) and the less familiar (e.g. river ice jams and ice storms) using, in many cases, material which is rarely seen outside advanced academic research books and journals.
A range of ice-related hazards is introduced and the significance of the current global warming context discussed. Broad physical models of glacial, periglacial and atmospheric cold environments are presented to provide a scientific context for discussion of the human issues of risk, vulnerability impact and mitigation.
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Middle-earth and beyond; essays on the world of JRR Tolkien (Featuring the work of Sue Bridgwater, Cert. Creative Writing, 2004)

The subject of this collection has been well documented over the years, but this new volume of work on JRR Tolkien still manages to cover new ground. The entries on sources and analogues in The Lord of the Rings, a favourite topic, are still able to take new directions. The analyses of Tolkien's literary art, less common in Tolkien criticism, focus on character, especially that of Tom Bombadil in which two different conclusions are reached. But characterisation is also seen in the light of different literary techniques, motifs, and symbols. A unique contribution examines the place of linguistics in Tolkien's literary art, employing Gricean concepts in an analysis of The Lay of the Children of Húrin. And a quite timely essay presents a new interpretation of Tolkien's attitude toward the environment.
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Norman Churches in the Canterbury Diocese (Mary Berg, MSc Economics, 1976)

In 1066 William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxon army to become King of England. His victory heralded a significant transformation of English society and this is reflected in the architecture of the time, not least in the Canterbury diocese of Kent, where around 100 churches were built or rebuilt during the twelfth century. This is the first detailed consideration of Norman churches in the Canterbury diocese. Richly illustrated with over 100 illustrations, eighteen of the principal churches are studied and a detailed gazetteer contains some eighty more. The origins, history, development and architecture of the buildings are discussed, and the close links between East Kent and the Bessin area of Normandy explored.
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Finance: Plain and Simple: What You Need to Know to Make Better Financial Decisions (Sebastien Nokes, BA Philosophy, 1994)

Learn the fundamentals of financial language so you can make better financial decisions. This complete and easy-to-digest guide to financial jargon will show you how to understand finance, how to speak financial language, how to make better financial decisions and will show you how financial decision making affects you.
Finance Plain and Simple is for everyone who will need to make financial decisions throughout their lives - be it about pensions, savings, mortgages or investments. This accessible book includes worked examples and case studies which illustrate how terms like AER and cash flow affect individual consumers.
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Thinking Globally Acting Locally - a personal journey (Professor Peter Mittler, PhD Psychology, 1969)

Peter Mittler came to England at the age of eight, as a refugee from Nazi oppression of Jews in Austria. This experience is described in his memoir Thinking Globally Acting Locally: A Personal Journey (2010). A chapter of this book is devoted to his time studying at Birkbeck, University of London.
This memoir also includes accounts of his later career as a clinical psychologist, as a university teacher and researcher and his work with United Nations and other international organisations as a consultant in education and disability. He now divides his time between Manchester and Florence, where he has a second home.
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City-Lit guides from Oxygen books (Dr Heather Reyes, PhD English, 1998)

City-Lit guides are an entertaining, lively and fascinating new series of travel guides. Collecting some of the best writing on European cities from both contemporary and classic authors, each one is sure to give a real flavour of the place, whether you're visiting or appreciating from the armchair. In addition, from publication of each City-Lit guide, there is a list of a handful of books that make great reading companions to each guide.
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Silver in Healthcare: Its Antimicrobial Efficacy and Safety in Use (Dr Alan Lansdown, PhD Zoology, 1969)

A comprehensive account of the history of silver in medicine, its clinical benefits and advantages as a broad spectrum antimicrobial agent.
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