THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Richard Holloway has been the archetypal ‘turbulent priest’. Having risen to be the Primus (Head) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, he abandoned religion and ecclesiastical office to fight for the rights of minorities and to write a string of best selling books, most famously Leaving Alexandria. He also became Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council.

In this, his last book, he reflects deeply on his life, most especially as a child of desperately poor parents in Dumbartonshire in Scotland. He tells the story of how he found faith but then abandoned Christian orthodoxy after leaving office as Head of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and discovered a new life as a writer, broadcaster, journalist and public intellectual.

This book opens and ends with chapters of a philosophical kind in which he explains how he lost belief in a loving God and became true to himself.

In 1944, on her return to England after a disastrous marriage, Muriel Spark was unknown as a writer except to a handful of close friends; by 1963 she was the internationally renowned author of seven critically acclaimed, bestselling novels.

Her letters – witty, affectionate, sharp, mercurial – reveal the turbulence of her early career in postwar London: her struggles to earn a living as a writer, her difficult love affairs, a terrifying breakdown, and her conversion to Catholicism. They also trace her development from little-known poet to celebrated novelist, with glittering insights into the emergence of her unique literary voice, as well as her relationships with friends, lovers, writers and publishers.

Selected from her extensive correspondence and insightfully edited and annotated, this is an essential read for anyone interested in Spark’s work and world.

Beginning with the origins of distilling in 1200BC by alchemists in China and India, journey through whisky’s early origins as an illicit alcohol made in the hills of Scotland and Ireland, to the exciting small batch whiskies being produced today by craft distillers and master blenders all over the world.

Through over 100 stories, legends and anecdotes, discover the origins of the quaich, whisky glass and corkscrew: and look inside iconic distilleries from around the world with stunning photographs and historic images.

Award-winning writers Charles MacLean and Gavin D. Smith offer a rollocking narrative; describing the adventures of the legendary characters who shaped the whisky industry. With flavour influenced as much by history, craft and tradition as it is by science, in The Story of Whisky, find out why your drink tastes the way it does, where whisky flavours come from and how they are changing to embrace the future.

 

Foreword by Alexander McCall Smith.

Lennox, Vonnie and Ava head to Greenland to meet up with Heather, Sandy and the Enceladons, commencing an epic showdown that will change everything … The emotive, devastating yet ultimately life-affirming conclusion to the bestselling Enceladons Trilogy, as seen on BBC2’s Between the Covers…

 

It’s been eighteen months since the Enceladons escaped the clutches of an American military determined to exterminate the peaceful alien creatures.

Lennox and Vonnie have been lying low in the Scottish Highlands, Ava has been caring for her young daughter Chloe, and Heather is adjusting to her new life with Sandy and the other Enceladons in the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Greenland. But fate is about to bring them together again for one last battle.

When Lennox and Vonnie are visited by Karl Jensen, a Norwegian billionaire intent on making contact with the Encedalons again, they are wary of subjecting the aliens to further dangers. But when word arrives that Ava’s daughter has suffered an attack and might die without urgent help, they reluctantly make the trip to Greenland, where they enlist the vital help of local woman Niviaq.

It’s not long before they’re drawn into a complex web of lies, deceit and death. What is Karl’s company really up to? Why are sea creatures attacking boats? Why is Sandy acting so strangely, and why are polar bears getting involved?

Profound, ambitious and immensely moving, The Transcendent Tide is the epic conclusion to the Encedalons Trilogy – a final showdown between the best and worst of humanity, the animal kingdom and the Encedalons. The future of life on earth will be changed forever, but not everyone will survive to see it…

A powerful exploration of life and death, illness and grace, wonder and beauty, in the posthumous collection from one of our greatest contemporary poets

‘It’s impossible not to love the world more when reading Burnside’ GUARDIAN

‘A master of language’ HILARY MANTEL

John Burnside’s last collection of new poems gathers around a single theme – mortality – and draws on his faltering health and earlier glances with death, creating a powerfully moving exploration of memory, forgetting and the seven ages.

Here, as always, there is a clear-eyed curiosity; a sense of wonder at the beleaguered natural world and its endless mutability – its hidden beauty, often suddenly disclosed – and a deep faith in its old gods. Burnside was always as much a spirit-guide as a poet, and here, in the Empire of Forgetting, we are never far from a fresh alertness to the world, to epiphany – a sudden, spiritual manifestation.

There is a sense, too, in these last poems, of a man having found a ‘dwelling place’ – a sense of rest and peace and settlement with the world. A state of grace.

‘Among the best writers of his generation, fully voiced and perfectly pitched’ ANDREW O’HAGAN

‘A titan of literature’ KATHLEEN JAMIE

The world of unknowable objects – magical items that most people have no idea possess powers – has been quiet for decades . . .

But three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world – and keep the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artefact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends the Society’s newest member, author Magda Sparks, to investigate.

Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before. Magda is forced to flee, using an artefact that not even the rest of the Society knows about.

