Alumni Services

November 2016

Worlds that we have left behind, the literary influence of Scotland's capital and an insight into wealth are just some of the themes explored by this month's alumni in print.

1.

Author

Edited by Claire Askew and Russell Jones

Degree English literature and creative writing (both)
Book

Umbrellas of Edinburgh

Umbrellas of Edinburgh contains over 200 pages of contemporary poetry and prose inspired by locations across Edinburgh.

Scotland’s capital has always excited the literary mind; the narrow cobbled streets and ornate turrets a contradiction crying out to be explored and fashioned into metaphor. This is a landmark anthology containing the work of seventy writers including Ryan Van Winkle, JL Williams, Aonghas Macneacail, Gerda Stevenson, Pippa Goldschmidt, Hamish Whyte, Jane Goldman, Theresa Muñoz, Rob A Mackenzie, Colin Will, Richie McCaffrey, Sophie Cooke, Forward Prize-shortlisted Harry Giles and Edinburgh Makar Christine De Luca; a selection that perfectly demonstrates the vitality of the Scottish literary scene.

Umbrellas of Edinburgh

2.

Author Ian Osler
Degree Molecular biology
Book

The Compound Fracture

Madrid, 1992. Peter Atkinson sits in a seminar room waiting to begin a routine meeting with key personnel of a large pharmaceutical company. An informal conversation, which he is not meant to overhear, leads him to recognise serious consequences for innocent patients. As this international intrigue develops, there are intrusions into the personal lives that test resilience and loyalties in the face of life-changing events.

The Compound Fracture

3.

Author Doug Johnstone
Degree Physics
Book Crash Land

Sitting in the departure lounge of Kirkwall Airport, Finn Sullivan just wants to get off Orkney. But then he meets the mysterious and dangerous Maddie Pierce, stepping in to save her from some unwanted attention, and his life is changed forever.

Set against the brutal, unforgiving landscape of Orkney, Crash Land is a psychological thriller steeped in guilt, shame, lust, deception and murder.

Crash Land

 

4.

Author

Kieron Connolly

Degree History
Book

Abandoned Places

Children’s schoolbooks left open in a classroom, trees entangled in a rusting ferris wheel, hulks of ships high and dry, miles from any water – seeing images like these we’re bound to wonder: what happened here?

Ranging from the urban aquarium of a flooded shopping mall to majestic shipwrecks, from aircraft graveyards to forgotten railway stations, from leper colonies to radiation zones, Abandoned Places explores 65 fascinating lost worlds from all around the globe.

Arranged thematically from industrial to military sites, from ghosts towns to recreational sites, the book explains through extended captions the story of how each place came to be abandoned – natural or chemical disaster, war, economic collapse, changing attitudes and tastes.

Abandoned Places

5.

Author

Diana Chambers

Degree Business
Book

True Wealth – Letters on Money, Life, and Love

In True Wealth, Diana Chambers gets to the heart of how we feel about money and shows us how to be truly wealthy. If you’ve dated someone who has more or less wealth than you do, tried to talk with your children or parents about sensitive financial topics, struggled to define your unique identity in the context of your family, sought to discern how best to share your wealth with others, or wondered about your impact and legacy, then True Wealth is for you.

True Wealth – Letters on Money, Life, and Love

6.

Author

Professor Richard Rodger

Degree Economics and economic history, social sciences
Book

Insanitary City: Henry Littlejohn and the Condition of Edinburgh

Dr Henry Littlejohn’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of Edinburgh (1865) was a landmark in urban management and public health administration. The Lancet described it as ‘monumental’. The Report had a significance far beyond the boundaries of Edinburgh and his meticulous research produced penetrating insights into the links between poverty, employment and public health in Victorian cities.

Insanitary City reproduces the full Report and sets it in this wider context. For over half a century, Littlejohn’s career as Police Surgeon, Crown witness in murder cases and medical advisor to the Scottish Poor Law authorities, gave him an unrivalled overview of the problems confronting Victorian society. In 1895 he was knighted ‘for services to sanitary science’.

Insanitary City: Henry Littlejohn and the Condition of Edinburgh

Also by the same author:

Edinburgh’s Colonies: Housing the Workers ((Available as an audio book from the Royal National Institute for the Blind)

The Transformation of Edinburgh: Land, Property and Trust in the Nineteenth Century

 

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.