THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

The story begins with Campbell, aged 14, in a police cell in Glasgow. He’s been charged with stealing books – five Mickey Spillane novels and a copy of Peyton Place. At 15, he became an apprentice printer, but gave that up in order to ‘go on the road’, fulfilling the only ambition he ever had while a pupil at King’s Park Secondary School in Glasgow – to be what RLS called ‘a bit of a vagabond’.On his hitchhiking journeys through Asia and North Africa, an interest in music, reading and writing grew. Campbell also took a keen interest in learning from interesting people. In 1972 he worked on a kibbutz, living in the neighbouring cabin to Peter Green, the founder and lead guitarist of Fleetwood Mac, with whom he formed a two-man musical combo. At the same time, he was part of a group of aspiring writers in Glasgow, including Tom Leonard. His literary heroes of the time were Alexander Trocchi and John Fowles: Campbell tracked them down to their homes and wrote extensively about both. The stories Campbell are recounted in this book.A crowning moment of his life was forming a friendship with the American writer James Baldwin. Campbell visited him more than once at his home in the South of France, and persuaded him to come to Edinburgh for the Book Festival in 1985. Campbell later wrote the acclaimed biography of Baldwin, Talking at the Gates.

Featuring iconic animals from red deer, golden eagles and Highland cows to red squirrels, pine martens and salmon as well as the plants, trees and flowers which thrive in mountain, forest, moor and seashore, this book is the ideal way to explore Scotland’s amazing range of flora and fauna.Many of the illustrations show the animals and plants in their natural habitats, so you can appreciate the extraordinary beauty of Scotland’s landscapes too.

From Hannah Lavery, soon to be appointed Edinburgh’s new Makar.In a moment that is demanding you to constantly choose your side, how do you find your humanity, your own voice, when you are being pushed to find safety in numbers?Blood Salt Spring is a meditation on where we are – exploring ideas of nation, race and belonging. Much of the collection was written in lockdown and speaks to that moment, the isolation and the traumas of 2020 but it also looks to find some meaning and makes an attempt to heal the pain and vulnerabilities that were picked and cut open again in the recent cultural shifts and political wars.Organised into three sections this book takes the reader on a journey from the old inherited wounds, the trauma of tearing open again these chasms within recent discourses and events, to a hopeful spring, where pain and trauma can be laid down and a new future can be imagined.In this collection, the poet has sought to heal these salted wounds, and move out of winter and into spring – into hope.

On 24 May 2022 the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the glittering history of Rangers Football Club will be marked. The triumph in the 1972 European Cup Winners’ Cup final in Barcelona remains the Ibrox side’s one and only continental success, an honour that helped establish Rangers among the world’s elite.Dave Smith was a star of the the final in 1972, creating two of the three goals on the night in a season in which he was named player of the year by the Scottish Football Writers’ Association. He had suffered the pain of defeat in 1967, when Rangers were beaten 1-0 by Bayern Munich in the final of the same competition, and the agony of two broken legs in the interim period.With grit and determination, he fought back to play a key role in Rangers’ greatest night. Through The Road to Barcelona he recounts the inside story of the run to glory and the band of brothers who came together, as well as the path that led him to Ibrox and the real story of the conflict that led to his premature departure.

The south of Scotland has a long and turbulent geological past. Perhaps most notably, it marks the place where, 432 million years ago, an ocean, once as wide as the north Atlantic, was compressed by a convergence of ancient lands and then ceased to be.Deserts covered the land with thick layers of brick-red coloured rocks, known as the Old Red Sandstone, piled up and dumped by rivers and streams that crisscrossed the area. Around 432 million years ago, violent explosive volcanic activity gave rise to the prominent landscape features recognised today as the Eildon Hills.In later geological times, the area was blanketed with massive sand dunes, later compressed to create the building stones from which Dumfries, Glasgow and other towns and cities, were constructed.It is also the place where the modern science of geology was born. James Hutton, star of the Scottish Enlightenment, found inspiration from his study of the local rocks. Sites he described almost 250 years ago are still hailed as amongst the most historic and important rock exposures to be found anywhere in the world.

