THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Broth doesn’t grow on trees … but maybe it grows in gardens.

Elliot loves a good bowl of soup, but his Dad wonders if there is a healthier way other than straight from a tin.

Setting out to grow his own broth – with a little help from his brother, sister, Mum and Dad – Elliot discovers that a garden is home to more than just a vegetable plot … the wildlife wants to have its say, too. Elliot finds out that growing vegetables takes time and patience – but it only takes a moment to dream up some fun and adventures.

Everything we use started life in the earth, as a rock or a mineral vein, a layer of an ancient seabed, or the remains of a long-extinct volcano.

Humanity’s ability to fashion nature to its own ends is by no means a new phenomenon. Rocks rich in silica were made into flints in the Stone Age, transformed into stained glass in medieval times, and are now extracted for silicon chips. Our trick of turning rocks rich in malachite and chalcopyrite into copper has taken us from Bronze Age Minoan vases to the wiring that powers modern-day machinery.

Today, we mine, quarry, pump, cut, blast and crush the Earth’s resources at an unprecedented rate. We shift many times more rock, soil and sediment each year than the world’s rivers and glaciers, wind and rain combined. Plastics alone now weigh twice as much as all the marine and terrestrial animals around the globe. We have become a dominant, even dangerous, force on the planet.

In Extraction to Extinction, David Howe traces our environmental impact through time to unearth how our obsession with endlessly producing and throwing away more and more stuff has pushed the planet to its limit. And he considers the question: what does the future look like for our depleted world?

There are few more beautiful places than Scotland’s winter mountains. But even when most of the snow has melted, isolated patches can linger well into summer and beyond. In The Vanishing Ice, Iain Cameron chronicles these remarkable and little-seen relics of the Ice Age, describing how they have fascinated travellers and writers for hundreds of years, and reflecting on the impact of climate change.

Iain was nine years old when snow patches first captured his imagination, and they have been inextricably bound with his life ever since. He developed his expertise through correspondence (and close friendship) with research ecologist Dr Adam Watson, and is today Britain’s foremost authority on this weather phenomenon.

Iain takes us on a tour of Britain which includes the Scottish Highlands, the Southern Uplands, the Lake District and Snowdonia, seeking elusive patches of snow in wild and often inaccessible locations. His adventures include a perilous climb in the Cairngorms with comedian Ed Byrne, and glorious days spent out on the hills with Andrew Cotter and his very good dogs, Olive and Mabel.

Based on sound scientific evidence and personal observations, accompanied by stunning photography and wrapped in Iain’s shining passion for the British landscape, The Vanishing Ice is a eulogy to snow, the mountains and the great outdoors.

It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The Prime Minister is an eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.Hyperorganised and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she’s in charge of the Bigge Corporation, just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago . . .Wendy Deere is investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn’t again get entangled with Eve Starkey’s bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she’s pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized adepts. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results…’For all of Stross’s genuine ability to spook and dismay, The Laundry Files are some of the most tremendously humane books I’ve ever read’Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth

In his 1999 Introduction to the first reprint of this novel from 1955 – a year of the Cold War that began with the Baghdad Pact and ended with the official start of the Vietnam War – Raymond H. Thompson described Naomi Mitchison’s contribution to the Arthurian tradition as ‘not only a comic masterpiece, but a guidebook into spiritual growth’. She achieves this by drawing on her own experience as a journalist to explore the fantastic events surrounding King Arthur and the Holy Grail through the eyes of two young reporters – on competing newspapers, with mid-twentieth century values and skills – as they follow the breaking stories and conflicting accounts of the grail quest. Michael Amey, who writes the Introduction to this new edition, points out that her approach was not universally liked by her fellow writers. Tolkien for one objected to her introduction of ‘a curious and disturbing blend’ of journalists and ‘dwarfs with photographic apparatus’. Amey himself argues that To the Chapel Perilous is in name and fact a ‘call to adventure’ in which Mitchison sets out ‘to tell a story of how stories are told’.

Brought to you by Penguin.Rebecca Navarro, best-selling authoress of Regency romances, suffers a paralysing stroke. Assisted by her nurse, Rebecca plans her revenge on her unfaithful husband. But will Freddy Royle, hospital trustee, celebrity and necrophiliac, thwart those plans?Dave Thornton, soccer thug, has lost his heart to flawed beauty Samantha Worthington. Together they go in search of the man who marketed the drug that crippled her – in order to cripple him.Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance. Will their ardour fizzle and die in the grim backstreets of Edinburgh, or will it ignite and blaze like a thousand suns?(c) Irvine Welsh 1996 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

When Arthur Conan Doyle was a lonely 7-year-old schoolboy at pre-prep Newington Academy in Edinburgh, a French emigre named Eugene Chantrelle was engaged there to teach Modern Languages. A few years later, Chantrelle would be hanged for the particularly grisly murder of his wife, beginning Conan Doyle’s own association with some of the bloodiest crimes of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.This early link between actual crime and the greatest detective story writer of all time is one of many. Using freshly available evidence and eyewitness testimony, Christopher Sandford follows these links and draws out the connections between Conan Doyle’s literary output and factual criminality, a pattern that will enthral and surprise the legions of Sherlock Holmes fans. In a sense, Conan Doyle wanted to be Sherlock – to be a man who could bring order and justice to a terrible world.

