Due to the broad nature of Geography we don’t issue a set reading list. Instead we encourage you to maintain a strong interest in those areas of geography that interest you, and to explore new issues and areas. This might come from a range of sources such as blogs (try The Conversation), newspapers and current affairs journals, magazines like New Scientist, The Economist, Geographical Magazine and Geography Review, and even novels. If you list books on your personal statement, make sure you have read them. You should be able to summarise key arguments and reflect on the issues raised.
The following are therefore not ‘set’ texts, and there is no expectation you will have read any of them. But if you do want suggestions, here are some. Remember to read ‘critically’, that is, to not take everything at face value, but think about the thinking behind making any particular argument.
- Alley, Richard (ed.) (2014) The two mile time machine: ice cores, abrupt climate change, and our future
- Berners-Lee, Mike (2019) There is no Planet B: A handbook for the make or break years
- de Blij, Harm (2012) Why geography matters more than ever
- Chang, Ha-Joon (2010) 23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism
- Conway, Erik and Oreskes, Naomi (2010) Merchants of Doubt
- Criado Perez, Caroline (2019) Invisible Women
- Dee, Tim (2013) Four Fields
- Desmond, Matthew (2016) Evicted
- Dorling, Danny (2017) Do we need economic inequality?
- Dorling, Danny and Lee, Carl (2016) Geography: Ideas in profile
- Dyer, Geoff (2016) White Sands: experiences from the outside world
- Green, Duncan (2016) How change happens
- Hansen, James (2011) Storms of my grandchildren: the truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity
- Harari, Yuval Noah (2014) Sapiens: a brief history of humankind
- Harari, Yuval Noah (2016) Homo Deus: a brief history of tomorrow
- Harvey, David (2012) Rebel cities
- Hulme, Mike (2009) Why we disagree about climate change
- Jackson, Tim (2009) Prosperity without Growth: economics for a finite planet
- Jones, Reece (2016) Violent Borders: refugees and the right to move
- Klein, Naomi (207) The Shock Doctrine
- Klein, Naomi (2014) This changes everything
- Macfarlane, Robert (2003) Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination.
- Massey, Doreen (2005) For Space
- Mayne, Alan (2017) Slums: the history of a global injustice
- Nayak, Anoop and Jeffrey, Alex (2011) Geographical Thought: an introduction to ideas in human geography
- Oppenheimer, Clive (2011) Eruptions that shook the world
- Pascoe, Bruce (2018) Dark Emu
- Rosling, Hans (2018) Factfulness
- Rosling, Hans (2020) How I learned to understand the world
- Sassen, Saskia (2015) Expulsions
- Solnit, Rebecca (1997) Book of Migrations
- Solnit, Rebecca (2004) Hope in the Dark
- Solnit, Rebecca (2010) Infinite City
- Spiegelhalter, David and Blastland, Michael (2013) The Norm Chronicles
- Thomas, Chris D. (2017) Inheritors of the Earth: how nature is thriving in an age of extinction
- Tortell, Philippe. (ed), 2020. Earth 2020: an insider’s guide to a rapidly changing planet
- Trouet, Valerie (2020) Tree Story: the history of the world written in rings
- Wulf, Andrea and Melcher, Lillian (2019) The adventures of Alexander von Humboldt This book is a graphic version of Wulf’s biography of Humboldt listed below
- Wulf, Andrea (2015) The Invention of Nature: the adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the lost hero of science
- Wylie, John (2007) Landscape: key ideas in geography
- Zalasiewicz, Jan (2009) The Earth after Us: what legacy will humans leave in the rock