1st year books

It might be useful if I share the books I've bought for this year. I should point out that Constitutional and Tort are IA (first part of the tripos/Y1 of a regular undergrad.) courses, whereas the remaining three are IB (second part of the tripos/Y2 of a regular undergrad.). You normally have between 2-3 books for each subject, although you're by no means obliged to get any books at all (although this would be a bit silly if you didn't!) There is normally an introductory text, a textbook and a casebook, although the latter two often tend to intersect, and for Constitutional there is no specific 'casebook'.

I'm listing my copies in this order, with a dash to show if I don't own the recommended title for that part. I'm also putting an asterix at the beginning of the book that I find most useful/use most often for each course. More info on these texts (i.e. years) and other recommended books can be found in the Law Faculty's handbook, which can be accessed here

Constitutional
Munro, Studies in Constitutional Law
* Bradley & Ewing, Constitutional and Administrative Law
Turpin & Tomkins, British Government and the Constitution

Contract
* McKendrick, Contract Law
Chesire, Fifoot & Furnston, The Law of Contract
McKendrick, Contracts, Cases and Materials

International
---
---
Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law
(I only own one book in this paper, but I tend to use various texts from the library for this topic, so I don't have a particular one which I use most often)

Land
* Gray & Gray, Land Law
Smith, Property Law
---

Tort
* Mullis & Oliphant, Tort
Markesinis & Deakin, Tort Law
Hepple, Matthews & Howarth, Tort: Cases and Materials

You also need the relevant statute books for all of these (aside from Contract and Tort which are together).

I bought nearly all these books (aside from the statutes as you need the newest editions) from individuals, or at the book fair, where you can get some really great deals. I would advise that people wait to attend their universities' book fair (if one is held) before they buy books online, although make sure you have figured out what is a 'good' price for a book by researching first. I found that most of the books at the fair were often 1/2 the best price that I had found online. However, make sure that you're purchasing the newest edition of the book, or that you aren't buying something which has a new edition in the pipeline, as this effectively renders the old book useless.

Final timetable II

Constitutional - Const. / Contract - Contr. / International - I / Land - L / Supervision (i.e. not a lecture) - S / Tort - T / Week One or Two - W1/2

Monday
9am: Const., 12pm: T, 3pm: IS (W2)
Tuesday
9am: I, 10am: Contr., 12pm: T, 5pm: TS (W2)
Wednesday
9am: L, 10am: I, 11am: Const., 3pm: Contr. (W2), 5pm: L (W1)
Thursday
9am: L, 10am: Const., 12pm: Contr., 3pm: Const. (W2)
Friday
10am: Contr., 11am: T, 12pm: L

To explain the Week One and Two part, similar to other universities, Cambridge operates on a numbered weekly system (although different in that their terms only last eight weeks), beginning with one on the first Thursday of the academic term and finishing with eight on the final Friday (more information about Cambridge terms can be found here).

Supervisions alternate on either odd or even weeks; at the minute I've got four supervisions in one, and one in the other, which isn't the ideal arrangement, and hopefully I can change Tort over in Week three, so I'll have work for a fortnight, but then things can even themselves out.

I'll be in a group of anything from two to four for these, and normally have to travel all over the place as the people teaching are spread between four colleges (including my own). My lectures 'officially' start tomorrow, but I've been on the go the past couple of days arranging appointments with the supervisors for the supervisions, and we've already been set quite a bit of work; something which is pretty daunting when you have a grand total of no legal knowledge at present!

I'll try and post later regarding what I've learnt about books.

Final timetable

At the minute my timetable is looking (reasonably) spacious, I have lectures from 9am to 12pm most days, aside from Thursday where I get to get up at 10, and then supervisions Mondays through to Wednesdays at 3pm or later. I've been to two of the three introductory lectures that were held in the first week, as the last one clashed with some events that were going on in my college, but I plan to go to the repeat series next weekend.

I'll post the final draft of my timetable when I've confirmed all my supervisions; at the minute I've only seen my supervisors for International, Tort and Constitutional, which leaves Land and Contract. I'm seeing these last two to arrange appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday.

It also looks as if I'll have to write an essay for each of these classes once every two weeks, probably no longer than 2000 or so words. Encouragingly, they seem to be keen for me to use my own intuition and thought quite a lot, which is a huge change from my previous degree, where the standard of excellence was a wide variety of quotes and references!

Oh, I should also mention that all those classes (aside from International) are mandatory modules, but there is actually one selective module of the first year of the Affiliated course; a choice between that and Civil Law. I'll also post more about books and other things soon.