When it comes to illness, sometimes the end is just the beginning. Recovery and convalescence are words that exist at the periphery of our lives – until we are forced to contend with what they really mean.Here, GP and writer Gavin Francis explores how – and why – we get better, revealing the many shapes recovery takes, its shifting history and the frequent failure of our modern lives to make adequate space for it.Characterised by Francis’s beautiful prose and his view of medicine as ‘the alliance of science and kindness’, Recovery is a book about a journey that most of us never intend to make. Along the way, he unfolds a story of hope, transformation, and the everyday miracle of healing.

In AD 77, Roman forces under Agricola marched into the northern reaches of Britain to pacify the Caledonian tribesmen. For seven years, the Romans campaigned across what is now Scotland. In AD 83, they fought the final battle at Mons Graupius, where 10,000 Caledonians were slaughtered with only 360 Roman dead.How much of this is true? The climax of the Agricola is the main source, a near contemporary account of the career of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of Britannia in the reigns of the Emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, written by his son-in-law Tacitus. This account of a steady advance into northern Britain and sudden withdrawal matched closely the evidence available on the ground, and for many years remained uncritically accepted. Archaeological investigations carried out recently at Roman sites in Scotland and northern England have, however, caused historians to cast a more sceptical eye over Tacitus’ account. Author Simon Forder considers the fine print of the Agricola – together with the implications of Ptolemy’s Geography – and triangulates these with the very latest archaeological finds to suggest a new narrative, including a new location for the battle itself.Mons Graupius has fascinated historians for centuries, not only because of the uncertainties but also because it marks the withdrawal of Rome from the north: for the Empire, it is the beginning of the end.

The world’s first UNESCO city of literature, Edinburgh is steeped in literary history. It is the birthplace of a beloved cast of fictional characters from Sherlock Holmes to Harry Potter. It is the home of the Writer’s Museum, where quotes from writers of the past pave the steps leading up to it. A city whose beauty is matched only by the intrigue of its past, and where Robert Louis Stevenson said, ‘there are no stars so lovely as Edinburgh’s street-lamps’. And to celebrate the city, its literature, and more importantly, its people, Polygon and the One City Trust have brought together writers – established and emerging – to write about the place they call home.

Based around landmarks or significant links to Edinburgh each story transports the reader to a different decade in the city’s recent past. Through these stories each author reflects on the changes, both generational and physical, in the city in which we live.

The fifth Shetland novelA journalist working a story. Now his murder is a headline . . .When the body of a journalist is found in a traditional Shetland boat, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation.Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed and he decides to help the inquiry. Originally a Shetlander, the journalist had left the islands years before to make a name for himself in London, leaving a scandal in his wake. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back?When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that he was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn’t want to come to the surface. One that must have been significant enough to kill for . . .Dead Water is the fifth book in Ann Cleeves’ bestselling Shetland series – a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshall.

Stronghold Scotland is your passport (or should that be pastport?) to a land 2,000 or more years ago. Welcome to the Iron Age.In those times, Scotland was even more individual, independent, inimitable and idiosyncratic than it is today. But this was no idyllic Garden of Eden, for it was inhabited by numerous tribes, large and small, that built more than 1,000 strongholds.From brochs, duns and hillforts, to blockhouses, crannogs and wheelhouses, many of these pre-historic strongholds are unique not only in Britain or Europe, but in the world. And then came the Romans… Yes, the strongholds of the Latin invaders, who failed to conquer the native ‘barbarians’, are included, too. All of these are spread amidst some of the most magnificent, attractive and remote countryside, from Shetland to the Borders, and from the east coast to the Outer Hebrides, and all parts in between.Geoffrey Williams leads you on a fascinating and little known story of a land and people even the mighty Romans failed to subdue. Stronghold Scotland introduces the society, tribes and the development behind all the strongholds.Most of all, the gazetteer is divided into five regional sections featuring the finest 120 pre-historic and Roman strongholds throughout the land, enabling and encouraging you to visit them. From their ruins will rise a vision of a long-gone society, with its innovative, practical, artistic and, on occasions, violent people.* Comprehensive gazetteer and guide to 120 strongholds.* Map references to many other strongholds.* Illustrations, plans and photographs.

The Church of Scotland Year Book is an essential handbook and directory on which many ministers, elders and lay leaders rely for information of all kinds. Including contact information for every minister, it also lists contact details for all church offices – local and central, the clerks, and general personnel. Many users claim not to be able to manage without it and, while churches are closed and social distancing is obligatory, it is more valuable than ever as a means of staying in touch.In addition it provides the most up to date figures for church membership, numbers of communicants, parish income and key updates from the General Assembly. This portable compendium of vital information includes every key contact within the Church and pointers to further information as well as information on procedures and protocols.Careful updates are made throughout to the many useful statistics and there is an extensive index.

