On the Shelves

The Final Warning

Peter Isdell-Carpenter (C3 1954-59) £14.63

This is the exhilarating story of one young man’s desperate race to foil a meticulous plot to overthrow the American government. In post-Trump America, the besieged new president Adam Sukova is grappling with a vicious threat gaining traction between the stars and stripes. As American freedom hangs by a thread, he must resort to a desperate measure. His young White House intern is dispatched on a terrifying mission to discover the truth and prevent the nation’s destruction before it’s too late. If it isn’t too late already.

Is freedom already lost? What is really going wrong inside the most powerful nation in the free world? The Final Warning is an arresting and timely contemporary thriller from a master storyteller. It is steeped in conspiracy, diverse characters, and an incredibly deft knowledge of American consciousness – at times disturbing, at others heart-warming, at times light-hearted, and at others unbelievably significant.

Public Schools and the Second World War

David Walsh (C1 1960-65) and Sir Anthony Seldon £18.74

Following on from Public Schools and the Great War, Sir Anthony Seldon and David Walsh now examine those same schools in the Second World War. Privileged conservative traditions of private schools were challenged in the inter-war years by the changing social and political landscape, including a greater role for the alumni of girls’ public schools. What was that public school spirit in 1939 and how did it and its products cope with, and contribute to, the requirements of a modern global conflict both physically and intellectually? The book answers these questions by, for example, examining the public schools’ role in the development and operations of the RAF, in unconventional warfare and codebreaking. At home there was bombing, evacuation and the threat of invasion. Finally, the authors study how public schools shaped the way the war was interpreted culturally and how they responded to victory in 1945 and hopes of a new social order. This fascinating book draws widely on primary source material and personal accounts of inspiring courage and endurance.

Frank Price: Golden Hand of the Silver Studio

Sarah Wright (B2 1968-69) £12

Available to OMs at the discounted price of £12. Enquiries to Birse Press at this email aboyne.wright@btinternet.com Frank Price, 1891 to 1970, was the last Chief Designer of the Silver Studio. Even today, his ghost hovers over the smartest and most exclusive interior decoration. From 1880 to 1965, his employers produced some of the finest fabrics and wallpapers sold to Heads of State, Liberty, Sanderson, Warner, Baker and a host of names from across the world. The name of the studio, however, was almost unknown because its designs were rebadged, an acceptable practice at the time. Unfortunately, names such as Frank Price lapsed into obscurity. He is an elusive artist, creating wonderful designs in almost every genre – from japonaiserie to Old English. Because of his skills, he was chained to the fashion treadmill. His private notebook and subtly subversive flower studies suggest the real Frank. This book is for everyone interested in 20th-century design.

Puddings, Bullies & Squashes: Early Public School Football Codes

Contributions from David Walsh (C1 1960-65) and Grainne Lenehan (College Archivist) £19

Each public school played a form of football by their own laws, as they were grandly called, until a meeting at the Freemasons’ Tavern near Covent Garden in 1863 agreed a common system. The story of the game’s development in these schools is admirably told in a collection of essays edited by Malcolm Tozer. ‘A few things leap out from reading this book. The first is how violent those early games were. The other is how most matches were based around the scrum rather than the individual, the mass not the maestro.’ Patrick Kidd, The Times. Puddings, Bullies and Squashes ‘fills a gap in the market and is much needed as an important supplement and research resource for future scholars. [It] uncovers one part of the early years of the

On the Shelves

development of football and provides more information on a mightily complex story. It is wholeheartedly recommended for the casual reader and the serious researcher.’ Graham Curry, Soccer & Society.

The Art Museum in Modern Times

Charles Saumarez Smith (C1 1967-71) £26.40

The National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy all saw either radical architectural interventions or rethinks of their mission under Charles Saumarez Smith’s leadership, making him uniquely qualified to explore the ways in which art museums have changed over the past century and examine where they might be headed in the future. For this book, Charles has undertaken an odyssey to art museums across the globe. From Tate Modern in London to the Benesse House Museum on the Japanese island of Naoshima; from the Getty Center in Los Angeles to the Museum of New and Old Art, a ferry-ride from Hobart in Tasmania; from the Pompidou Centre in Paris to the West Bund Museum in Shanghai – he has visited them all, casting an acute eye on the way the experience of art is shaped by the buildings that house it and the organising principles by which it is displayed. What has changed over the past century? Where the public once visited museums to be educated in art history, he argues, they are now more likely to be in search of a private, aesthetic experience. Museum displays that were automatically didactic, chronological and either national or Western in viewpoint are now thematic and global. While museums used to be invariably in city centres, they may now be in remote locations, destinations of cultural pilgrimage. And where architects once created neutral spaces in which to display art, they now build spectacular architectural landmarks, stamping an identity on run-down neighbourhoods and sparking regeneration through cultural tourism.