The Small Isles comprise the Inner Hebridean islands of Rum, Eigg, Canna and Muck.The landscapes, rocks and fossils of these beautiful, remote islands tells of a drama involving erupting volcanoes, an ancient ecosystem that included dinosaurs and an ancient desert landscape. The geological history stretches back 3 billion years to the earliest events recorded on Earth.All four islands owe their origin to a group of three adjacent volcanoes that were active around 60 million years ago. Rum is the eroded remains of the magma chamber of one of these volcanoes. Eigg and Muck are part of the lava field that extends north from the Mull volcano and Canna lies towards the southern extent of the lavas that flowed from the Skye volcano.The final event that left a mark on these islands was the Ice Age that started around 2.4 million years ago. Its effect on the landscape was profound. The thick cover of erosive ice shaped the contours of the land into the hills and glens that we are familiar with today.

The written history and archaeological records of Central Scotland takes us back to Pictish times some 5,000 years ago. The geology of the area stretches back a further 400 million years.The oldest rocks are found near Lesmahagow and in the Pentland Hills. Known geologically as ‘inliers’- small areas of rocks from an older age, surrounded by younger strata – these strata have yielded some of the oldest fish on earth and are highly prized for what they tell us about early life on the planet. Rocks of the Old Red Sandstone and the succeeding Carboniferous era underlie the rest of Central Scotland in almost equal measure. Explosive volcanic rocks, thick layers of lava, desert sandstones, limestones and productive coal measures make up this bedrock patchwork. Then, sometime later, a covering of ice, some two kilometres thick, blanketed the landscape. It sandpapered and burnished the bedrock into the familiar scenes we see today – our matchless Scottish landscape.The coal and iron ore which lay beneath the ground between Edinburgh and Glasgow provided the raw materials that drove the Industrial Revolution in Scotland, and the early focus on understanding the rocks beneath our feet was unsurprisingly initially concentrated on the most useful minerals resources.

To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . .Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect.With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

To make the perfect Spanish whodunnit cocktail, take one dead gangster, mix in six shifty expats, add one ruthless baddie and garnish with a suspicious police officer . . .Daniella Coulstoun has recently moved to the Costa Blanca. When the dead body of a prominent London gangster is discovered in the cellar of her bar she quickly becomes the number one suspect.With the police closing in, the local expats turning on her and a psychotic rival to the dead gangster in the background, Daniella knows she needs to nail the real killer, and fast.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE’An incredible work of scholarship’ Sathnam SangheraThrough the story of his own family’s history as slave and plantation owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When British Caribbean slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire in 1833, it was not the newly liberated who received compensation, but the tens of thousands of enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. The descendants of some of those slave owners are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in Britain today.Blood Legacy explores what inheritance – political, economic, moral and spiritual – has been passed to the descendants of the slave owners and the descendants of the enslaved. He also asks, crucially, how the former – himself among them – can begin to make reparations for the past.

At the age of 10, Rowena Farre left the security of her parents’ home in India and was sent to live with her aunt on a lonely croft in the wild and remote Highlands of Scotland.During her stay in Sutherland, she drew strength from the isolation of her new life, gaining an understanding of nature and a sense of identity. She was inspired to write Seal Morning, the story of her unusual childhood and close friendships with a talented seal, two mischievous squirrels, a beautiful red deer and a host of other wild animals.Full of Celtic folklore and ancient wisdom, it is an enchanting representation of an idyllic private world. In a fascinating afterword, Maurice Fleming discusses the few known facts about the Highland years and later life of Rowena Farre, a mysterious figure who shunned publicity and remained elusive to the end.

