The first book to describe fully the foundations and development of St John's College Cambridge, highlighting the role its alumni have always played in the life of the nation. Within a generation of its foundation on the site of a decayed hospital at the behest of Lady Margaret Beaufort, England's queen mother, the College of St John the Evangelist had established itself as one of the kingdom's foremosteducational establishments: in the words of one notable contemporary, as 'an university within it selfe' indeed. And in the period thereafter - the years between 1511 and 1989, the period covered by the present volume - St John's has continued to provide its fair share of Prime Ministers and other politicians, bishops, Nobel laureates, artists, writers, and sporting heroes, as well as to irrigate the rich loam of the nation's history in all sorts of other unexpected ways and places. However, not until the organisation of the College's archives and records in the present generation has it been possible to describe in sufficient detail the full story of that progress and adequately to trace the College's development and achievements in recent centuries. The present history, the first since the early 1700s to provide a systematic and informed account of the subject, seeks to make good this historical defect. It is published as part of the celebration of the quincentenary of the College's foundation.

The Old Library of St John's College, Cambridge is home to a hugely important collection of printed books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, furniture, busts, paintings and other artefacts, the work of writers, craftsmen and artists active across more than one thousand years.The Library Treasures of St John's College, Cambridge offers a lavishly illustrated introduction to the diversity and richness of that collection. It demonstrates something particularly important about St John's College Library, and about libraries in many other Cambridge Colleges: that besides meeting the academic needs of present-day Fellows and students, they also care for museum and archival collections of national and international importance: the essential primary materials and sources sought after by scholars across the world.

A thoroughly delightful exploration of trees around St John’s College, Cambridge revealing their importance to a young undergraduate as he entwined the role of organ scholar and music student with his emerging passion to engage with the environment and its preservation. Imagine hearing a theme and improvisations which he might play on the organ - a paragraph on an aspect of a venerable tree on the Backs, a tangential leap to deal with thoughts which arise from characteristics of the nature of growth, or delights of climbing to great heights, then of swimming within dark waters at night, poems spring to mind. Angela Lemaire has followed his improvisatory ideas and made some remarkable woodcuts to enhance the book throughout. The Wordsworth Oak, the Little Lime, the Babington Yew, the Horizontal Willow - themes are stated and progress through moods of anger, rage, sadness, a need for solitude. ‘What is an acorn if not a tiny ‘wet’ computer? A seed is a collection of algorithms that manipulate matter, rather than the darkness behind a computer screen. This is the key to understanding tree morphology; a tree is the embodiment of a set of instructions for obtaining the materials necessary for propagation.’ Such are the revelations presented in a progress round the glorious trees of Cambridge.--Publisher's website.

An invitation to readers from every walk of life to rediscover the impractical splendors of a life of learning In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Hitz's own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfillment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought. Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us. Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.