THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

The pharmaceutical industry is broken. From the American hedge fund manager who hiked the price of an AIDS pill from $17.50 to $750 overnight to the children’s cancer drugs left intentionally to expire in a Spanish warehouse, the signs of this dysfunction are all around. A system that was designed to drive innovation and patient care has been relentlessly distorted to drive up profits.Medicines have become nothing more than financial assets. The focus of drug research, how drugs are priced and who has access to them is now dictated by shareholder value, not the good of the public. Drug companies fixated on ever-higher profits are being fined for bribing doctors and striking secret price-gouging deals, while patients desperate for life-saving medicines are driven to the black market in search of drugs that national health services can’t afford.Sick Money argues that the way medicines are developed and paid for is no longer working. Unless we take action we risk a dramatic decline in the pace of drug development and a future in which medicines are only available to the highest bidder. In this book investigative journalist Billy Kenber offers a diagnosis of an industry in crisis and a prescription for how we can fight back.

London, 1851. Restless and bored after a long hot summer, apothecary and poison expert Jem Flockhart decides to redesign her physic garden. But plans are thrown into confusion when a man’s skeleton is unearthed from beneath the deadly nightshade, a smaller, child-like skeleton curled at its feet. The body bears evidence of knife wounds to its ribs and arms, and is accompanied by a collection of macabre objects: a brass bowl, a curious coin-like token, a set of tiny ivory sculls.The police claim the victim is too long-buried for answers to be found, but for Jem, a corpse in her own garden is something that cannot be ignored. The plans to the garden, laid out some forty years earlier, reveal a list of five names.When Jem and Will start asking questions, the murders begin. Each victim has a past connection with the physic garden; each corpse is found with its jaw broken wide and its mouth stuffed with deadly nightshade. As they move closer to uncovering the truth Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain encounter a dark world of addiction, madness, power and death that strikes at the very heart of Jem’s own history. This time, the poison is personal.

Honey Get the Door! is a book of illustrated thoughts and pictures of Honey the wee sausage dog who Janey Godley ventriloquises for her fans across social media on a regular basis.In this book Honey tells us what she really thinks about her life as a dachshund, with Janey’s own thoughts, along with cute photographs and hilarious illustrations, interspersed throughout.This edition contains strong language and is not suitable for children.

Honey Get the Door! is a book of illustrated thoughts and pictures of Honey the wee sausage dog who Janey Godley ventriloquises for her fans across social media on a regular basis.In this book Honey tells us what she really thinks about her life as a dachshund, with Janey’s own thoughts, along with cute photographs and hilarious illustrations, interspersed throughout.

The 21st century’s own Gin Craze continues unabated, with exciting new crafted gins launched on a regular basis. Most recently, we have seen growing interest in Pink Gins and the development of a range of flavoured gins, not to mention the remarkable rise of tonics – with a tonic to suit every palate, and perhaps every gin. So naturally, leading spirits writer Ian Buxton has looked to revise and renew his focus on this most fashionable of spirits. In this book he brings his customary wit, industry knowledge and highly developed palate to this fast-evolving and dynamic market with enthusiastic, book-buying drinkers keen for more ginsights!

The 21st century’s own Gin Craze continues unabated, with exciting new crafted gins launched on a regular basis. Most recently, we have seen growing interest in Pink Gins and the development of a range of flavoured gins, not to mention the remarkable rise of tonics – with a tonic to suit every palate, and perhaps every gin. So naturally, leading spirits writer Ian Buxton has looked to revise and renew his focus on this most fashionable of spirits. In this book he brings his customary wit, industry knowledge and highly developed palate to this fast-evolving and dynamic market with enthusiastic, book-buying drinkers keen for more ginsights!

This is the inside story of St Johnstone’s Historic Cup Double in Season 2020-21 – one of the most remarkable achievements in Scottish football history.Having waited 130 years to lift a major trophy after winning the Scottish Cup in 2014, the Perth club incredibly claimed two further pieces of silverware in the space of three memorable months.Led by Callum Davidson in his first season in charge, this is the stunning story of the underdog not only upsetting the odds but doing so during the daily challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and without fans to cheer them on.Exclusive interviews with the entire squad, management and board document the extraordinary Betfred League Cup and Scottish Cup triumphs in their own words as St Johnstone became only the fourth team in Scotland – after Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers – to do the double.