The famous classic Scottish tale based on the true story of a dog’s lifetime devotion to his master, first published in 1912, loved and widely read the world over.Bobby, a sparky silver-haired Skye terrier, adopts lonely shepherd Auld Jock, for his master and the two become inseparable. When Jock is dismissed by the farmer he tries to find work in the city, but sinks into poverty and dies, having suffered one cold winter too many.The farmer tries to reclaim Bobby as a pet for his daughter but the little dog remains faithful only to Auld Jock, guarding his master’s grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard in the heart of Edinburgh’s old town.By day, he plays with the local orphans and eats at a nearby tavern but, in spite of anything even the Lord Provost himself can do, Bobby returns each night to sleep by his master.Bobby’s devotion changes the lives of those around him and ultimately the conditions of the poor in Edinburgh. And as the years go by, the little dog’s loyalty is rewarded in a very special way.

One of Britain’s outstanding historical writers delivers a romantic and picaresque masterpiece that tells the fascinating story of William Neilson. In 1720, the young William Neilson leaves Edinburgh to make his fortune in Europe, first sailing to Rotterdam and then on foot to Paris, where he meets and is immediately employed by the banker John Law. A day later he is in the Bastille, but not before he has encountered a young woman of surpassing beauty to whom Neilson will be devoted for the rest of his life.

Imprisoned in the Bastille, he has no possibility of seeing or communicating with his beloved. When at last he recovers his freedom, he is despatched at once to sea, bound for the Indies. He will be shipwrecked, become an equerry on the Ile-de-France, anon command a disorderly legion in Persia, become a linguist able to hold his own in diplomatic and mercantile circles, all the while anticipating a summons from the Stuart king in exile in Rome, until he is sent back to France, and thence to Scotland in the service of the Young Pretender.

This is brilliant, irresistibly entertaining fiction. A whole world of adventure and romance comes alive in the hands of one of our most ingenious storytellers, one of our finest writers.

THE FIRST IN A THRILLING NEW SERIES FROM THE QUEEN OF CRIMEPre-order Val McDermid’s explosive new novel, 1989, now!____________________She’s on the hunt for a killer story . . .1979. It’s the winter of discontent, and Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. One of few women in the newsroom, she needs something explosive for the boys’ club to take her seriously.Soon Allie and fellow reporter Danny Sullivan are making powerful enemies with their investigations – and Allie won’t stop there. When she discovers a terrorist threat close to home, she devises a dangerous plan to make her name.But Allie is a woman in a man’s world . . . and putting a foot wrong could be fatal.____________________’A supremo of the genre at the height of her powers’ PETER JAMES’The Queen of Crime has delivered another masterpiece’ DAVID BALDACCI’Allie is a fabulous character, I’ll go wherever she takes me’ MARIAN KEYES’A thrilling snapshot of a fascinating era’ JANE HARPER’McDermid at her nail-biting, heart-rending best’ CHRIS WHITAKER’Her best book in years’ THE TIMES, BOOK OF THE MONTH’Allie Burns is off to a flying start, and well worth following’ SCOTSMAN’A perfect snapshot of the social and political issues of the time’ LINWOOD BARCLAY’Full of wit, thrills and incisive social observation and features a marvellous new character’ MICK HERRON’I have been reading Val McDermid for twenty-five years, so I am really saying something when I tell you I enjoyed this novel the most’ CHRIS BROOKMYRE’The good news is that this excellent novel marks the start of a new series’ GUARDIAN’Brilliant characters, masterful plotting’ CHRIS HAMMER’An excellent opener to what promises to be an outstanding series’ SPECTATOR’The fast-paced storytelling flows irresistibly’ IRISH TIMES’Riveting’ DAILY EXPRESS’Sensational. One of Britain’s most accomplished writers’ SUNDAY EXPRESS’A nail-biting new series’ OBSERVER

‘Remarkable’ Robert Macfarlane’Goregous’ Amy Liptrot’Urgent and nourishing’ Jessica J. LeeNina Mingya Powles first learned to swim in Borneo – where her mother was born and her grandfather studied freshwater fish. There, the local swimming pool became her first body of water. Through her life there have been others that have meant different things, but have still been, in their own way, home: from the wild coastline of New Zealand to a pond in northwest London.In lyrical, powerful prose, Small Bodies of Water weaves together memories, dreams and nature writing. Exploring everything from migration, food, family, earthquakes and the ancient lunisolar calendar, Nina reflects on a girlhood spent growing up between two cultures, and what it means to belong.