Returning to London, Magda learns hers is not the only secret being kept from the other two members. And that the most pernicious secret is about the nature of the Society’s mission. Her discoveries will lead her on a perilous journey, across the Atlantic to the deep south of the United States – not in pursuit of an unknowable object, but an unknowable person: the killer she first faced in Hong Kong. In doing so, Magda begins to understand that there are even more in the world who are chasing these magical items, and that her own family’s legacy is tied up in keeping all these secrets under wraps.

Magic has always been too powerful to reveal to the world. But Magda will learn there might be something even more powerful: the truth.

New Writing Scotland is the principal forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland today. Every year it publishes the very best from both emerging and established writers, and lists many of the leading literary lights of Scotland among its past (and present) contributors. A Chaos Of Light: New Writing Scotland 43 is the latest collection of excellent contemporary literature, drawn from a wide cross-section of
Scottish culture and society, and includes new work from thirty-seven authors – some internationally renowned, and some just beginning their careers.

For fans of M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth novels—the inspiration behind the cult BBC drama—this is the ultimate look behind the curtain at a cosy crime classic with a wild Highland twist.

Welcome to the Wild West of Scotland

In 1995, BBC One’s Hamish Macbeth broke all the rules of Sunday night TV. This behind-the-scenes look at the beloved Scottish drama reveals how the picture-postcard Highlands became the setting for a genre-defying series that brought cannibalism and ceilidhs, marijuana and murder, love triangles and lobster tanks to millions of viewers each week.

With Robert Carlyle starring as the laid-back Highland detective who preferred poaching to paperwork, producers transformed the tiny village of Plockton into the fictional Lochdubh. While they attempted to evade BBC bureaucracy, they couldn’t escape the tourists who soon flocked to see Hamish’s home.

Drawing on dozens of new interviews with cast, crew and local residents, this book reveals how they crafted a vision of Highland life that was part Western, part modern fable and wholly original. Discover the battle over Wee Jock’s fate, the mystery of the ‘lost’ musical episode and how the real-world return of the Stone of Destiny forced last-minute rewrites of the epic series finale.

Jonathan Melville, author of A Kind of Magic: Making the Original Highlander and Local Hero: Making a Scottish Classic, blends oral history and archive material into the definitive account of how this subversive BBC series became a timeless classic.

Queerness weaves through Scotland’s past, but it is largely intangible and absent from accounts of what came before us. By making invisible stories visible, who will be remembered here captures something of the richness, complexity and beauty of a history that belongs to all of us.

In this collection, 14 authors explore the places and spaces which define their queer history – wherever has meaning for them. From theatres and hillsides to amusement arcades and libraries, who will be remembered here reconsiders and reimagines the built and natural environment through a queer lens, to uncover stories full of hope and humanity.

What does it mean to be a woman who dares to challenge the status quo? Whether by wielding power in patriarchal societies or rallying for peace, fighting for change has always put women in danger, but also led to remarkable stories of resistance. Gathering 46 essays from writers around the globe, this collection explores the twin themes of women and daring through the lives of monarchs, prophets, suffragists, soldiers, scientists, activists and artists. From the infamous to the forgotten, these trailblazers have much to tell us about the dynamics, conflicts, identities and power relations with which women live today.

As children, we made things: snowmen, paper boats, eccentrically costumed plays. That making fired our minds and imaginations – it altered our small worlds and shaped who we became. But as adults, it is hard to find to find the space for creativity and to remember its power.

Exploring craft traditions and forms of making from across centuries and cultures, Clare Hunter encourages to engage with the world afresh. To use our hands again, to see beauty in unexpected places, to play and protest and embrace imaginative possibilities. From paper crafts to wonders made from light and snow, she searches for creative delight – making lanterns, puppets and pinhole cameras.

Inspiring and fascinating, Making Matters celebrates individual and collective creativity. It blends history, culture and politics with rich storytelling, wonderful characters and tales of remarkable objects. Read this, and then make something.

To the Women is a celebration of the beauty, strength and joy of being a woman. A love letter to our deep capacity to love, rage, fear and rebuild, Donna Ashworth reminds us that we are stronger when we come together and unstoppable when we accept ourselves. With poems such as ‘Be That Woman’, ‘Take Up Space’, ‘When One Woman Screams’, ‘There Will Be Days’ and ‘To the Woman Who Thinks She Isn’t Good Enough’, Donna helps us find comfort, inspiration and courage in the many roles we play in life as daughters, guides, mothers and friends.

Originally self-published in 2020 with 48 poems, this beautiful gift hardback edition has been fully revised and updated complete with over 70 new poems. Full of wisdom and comfort every woman needs to hear, Donna helps us see that we’re never walking alone.

The first of two volumes of the letters of Muriel Spark, one of the greatest and most fascinating writers of the twentieth century.

In 1944, on her return to England after a disastrous marriage, Muriel Spark was unknown as a writer except to a handful of close friends; by 1963 she was the internationally renowned author of seven critically acclaimed, bestselling novels.