When it comes to illness, sometimes the end is just the beginning. Recovery and convalescence are words that exist at the periphery of our lives – until we are forced to contend with what they really mean.Here, GP and writer Gavin Francis explores how – and why – we get better, revealing the many shapes recovery takes, its shifting history and the frequent failure of our modern lives to make adequate space for it.Characterised by Francis’s beautiful prose and his view of medicine as ‘the alliance of science and kindness’, Recovery is a book about a journey that most of us never intend to make. Along the way, he unfolds a story of hope, transformation, and the everyday miracle of healing.

It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The Prime Minister is an eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.Hyperorganised and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she’s in charge of the Bigge Corporation, just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago . . .Wendy Deere is investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn’t again get entangled with Eve Starkey’s bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she’s pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized adepts. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results…’For all of Stross’s genuine ability to spook and dismay, The Laundry Files are some of the most tremendously humane books I’ve ever read’Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth

The first in a series of witty, erudite suspense mysteries – each with a strong, independent, smart female heroine, and an ending sure to surprise.Rita, a small, tough Scottish make-up artist is on Madeira trying to find out who killed Kim-Jim, an American make-up supremo. Also anchored off the island is Dolly, the yacht of Johnson Johnson with whom she teams up.Rita’s fighting spirits are aroused despite her danger. She is not one for quitting, even when she learns she is caught up in an international drug-smuggling ring.But she also discovers that dealing with the maddeningly enigmatic Johnson Johnson is, by no stretch of the imagination, plain sailing.

Everyone deserves a chance of happiness – right? – All NEW from bestselling author Lisa Hobman Glentorrin bakery owner, and lone parent, Caitlin Fraser, is single and finally ready to mingle.With her daughter, Grace, about to become a teenager, and her friends all settling down, Caitlin decides she deserves a shot at happiness too.Resisting the pull of dating apps, Caitlin embarks upon a series of disastrous singles events where she bumps into fellow villager, and astronomy buff, Archie Sutherland, who is nursing his own past secrets.When Grace’s best friend’s father, handsome Lyle Budge, asks Caitlin to dinner, things progress quickly and she has a taste of what their future as a family could be, much to both their daughters delight! But when Archie makes a shocking discovery, and he turns to Caitlin for help, she soon discovers Lyle isn’t the sharing type, meaning prickly ultimatums loom for everyone.Will wishing upon the stars over Glentorrin help Caitlin to figure out her way forward? Or is her hunt for romance like a once in a lifetime comet, easily missed in the blink of an eye?

Experience Edinburgh the local way with this insider’s guideHome to winding cobblestoned streets, sprawling leafy parks and an arts scene like no other this small but spectacular city is endlessly enticing. But it’s not all about Edinburgh Castle and the National Museums. Beyond the well-trodden sights there’s a secret side of the city – and who better to guide you to it than the locals?This insider’s guide is packed with recommendations from Edinburgers in the know, helping you to discover all their favourite hangout spots and hidden haunts. Enjoy the banter at an old-school Leith boozer, brace yourself for a chilly dip at Portobello beach and browse indie boutiques that champion up-and-coming Scottish design in the city’s well-to-do West End.Whether you’re a local looking to uncover your city’s secrets or a traveller seeking an authentic experience beyond the tourist track, this stylish guide makes sure you experience the real side of Edinburgh.

The sixth Shetland novelA killer who leaves no trace . . .A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a local. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears – apparently into thin air.Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor’s disappearance than they first thought. Is there a secret that lies behind the myth? One so shocking that many years later someone would kill to protect it?Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves’s bestselling Shetland series – now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall.

Longlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2020From the author of The Long Take, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of both the Walter Scott Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize.’I’ve long admired Robin Robertson’s narrative gift . . . If you love stories, you will love this book.’ Val McDermidLike some lost chapters from the Celtic folk tradition, Grimoire tells stories of ordinary people caught up, suddenly, in the extraordinary: tales of violence, madness and retribution, of second sight, witches, ghosts, selkies, changelings and doubles, all bound within a larger mythology, narrated by a doomed shape-changer – a man, beast or god.A grimoire is a manual for invoking spirits. Here, Robin Robertson and his brother Tim Robertson – whose accompanying images are as unforgettable as cave-paintings – raise strange new forms which speak not only of the potency of our myths and superstitions, but how they were used to balance and explain the world and its predicaments.From one of our most powerful lyric poets, this is a book of curses and visions, gifts both desired and unwelcome, characters on the cusp of their transformation – whether women seeking revenge or saving their broken children, or men trying to save themselves. Haunting and elemental, Grimoire is full of the same charged beauty as the Scottish landscape – a beauty that can switch, with a mere change in the weather, to hostility and terror.