12 Birds to Save Your Life

Charlie Corbett (C1 1990-95) £11.55

Can you recognise the cheerful chirrups of the house sparrow? A song thrush singing out at winter’s darkest hour? Or the beautiful, haunting call of the curlew? At a time of great anxiety and uncertainty, while coping with the untimely death of his mother, Charlie Corbett realised his perspective on life was slipping. In a moment of despair, he found himself lying on the side of a lonely hill with a melancholy drizzle seeping into his bones. Suddenly he hears the song of a skylark – that soaring, tinkling, joyous sound echoing through the air above – and he is transported away from his dark thoughts. Grounded by the beauty of nature, perspective dawns. No longer the leading role in his own private melodrama, merely a bit part in nature’s great epic. Through twelve characterful birds, Charlie shows us there is joy to be found if we know where to look, and how to listen. From solitary skylarks to squabbling sparrows, he explores the place of these birds in our history, culture and landscape, noting what they look like and where you’re most likely to meet them. By reconnecting with the wildlife all around him and learning to move with the rhythms of the natural world, Charlie discovered nature’s powerful ability to heal. These birds can help you too. Every day.

The Altham-Bradman Letters

Robin Brodhurst (PR 1965-70) £12

Harry Altham and Don Bradman corresponded regularly in the late 1950s in the run-up to the I.C.C. Conference of 1960, which debated throwing and other contentious matters.

This book contains those letters, with a lengthy introduction by Altham’s grandson, and includes the minutes of the conference. Copiously annotated, this book shines a light on a difficult period in the Anglo-Australian cricketing relationships.

Cooking with Alcohol

Susannah Rickard (née Swinn, PR 2007-2009) £18.29

Cooking with Alcohol’s over 100 recipes will teach you to use one of the most popular ingredients in history in ways you’ve never imagined. Learn why alcohol deserves a firm place in your kitchen as well as in your glass and explore the ways that alcohol can impact a recipe beyond the taste. Alcoholic drinks are delicious. Fermented or distilled for flavour, these transformative ingredients will elevate your cooking. In this ground-breaking book, Aaron and Susannah Rickard delve into the interaction between the most universally enjoyed substance and the food that we cook. With alcohol as the key ingredient, they guide home cooks on how to bring unexpected depth and unrivalled complexity to their dishes and explore the science of using alcohol in the kitchen. Discover a

world of alcohol-infused cooking, from easy midweek suppers and heart-warming comfort foods, through to celebration feasts and luxurious desserts. Try recipes like Mojito Chicken, Fennel & White Wine Tagliatelle, Tequila and Habañero Salmon, Salted Caramel and Spiced Rum Brownies, Amaretto and Ginger Cheesecake, or make your own Cider Mustard. There are chapters for starters, mains, side dishes, sweet and savoury baking, and desserts. Each recipe gives an indication of the time taken and any extra equipment you need. Whether you’re cooking in a rush on a weekday evening or hosting an elaborate dinner party, there’s something for all occasions.

Every Word Counts

Alex Wright (B1 1989-94) £12.99

Did you know that there are 4.7 billion active Internet users? Yet, less than two-thirds of small businesses have a website. And only 32% have a content marketing strategy. That means if you don’t have either of these you are missing out on a lucrative revenue stream and opportunity to win new business. Reading this book will enable you to: build your online brand; increase sales and drive traffic to your website; realise the value of online content and earn a return on your investment; get noticed and stand out from your competitors online; improve your website and online content, including blogs, newsletters and social media posts; boost your own writing skills and confidence.