Tales for Twilight offers a spine-tingling selection of unnerving tales by writers from James Hogg in the early eighteenth century to James Robertson, very much alive in the twenty-first. Scottish authors have proved to be exceptionally good at writing ghost stories.Perhaps it’s because of the tradition of oral storytelling that has stretched over centuries, including poems and ballads with supernatural themes. The golden age was during the Victorian and Edwardian period, but the ghost story has continued to evolve and remains popular to this day.Includes stories from Sir Walter Scott, George Mackay Brown, Muriel Spark, Margaret Oliphant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Guy Boothby, Algernon Blackwood, Eileen Bigland, Ronald Duncan, James Robertson and Ian Rankin.

Brother and sister Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn enjoyed a rare bond: they were intimate companions and theirs was one of the most significant musical relationships of the 19th century. They shared and commented on each other’s compositions, each highly appreciative of the other but also offering frank, critical advice.Their travels produced some great music – Felix’s best loved works, the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish Symphony, were inspired by his 1829 visit to Scotland, whilst Fanny’s innovative piano cycle Das Jahr was a musical response to the tour of Italy she made in 1839-40.Combining letters and sketches with an accompanying narrative describing their journeys, this is a wonderful celebration of the two Mendelssohns and a portrait of Scotland and Italy of the time as seen through the eyes of two of the Romantic movement’s most acclaimed composers.

From the wild glens of the Cairngorms National Park and the bountiful fishing villages of the Moray Coast to Loch Ness, Fort William, Ullapool, the rugged bays and barren moors of Caithness and Sutherland and the rich sea lochs and glens of Argyll, Ghillie travels many mountain roads and windswept landscapes.The result of her travels is a spectacular celebration of local produce, including local lamb and grass-fed Highland beef, wild venison, fresh salmon and juicy scallops, seasonal fruits and berries, artisan cheeses and breads and, of course, beer, gin and whisky.

In today’s world of ready meals and snacking, the value of healthy eating has never been more important. Seafood is one of the healthiest things you can put on your plate: fish is good for the heart, improves circulation, keeps your joints mobile and your eyes healthy, and is packed with minerals. There’s even evidence it can boost your brain power.In this book, Sally MacColl presents 50 delicious tried-and-tested seafood recipes featuring produce from the waters around her home island of Mull, including salmon, trout, haddock and mackerel as well as mussels, langoustine, lobster, scallops and crab.Arranged in five main sections – Quick and Easy Fish Recipes, Quick and Easy Recipes with Smoked Fish, Quick and Easy Recipes with Shellfish, Favourite Fish Recipes, and Sides and Sauces – and featuring a host of mouth-watering dishes, from Smoked Salmon Hash to Scallops with Island Black Pudding and Garlic Butter, Sally also includes useful information on buying and preparing fish.

Standing in the busy streets of South London today, it is hard to imagine that much of this suburban townscape was once a vast wood, stretching unbroken for almost seven miles from Croydon to the Thames at Deptford.This compelling narrative history charts the fortunes of the North Wood from the earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and its gradual encroachment by the expanding metropolis

This authoritative, entertaining and eminently browsable reference book, arranged in easily accessible A-Z format, is an absorbing and imaginative feast of Scottish lore, language, history and culture, from the mythical origins of the Scots in Scythia to the contemporary Scotland of the Holyrood parliament and Trainspotting.Here Tartan Tories rub shoulders with Torry girls, the Misery from the Manse exchanges a nod with Stalin’s Granny, Thomas the Rhymer and the Wizard of Reay walk hand in hand with Bible John, and the reader is taken for a rollercoaster ride round Caledonia, from Furry Boots City to the Costa Clyde, via the Cold Shoulder of Scotland, the West Lothian Alps and the Reykjavik of the South.The result is a breathtaking and quirky celebration of Scotland, packed with fact and anecdote.

