It’s that time of year when all the broadsheets are gathering together extensive lists of the very best books of the year with lots of heavyweight authors, timeless classics and coffee table style bibles. Well, here at Wonkhe we like to follow form and it is therefore only appropriate that we share with wonks everywhere all the key higher education tomes we think you should be adding to your Christmas list this year.
Some of those previously recommended here which have made the bestseller list this year already include:
- The Place of the Mace – identifying graduation paraphernalia
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- UKRI or I cry, Hef-see or Hef-key? The definitive sector agency pronunciation guide
- Cartel! Comparing and Contrasting Universities and Colombian Drug Barons
- The Essay Mill on the Floss
- Bleak Houses: student accommodation through the ages
- I’ve Got a Brand New Combine Harvester – agricultural economics in the Archers
- 100 Years of Solitude – research in the arts
- The Man in the High Castle – the biggest and best Vice-Chancellor residences
- Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Arguments for total academic democracy
- Homage to Catalonia – a most unusual year abroad
- I Spy UK HEIs
- Dalmatians 101: setting up puppy rooms in student services
- I Spy Alternative Providers
- For Whom the Bell Tolls – universities and their clocktowers
- Registrars and their Registers
And these are the most recent additions:
High Table – Nigella’s recipes for entertaining in college
Carol’s from Kings, David’s from Jesus: A Cambridge Romance
Fat Cats and Skinny Lattes: Examining HE pay and coffee choices
The HE Student Loan Book (now available at a large discount)
From University to Uni – A guide to youth speak for senior managers
Yet More HE Acronyms (HERA edition)
Fave HE FOIs: from Prosecco Spend to Cadaver Count
Guinness World HE records: from Meccano Bridges to Smurf Gatherings
Diary of a Wimpy Registrar
Co-teaching Marine Biology: Three Dons in a Boat
A Passage to India: International Research Collaborations in the Sub-Continent
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: the Challenges of Co-authorship
Gold! Always Believe in Your TEF Score
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: The hottest new graduate entry jobs
And Then There Were None: the ultimate guide to REF selectivity
Get Hip: which are the coolest campuses around?
Firsts Among Equals: Tackling grade inflation the fair way
The Spiked! Annual 2017 – the very best of this year’s wilful contrarianism with all your favourite writers who pretend not to know each other. With an extensive foreword from Jim Dickinson
Will This Do? Dan Brown’s latest finely crafted thriller
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting: best Senior Common Room jokes
The Campus on the Hill: protecting your university against rising sea levels
Grey Planet: The best concrete buildings in UK universities
The Periodic Table – now in video form
How to Build a University — Professor Brian Cox brings his cosmic skills back down to earth in this OfS-endorsed guide
And, of course, there is the biggest book released this year, True Crime on Campus, which EVERYONE should be buying all of their friends and family this Christmas.
Do let us know if there are any we’ve missed.
