Latest Alumni Publications
Here you’ll find the latest round-up of publications written by Catz alumni. If you’ve recently published a book, or have any other news, please share it with us.
Publications are added throughout the year, find the latest whenever you like by visiting our publications page.
Don Chapman (1952, English)
A Tenpenny Dip in Paradise and other flights of fancy (The Conrad Press, 2022)
As Don Chapman recalls in his latest book, ‘the University was a far more chauvinist institution’ when he was an undergraduate at St Catherine’s, from 1952-56, ‘than it is today. The women’s colleges – there were no mixed colleges then – kept their students in virtual purdah. A man could not visit a woman’s room without a chaperone. There was even a club with a dark blue tie and a gold bath tap for men who managed to bath in a women’s college. They had to bring back the tap top to prove it!’
He graduated with a degree in English and became a trainee with the Westminster Press. This time it was the landlord of his first digs in Keighley who took the tops off the bath taps. He went to the public baths down the road fearing the worst. ‘Oh, the folly of ignorant prejudice. I issued into paradise. Angelic voices rose from nowhere, water splashed happily to the tune of celestial laving, and a cherubic little man motioned me to a spotless closet, wherein stood the largest bath I had ever seen, filled to the brim with piping hot water, a heavenly loofah floating on its surface.’
Hence the title of his tongue-in-cheek memoir featuring some of the wackier articles he wrote in a 40-year career in journalism. A Tenpenny Dip in Paradise ranges the gamut from the Great Train Robbery to a three-seater loo in Ascension.
Ken Kamoche (1988, Social Studies)
A Fragile Hope (Salt Publishing, 2007)
The short stories in A Fragile Hope are set in different locales, from Nairobi and small villages and slums in Kenya to London and Copenhagen, from the bustling humid cities Hong Kong and Bangkok to Shanghai. They are testimony to the author’s keen eye on his many travels around the world. They tell the poignant stories of love, betrayal, trials and tribulations, dreams and aspirations, corruption and greed, self-discovery and redemption.
In ‘Black fishnet stockings’, a rich Nairobi couple get entangled in a liaison with their poor workers. In ‘The Warrior’s Last Job’, a hangman in a small Kenyan village battles the demons from his dark past as he seeks to maintain the façade of a venerable strongman. In ‘The Smell of Fresh Grass’, a Hong Kong girl who is lost in the confusing world of Copenhagen learns to reconcile with her estranged father following a chance encounter with a roving African musician. In ‘London Slaves’, a newly-minted Kenyan tycoon in the UK comes face to face with a form of discrimination that makes no sense to him. In the final story ‘And then the End’, an elderly Chinese driver is forced to confront the reality of his boss’s conviction for corruption.
Many of these stories have previously been published in journals and magazines such as Ambit, Wasafiri, Kunapipi, New York Stories and Author-me. For the first time, readers can appreciate this kaleidoscopic picture of the breadth and depth of the human condition in a truly multi-cultural collection.
Ken Kamoche (1988, Social Studies)
Black Ghosts (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2021)
Dan Chiponda earns a scholarship to study in China and reluctantly leaves Zimbabwe for an uncertain future. While stoically dealing with racial abuse in a country where Africans are known as black ghosts, he is too timid to engage in the money-making schemes available to students. Yet he remains haunted by the weight of his mother’s expectations, encapsulated by the image of the African fish eagle. But the best he can do is a safe job in a bar run by the enigmatic Wang.
Things take a dramatic turn when Chinese students pour into the streets in an orgy of violence to drive Africans out of town. Dan’s first impulse is to escape to Zimbabwe but the pressure from his family and the love for his girlfriend Lai Ying force him to stay put. In the aftermath of the riots, tight rules force the foreign students to create innovative ways to see their girlfriends, and in the midst of all this, Lai Ying gets pregnant and secretly procures an abortion. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Edwin Lerner (1972, English)
Jerusalem: The story of a song (John Hunt Publishing, 2022)
Jerusalem: the story of a song is a popular history of England’s unofficial national anthem, which began life as a poem by William Blake, was set to music by Hubert Parry and is sung every year at the Last Night of the Proms.
Robert Peirce (1973, Modern History)
Seven Ways to Fix Policing NOW (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2022)
This practical guide to policing reform presents a call to action to address a threefold crisis in policing – a catastrophic loss of trust between police and the communities they serve; a sharp increase in violent crime after decades of decline; and a serious recruitment and retention challenge depleting police departments across the United States.
The authors also recognise that, while these issues are now top of mind, policing needs far-reaching reform in order to respond to changes in society and its expectations, changes in crime and other threats to public safety, new technologies, and developments in best practice. Most reform to date has been piecemeal, as the book describes. The time has come to take a comprehensive look at every aspect of policing.
Paul Skinner (1995, Modern Languages)
The Purpose Upgrade (Little, Brown, 2022)
History shows that hard times can lead to the greatest opportunities for renewal. The Purpose Upgrade will support readers in leading enterprises that thrive by solving our most important problems.
It shows how businesses can create more compelling benefits for customers, build meaningful livelihoods for colleagues, and unlock superior returns for investors by ‘repurposing’ and revitalising the activities they engage in.
Meet the social entrepreneur who repurposed the previously ‘boring’ trade in office supplies to fund micro-finance initiatives that reach millions of the people most exposed to poverty, so that ‘even a bad day at the office saves lives’.
Learn how the leaders of a coal-mining business repurposed their enterprise first as an industrial chemicals company and then more spectacularly as a sustainable living business, generating unprecedented shareholder returns by aligning their objectives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
And, most importantly, discover a unique methodology that you can use to make a Purpose Upgrade an always-available event at any level of your own enterprise.
There has never been a more urgent need to change our businesses to save the world or a more opportune time to change the world to save our businesses.
Catherine Stothart (1976, English)
Motivation: The Ultimate Guide to Leading Your Team (Routledge, 2022)
Motivation is regarded as a cornerstone of performance in the workplace, both personally and for organisations. If you are a leader, manager, or HR professional, this book will show you how to tap into what motivates every individual so that you can enable them to use their talents and fulfil their potential. You will also learn more about your own motivation and how this impacts your leadership style.
Written by bestselling author and leadership coach, Catherine Stothart, this book captures the essence of motivation in an insightful and practical way. You will learn specific tools and techniques for four key management capabilities – how to engage, develop, delegate to, and connect with your teams. You will also find out how to sustain your own motivation and be resilient through setbacks.
Using activities, case studies, models, tools, tips, and templates for practical action, this book is ideal for those who want to know how to motivate their teams, improve their well-being, and feel motivated themselves. It is also invaluable to HR managers, executive and life coaches, and learning and development professionals.