With more than 20 years’ experience as a copywriter and journalist, specialising in finance and business, Alex has not only worked for some of the leading national titles but also transformed the digital visibility of multiple businesses. Alex will guide you through everything you need to know to produce an award-winning website that will win you more customers and blow your competition out of the water.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Jonny Oates (PR 1982-87) £15.05

Aged fifteen and armed with a credit card stolen from his father, Jonny Oates ran away from home and boarded a plane to Addis Ababa. His plan? To single-handedly save the Ethiopian people from the devastating 1985 famine. Discovering on arrival that the demand for the assistance of unskilled fifteen-year-old English boys was limited, he learned the hard lesson that you can’t change the world just by pure force of will. A rare political memoir from a figure whose life before politics is every bit as gripping as their time in the corridors of power, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden charts Jonny’s darkest moments as an idealistic but troubled schoolboy alone in Ethiopia, struggling with his sexuality and mental health; it traces his journey onwards – to Zimbabwe, where, aged eighteen, he becomes deputy headteacher of a rural secondary school; to South Africa in the final year of Nelson Mandela’s presidency, where he works in the first post-apartheid parliament as the country seeks to shape a future from its bitterly divided past; and, ultimately, to the roller-coaster ride of Britain’s first post-war coalition government, where, as Nick Clegg’s chief of staff, he plays a key role in the struggle for his own country’s future and learns important lessons about the difference between power and duty. Shot through with a captivating warmth and humour, this heart-stoppingly candid memoir reflects on the challenges of balancing idealism and pragmatism, reminding us that lasting change comes from working together rather than standing alone.

Martha

Walker Zupp (B1 2012-14) £13.76

In an independent Scotland, Constable Harmon Chikenyyt is thrown into a world of drug-dealers and pimps. Their goal is simple: to use and sell as much of the hallucinogenic cannabinoid D.E.R.P. as possible. Suddenly, civil war breaks out in Belgium. The British Parliament decides to intervene with a band of Northern Irish mercenaries. As the civil war escalates, it becomes clear to Tara Blimmen that everything is connected; that each crime committed, whether in Scotland, the halls of Westminster, or Belgium, is a symptom of something far deadlier…

The Buildings of England: Wiltshire

Edited by Charles O’Brien (CO 1985-90) £45

The first edition of the Buildings of England: Wiltshire by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was published in 1963, as part of the 46-volume

On the Shelves

series covering all the English counties. Pevsner wrote or co-authored almost all the books published between 1951 and 1974, visiting two counties a year in his holidays from teaching at Cambridge and Birkbeck College. The guides quickly became the indispensable and unrivalled authority on the most significant buildings across the country from prehistoric monuments to architecture of the present day. Wiltshire was the county in which Nikolaus made his own home and he is buried in the graveyard at Clyffe Pypard. His work has been continued in a set of revised editions and June 2021 saw publication of the fully updated and expanded volume for Wiltshire, which deeply researches the places and buildings of Marlborough College. period during the Covid 19 pandemic. Pupils and staff were invited to consider wider themes related to locks, lockdowns and isolation.

In Time of Lockdown: Reflections on Locks, Lockdown, Isolation

Pupils and Beaks of Marlborough College Available online at marlboroughcollege. org/new-college-publication The Academic Scholars and HATA (the History And The Arts society) have created a book that reflects on and provides a permanent reminder of a year-and-a-half

Pip and Estella

Hugh Sockett (C1 1951-55) £12.15

Pip and Estella is a sequel to Great Expectations continuing themes of shame, guilt, love, religion, war, murder and the wealth gap, developed within historical events and a quasi-feminist stance. Pip becomes a lawyer recruited by Jaggers, whose will creates a trust for the Relief and Education of the Poor. Estella is dramatically reconciled with her natural mother, Molly, Jaggers’ servant. Estella confronts Miss Havisham’s legacy with Molly’s help, exposing Estella’s passionate love for Pip, and they marry after his first wife’s death in childbirth. Pip’s namesake, ‘Young’ Pip, is converted to Primitive Methodism and is wounded in the Crimean War. Equally varied are the fortunes of Dickens’ other central characters (Mr Jaggers, Joe and Biddy Gargery, John Wemmick) and such new characters as Beatrice Pocket, ‘Old’ Pip's first wife, Susanna Urchadan, Young Pip’s wife, and Hamish Macdonald, a new young lawyer.

If you have written, co-written, contributed towards, featured an OM in, or illustrated a book, please email catherine@theommagazine.co.uk