Alumni Services

August 2016

A bumper crop of summer alumni publications featuring fiction, law, history, archaeology, advice for life and outdoor adventure.

1.

Author

Helen Sedgwick

Degree Physics
Book

The Comet Seekers

One Day meets The Time Traveler's Wife in this spellbinding, magical debut novel about love, loss, hope and heartbreak that shows us that for each of us, the world can be as lonely or as beautiful as the comets that illuminate the skies above us.

Róisín and François first meet in the snowy white expanse of Antarctica. And everything changes.

While Róisín grew up in a tiny village in Ireland, ablaze with a passion for science and the skies and for all there is to discover about the world, François was raised by his beautiful young mother, who dreamt of new worlds but was unable to turn her back on her past.

As we loop back through their lives, glimpsing each of them only when a comet is visible in the skies above, we see how their paths cross as they come closer and closer to this moment.

Theirs are stories filled with love and hope and heartbreak, that show how strangers can be connected and ghosts can be real, and the world can be as lonely or as beautiful as the comets themselves.

The Comet Seekers

2.

Author Allyson Stack
Degree English Literature
Book

Under the Heartless Blue

Arizona, 1884, and Vera Palmer, a 23 year old widow from genteel Connecticut arrives in the frontier town of Goose Flat to take up a prospecting claim inherited from her dead husband, and a part-time job as a bookeeper in a local boarding house. The boarding house is in fact a brothel but, needing the money, Vera takes the job anyway.

She's soon drawn into the violent, abused lives of the working girls and Sadie, their Madame. Vera is attracted to bar regular Will Keane, a local lawyer, who helps her investigate the mining claim. Can love offer her an escape or will the unpredictable, dangerous world surrounding the Star Mansion brothel destroy the relationship and Vera's hopes of a new life? Here Allyson Stack offers a gripping, beautifully wrought love story amidst a wholly authentic evocation of the Wild West at its most threatening.

Under the Heartless Blue

3.

Author Sean Michael Wilson
Degree Social Anthropology
Book Once Upon a Time in Morningside

A poetic take on the Scottish childhood of writer Sean Michael Wilson, in comic book form, drawn by lovely Swedish artist Hanna Stromberg. The book mixes together 14 intimate and interesting childhood stories and adventures, with a touch of magical realism.

Once Upon a Time in Morningside

4.

Author

Peter Harrington

Degree Archaeology
Book

William Simpson’s Afghanistan. Travels of a Special Artist and Antiquarian During the Second Afghan War 1878-1879

Simpson, a native of Glasgow, was one of the leading pictorial illustrators of the 19th century, and spent most of his career travelling the world on behalf of his employer, the Illustrated London News. In 1878, the paper dispatched him to Afghanistan to cover the anticipated war. He spent seven months covering the campaign although much of his time was spent exploring the numerous ancient Buddhist remains that dotted the landscape in and around Jalalabad.

The current volume uses Simpson's diary and his exquisite original sketches and drawings to paint a picture of Afghanistan at the time and offers a glimpse into colonial archaeology practiced in a war zone.

William Simpson’s Afghanistan. Travels of a Special Artist and Antiquarian During the Second Afghan War 1878-1879

5.

Author

Karen Baston

Degree Law
Book

Charles Areskine's Library: Lawyers and Their Books at the Dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment

In Charles Areskine’s Library, Karen Baston uses a detailed study of an eighteenth-century Scottish advocate’s private book collection to explore key themes in the Scottish Enlightenment including secularisation, modernisation, internationalisation, and the development of legal literature in Scotland.

By exploring a surviving manuscript dated 1731that lists a Scottish lawyer’s library, Karen Baston demonstrates that the books Charles Areskine owned, used in practice, and read for pleasure embedded him in the intellectual culture that expanded in early eighteenth-century Scotland. Areskine and his fellow advocates emerged as scholarly and sociable gentlemen who led their nation. Lawyers were integral to and integrated with the Scottish society that allowed the Scottish Enlightenment to take root and flourish within Areskine’s lifetime.

Charles Areskine's Library: Lawyers and Their Books at the Dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment

6.

 

Author Margaux Bergen
Degree History
Book Navigating Life: Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me

An inspiring, piercingly honest user's guide to life, written for the author's daughter and given to her on her first day of college, reflecting tough lessons about family, work, and marriage.

You learn a few useful things at school--the three Rs come in handy, and it's good to know how to perform under pressure and wait your turn--but most of what matters, what makes you into a functioning human being, able to hold your own in conversation, find your path, know what to avoid in relationships and secure a meaningful job, no teacher will ever tell you. This diamond-sharp, gut-punchingly honest book of hard-earned wisdom is one mother's effort to equip her daughter for survival in the real world.

Navigating Life: Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me

7.

Author Seth Jenny
Degree Performance Coaching
Book Marathon’s Walk in the Woods: An Appalachian Trail Thru-hike
Seth Jenny
Seth Jenny

Ever wonder what it would be like to hike 2,174 miles from Georgia to Maine along the world’s longest continuously marked footpath? Join “Marathon” as he provides a humorous autobiographical account of a “real” walk in the woods. Anyone who enjoys travel or adventure will love Marathon’s story. This book is required reading for any outdoor enthusiast and will certainly assist anyone wanting to plan an Appalachian Trail (AT) section or thru-hike. Live vicariously through this entertaining account, which includes over 350 accompanying pictures.

This book is the culmination of 34 articles that were written for the author’s hometown newspaper as he thru-hiked the entire AT. All articles were written while still on the trail. Appendices also include the author’s daily mileage and location log, his thru-hike equipment list, a suggested AT readings list, and a comprehensive collection of reflective thoughts and suggestions by another AT thru-hiker, “Bonespur.”

Marathon’s Walk in the Woods: An Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

Please note

All of the further information links listed are the external websites of the book publisher, the author, or the bookseller. The University of Edinburgh is not responsible for the content and functionality of these sites.