‘The best police procedural I’ve read in years’ Jane CaseyLONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 McILVANNEY PRIZE FOR SCOTTISH CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR’Grabbed me from the first page’ Ian RankinThis grave can never be opened.The head of Scotland’s most powerful crime family is brutally murdered, his body dumped inside an ancient grave in a remote cemetery.This murder can never be forgotten.Detectives Max Craigie and Janie Calder arrive at the scene, a small town where everyone has secrets to hide. They soon realise this murder is part of a blood feud between two Scottish families that stretches back to the 1800s. One thing’s for certain: it might be the latest killing, but it won’t be the last…This killer can never be caught.As the body count rises, the investigation uncovers large-scale corruption at the heart of the Scottish Police Service. Now Max and Janie must turn against their closest colleagues – to solve a case that could cost them far more than just their lives…’The best police procedural I’ve read in years – fast-paced, compelling and deeply authentic. DS Max Craigie is a brilliant hero and I can’t wait for the next in the series’ Jane Casey’A stone cold classic of the genre; the strongest start to a series I’ve seen in years’ Tony Kent’A thriller writer set to blow up the bestseller lists’ C. L. Taylor’The most authentic voice in thriller writing’ Tony Parsons’Absolutely terrific’ Paul Finch’A page turner you won’t want to miss’ Denzil MeyrickDon’t miss the first stunning thriller in the new DS Max Craigie Scottish Crime series!

“I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger.” London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character. In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling – and often wickedly humorous – meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.

The renowned historian Jenny Wormald was a ground-breaking expert on early modern Scottish history, especially Stewart kingship, noble power and wider society. She was most controversial in her book-length critique of Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately, Jenny never got round to producing a similar monograph on a monarch she was infinitely more fond of, King James VI and I, before her untimely death in 2015.In the absence of such a book, this volume brings together all the major essays by Jenny on James. She wrote on almost every aspect and every major event of James’ reign, from the famous Gunpowder Plot, the Plantation of Ulster, the Gowrie Conspiracy, to the witchcraft panics, as well as James’ extensive writings. She wrote extensively on James’ Scottish rule, but she was also keenly interested in James as the first king of all of Britain, and many of her essays unpick the issues surrounding the Union of the Crowns and James’ rule over all three of his kingdoms.This book is an invaluable resource for any scholar on this crucial time in the history of the British Isles.

From his own adolescence, when his allegiance was to punk rock, to his work as one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture at the New York Times and the New Yorker, Kelefa Sanneh has made a deep study of how our popular music unites and divides us, the tribes it forms, and how its genres, shape-shifting across the years, give us a way to track larger forces and concerns.Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes the best popular music isn’t transcendent: it expresses our grudges as well as our hopes, and it is motivated by greed as well as inspiration.Throughout, race is a powerful touchstone: just as there’s always been a ‘Black’ audience and a ‘white’ audience, with more or less overlap depending on the moment, there is Black music and white music (and some very white music), and a whole lot of confusing of the issue, if not to say expropriation.This is a book to shock and awe the deepest music nerd, and at the same time to work as a heady gateway drug for the uninitiated.

From his own adolescence, when his allegiance was to punk rock, to his work as one of the essential voices of our time on music and culture at the New York Times and the New Yorker, Kelefa Sanneh has made a deep study of how our popular music unites and divides us, the tribes it forms, and how its genres, shape-shifting across the years, give us a way to track larger forces and concerns.Sanneh debunks cherished myths, reappraises beloved heroes, and upends familiar ideas of musical greatness, arguing that sometimes the best popular music isn’t transcendent: it expresses our grudges as well as our hopes, and it is motivated by greed as well as inspiration.Throughout, race is a powerful touchstone: just as there’s always been a ‘Black’ audience and a ‘white’ audience, with more or less overlap depending on the moment, there is Black music and white music (and some very white music), and a whole lot of confusing of the issue, if not to say expropriation.This is a book to shock and awe the deepest music nerd, and at the same time to work as a heady gateway drug for the uninitiated.

When Peter Sawkins won the Great British Bake Off in November 2020, it was the culmination of an amazing journey that began when he started watching the show aged 12. Just 8 years later, he won the coveted GBBO cake-stand with his imaginative, distinctly Scottish twists on baking classics, his unsurpassed flair for flavour and his witty, self-deprecating honesty. And, of course, his sheer passion for baking.Now, in PETER BAKES, Peter reveals the secrets to his baking success, his brilliant recipes and gluten-free options, and his trademark tricks including how to listen to your cakes, how to enhance your skills and how to develop the confidence to trust your senses in the kitchen. All of which will help you make everything from showstopping cakes and perfect patisserie to yummy puddings that’ll bring a smile to everyone’s faces.

Standing in the busy streets of South London today, it is hard to imagine that much of this suburban townscape was once a vast wood, stretching unbroken for almost seven miles from Croydon to the Thames at Deptford.This compelling narrative history charts the fortunes of the North Wood from the earliest times: its ecology, ownership, management, and its gradual encroachment by the expanding metropolis