Her letters – witty, affectionate, sharp, mercurial – reveal the turbulence of her early career in postwar London: her struggles to earn a living as a writer, her difficult love affairs, a terrifying breakdown, and her conversion to Catholicism. They also trace her development from little-known poet to celebrated novelist, with glittering insights into the emergence of her unique literary voice, as well as her relationships with friends, lovers, writers and publishers.

Selected from her extensive correspondence and insightfully edited and annotated, this is an essential read for anyone interested in Spark’s work and world.

Never underestimate a librarian.

Fifty-something librarian Shona McMonagle is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls with a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.

After a visit from Miss Blaine herself, involving a bad-tempered exchange about Robinson Crusoe and improper book shelving, Shona is sent spinning through time and space for another mission. She finds herself on an island, with little in the way of clues to help her decipher the purpose of her trip. Despite initially wondering if this might be a rare treat from Miss Blaine, she soon realises this is no holiday. Her island is not tropical; it’s in the Baltic Sea and it’s the fifteenth century.

Luckily she’s kitted out for all eventualities and finds her local languages are not too rusty, which is useful when she encounters pirates, Krakens and other monsters. As always, she’s nothing if not resourceful – after all, she is a librarian.

Gu Leòr / Galore is an imaginative and innovative collection of poems in both Gaelic and English. The voice of the work here is lyrical and cogent, achieved through stratagems such as intertextuality; near-translation; bilingual sensibility; classical allusion; lists; and exotic vocabulary. This is an intelligent, measured and powerfully resonant collection, with a maturity far beyond that of a poet publishing his first full collection.

A powerful yacht, a warring family, the unforgiving deep…

Caught in a terrorist explosion on the London Underground, inner-city schoolteacher Helen is pregnant and lost until a stranger leads her to safety then vanishes. Obsessed with finding him, she begins to lose her grip on reality – and her family.

As their marriage fractures, her husband Frank proposes a daring plan: sell up and sail the Atlantic with their son Nicholas and troubled foster daughter Sindi on the Innisfree, the very boat where the couple first fell in love.

What begins as a daring bid for salvation turns into an epic journey. The ocean proves as wild and unpredictable as the heartbreak Helen is trying to outrun. Will the voyage meant to save them destroy them instead?

With a fiercely funny and maverick heroine at its helm, Ocean is a powerful exploration of the uncharted waters of the human heart. The award-winning author of Larchfield takes us on a gripping, beautifully written voyage into the depths of what it means to heal – and to live

Hope House is more than just a building – it’s a place of magic and mystery. . .

When Amal and her family unexpectedly inherit the enchanted clifftop home, they can’t believe their luck. But their joy is short-lived when a mysterious couple arrives, claiming the house is theirs and giving Amal’s family just thirty days to pack up their stuff and leave before they demolish it completely.

The clock is ticking, and Amal is determined to save Hope House from destruction. How will she unravel the secrets of the house and its mysterious benefactor in time to save it?

A page-turning, lyrical mystery with a magical twist, perfect for fans of Matt Goodfellow, Onjali Q. Raúf and Disney’s Encanto. Featuring accessible text in verse and beautiful illustrations throughout.

James Kelman has made use of the short form all of his writing life, calling on the different traditions where such stories are central within the culture, beginning and ending in freedom, the freedom to create. People should know that their stories count, no matter how personal, how emotional, how eccentric, how trivial, how stupid or how self-centred they may appear. Just make them, and make them your own, in spite of hostility, of negativity, of the threat of punishment: go to it. Language is with the user and you are the user. Take these stories and make them your own

CAN FRIENDSHIPS CHANGE THE WORLD?

For the first time since university, James and Roland’s paths through life – one drawn in straight lines, the other squiggled and meandering – began to cross…

James Drayton has always found things too easy. By the time he leaves university, he’s still searching for a challenge worthy of his ambitions, one that will fulfil the destiny he thinks awaits him.

Roland Mackenzie, on the other hand, is an impulsive risk-taker, a charismatic drifter with boundless enthusiasm but a knack for derailing his own attempts to get started in life.

When a chance encounter in a pub reunites these old acquaintances, it sets them on an unpredictable course through the upheavals of the 21st century, and triggers an unlikely alliance. Against the backdrop of the financial crash and its aftermath, they strive to create something that outlasts them, something that will matter.

Drayton and Mackenzie is a stunningly ambitious, immediately engaging and ultimately deeply moving novel both about trying to make your mark on the world, and about how a friendship might be the most important thing in life.

A beautiful celebration of Scottish malt whisky and the illustrious lands that produce it.

A classic since its original publication in 1935, Whisky and Scotland will enlighten and entertain all who delight in the amber spirit that evokes ‘the world of hills and glens, of raging elements, of shelter, of divine ease’.
Whisky and Scotland takes us on a journey through the Highlands of Scotland to uncover the traditional techniques whereby barley grains become liquid gold. Written by one of Scotland’s most acclaimed early twentieth-century writers, Whisky and Scotland examines whisky history, production and tradition that remains unchanged after hundreds of years. Witty and informative, this is Neil M. Gunn’s lyrical toast to uisge beatha, the Celtic ‘water of life’.