Some ideas for preparatory reading, before arriving in Cambridge:

• Ashcroft, F. (2012) The Spark of Life: Electricity in the Human Body. London: Penguin Books.
• Greenfield, S. (1997) The Human Brain: A Guided Tour. London: Phoenix.
• King, J. (2011) Reaching For The Sun: How Plants Work, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Lavers, C. (2000) Why Elephants have Big Ears. London: Victor Gollancz.
• Widmaier, E.P. (1998) Why Geese don’t get Obese (and we do). New York: W.H. Freeman and Co.

For those without A-level Biology, or equivalent:

• Campbell, N.A. & Reece, J.B. (2002) Biology: Concepts and Connections, 3rd ed. San Francisco: Addison-Wesley.

Useful text-books for students (discuss which to buy with your supervisors):

• Hill, R.W., Wyse, G.A. & Anderson, M. (2016) Animal Physiology, 4th ed. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
• Hopkins, W.G. & Hüner, N.P. (2004) Introduction to Plant Physiology, 3rd ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Randall, D., Burggren, W. & French, K. (2002) Eckert Animal Physiology, 5th ed. New York: W.H. Freeman & Co.
• Schmidt-Nielsen, K. (1997) Animal Physiology, 5th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M. & Murphy, A. (2015) Plant Physiology and Development, 6th ed. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
• Vogel, S. (2013) Comparative Biomechanics: Life's Physical World, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

For further reading, or for supervisors:

• Buchanan, B.B., Guissem, W. & Jones, R.L. (2000) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants. New York: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
• Griffin, D.H. (1996) Fungal Physiology, 2nd ed. New York: John Wiley.
• Jennings, D.H. & Lysek, G. (1999) Fungal Biology: Understanding the Fungal Lifestyle, 2nd ed. Oxford: BIOS Scientific Publishers Ltd.
• Koeppen, B.M. & Stanton, B.A. (eds) (2008) Berne & Levy Physiology, 6th edition. Philadelphia: Mosby Elsevier.
• Moat, A.G., Foster, J.W. & Spector, M.P. (2002) Microbial Physiology, 4th ed. New York: John Wiley.
• Nobel, P.S. (2005) Physicochemical and Environmental Plant Physiology, 3rd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press.
• Willmer, P., Stone, G. & Johnston, I. (2004) Environmental Physiology of Animals, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.