Fair is foul and foul is fair … bestseller Ross Montgomery returns with a laugh-out-loud, perfectly pitched introduction to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.Beth has been looking forward to the Prizegiving Assembly all year. She’s won best-behaved pupil two years in a row and is confident that she’ll triumph again for a third time.But as preparations continue for the ceremony, which includes a performance of Macbeth by the drama club, Beth finds out that she’s been pipped to the post by not one but two of her classmates, leaving her in third place.Beth cannot bear to lose, so she channels her inner Macbeth and will stop at nothing to tarnish the reputation of her competitors. But as she puts her dastardly plans into action, she realises that villainy comes at a high cost!

Fair is foul and foul is fair … bestseller Ross Montgomery returns with a laugh-out-loud, perfectly pitched introduction to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.Beth has been looking forward to the Prizegiving Assembly all year. She’s won best-behaved pupil two years in a row and is confident that she’ll triumph again for a third time.But as preparations continue for the ceremony, which includes a performance of Macbeth by the drama club, Beth finds out that she’s been pipped to the post by not one but two of her classmates, leaving her in third place.Beth cannot bear to lose, so she channels her inner Macbeth and will stop at nothing to tarnish the reputation of her competitors. But as she puts her dastardly plans into action, she realises that villainy comes at a high cost!

And how to tell what the best things were? Well, that was easy: the best things were the ones with the most people looking at them.Alastair Buchanan has a comfortable life. It’s been a year since he received his very own junior – a clone designed to help him escape the daily grind. So why does Alastair spend his days alone, online, obsessing over his status? When his long-term girlfriend Caitlin can’t take it anymore, Alastair does his best to hold it together. But then, a remnant from his past appears and he is forced to confront the level of control that technology has over his life.Elsewhere, a terrorist cell dedicated to yanking humanity back to the 1990s is building momentum. As the group focuses their attention on Alastair’s junior, an operative known as Mandelson begins to question her commitment to the cause. But looming over everyone is Kim Larson, inventor of the juniors. When the World’s Father himself realises that humanity’s future lies in the stars, who will be left to hold him to account?From award-winning author Daniel Shand, Model Citizens explores a surreal world peopled by humans struggling with their dehumanising present. Full of suspense, it asks us what we give up when we exist online, and who we can trust to take care of us. Model Citizens is a subversive and darkly comic story of class, technology, and responsibility, offering a vision of the future that may be closer than we realise.

The third book in Alexander McCall Smith’s new DETECTIVE VARG seriesPerplexing, unfathomable and perhaps unimportant, the cases that Malmo’s Department of Sensitive Crimes take on will test them to their limits.Life – and crime – is not always as it seems for Ulf Varg and the other fearless detectives in Malmo’s Department of Sensitive Crimes. There are always surprising new cases to take on, and the latest batch is no exception. And that’s not to mention Ulf’s struggle to contain his feelings for his colleague Anna Bengsdotter. All in all, things are distinctly difficult in Malmo, and it seems up to Ulf and the Department to set them right.’McCall Smith’s continuing warm-heartedness makes Ulf such unfailingly good company’ Reader’s Digest’Like AA Milne meets Karl Ove Knausgaard’ Financial Times’Wonderfully soothing and relaxing’ Daily Telegraph

This hardback pocket diary is illustrated throughout with Mairi Hedderwick’s beautiful sketches of the Hebrides through the seasons. Featuring distinctive full-colour paintings by one of Scotland’s best-loved authors and artists, this exquisite diary is a wonderful celebration of the extraordinary natural beauty of the Hebrides. The paintings have been collected over the past forty years and show the changing faces of the landscapes. Mairi’s drawings range across many of the isles from Arran to Tiree, expertly capturing the essence of these beautiful and diverse islands.