THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

This cheeky debut novel by Ely Percy is the first of a trilogy of their queer works set in the heart of Glasgow. It observes Glasgow from an unapologetically pink-tinged angle. If you have a soft spot for the dramatic, f/f romance, local storytelling and appreciate a good chuckle – this is the book for you. Vicky Romeo Plus Joolz owns its history with a relish that spills over into an exuberantly camp parody.

It’s a plucky, on-the-nose, heart-mending comedy about a bunch of queer folks trying to find their way and going about life where not a single queer person dies. The novel’s focal point is a gay bar, a world that most folk aren’t exposed to – but this is Vicky Romeo’s ordinary world. Ely captures a perfect snapshot of this locum, of what it was like to be Scottish, working-class, queer and figuring shit out in that period of queer history.

LOVE, PAN-FRIED is a bundle of tiny stories about shape-shifting, love, loss, our strange relationship with our body and everything in between.

Jake is a curious young boy who lives in a small town where nothing really happens. “The holidays are even worse, when all his friends are away…”, while Jake tries to defeat boredom by playing with his cat. Then, one night, at first no different to any other nights, weird things begin to happen. A mysterious truck with no headlights arrives, and an endless line of oddly shaped live beings that are definitely not human, start to march out of the truck, making an orderly line towards the neighbouring house that has been sitting empty for years. Regardless of the fear and a bit of excitement too, sleep gets the better of Jake, who then, in the morning, finally finds out that a new neighbour moved into the house next door. Once he meets Zook a new world of adventures opens up and all the boredom is forever forgotten.

Not just The Magic Button, the first in the line of ten books, but the following books in the series Zook – The Amazing Inventor, take Jake, Ferdinand, their friends and most importantly, the reader, to a place where imagination never ends

An educational story, suitable for children aged 5 to 9 years old, presents the problem of water pollution through the story of Sally, a young aquatic salamander. Realistic illustrations vividly describe the aquatic salamander and some of the other cave inhabitants. The story, which also leads children through the underground world, its architecture and life in it, encourages children to think about water and the effect that pollution has on animals. Children are encouraged to think about their environment and steps they too can take in reducing our negative impact on nature.

The book is developed as a text book for younger children. It helps them understand how to approach learning, by first reading through the book and trying to remembering as much as possible, while reflecting on situations they are already familiar with. Final part of the book is structured as a workbook that prompts children to revise what they have learned by working through different puzzles and questions. The book gives children the opportunity to grasp the importance of thinking about what they are reading as well as understanding it. They also learn that sometimes we need to read something twice to remember it.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of cultured foods? Perhaps the growing interest people have in fermented foods and their many potential health benefits? The human body is home to around 100 trillion microbes and even though we often think of microbes as harmful, many are indeed essential to our good health. Fermented foods are full of beneficial bacteria and can contain many times more beneficial microbes than any probiotic supplement. This means including fermented food in our balanced diet can improve our gut health and immune system.

Ferment! Fermentation for Beginners is a beginner’s guide to help people get started. This book has been developed as a guide to teach readers the basics of fermentation as well as improve their understanding of the numerous health benefits that this ancient method of preserving food can bring when enjoyed as part of a daily diet. It contains many tried-and-tested recipes for fermenting fruits, vegetables, grains and dairy.

But overall, fermenting is much more than just fermented food. It is doing our part by leading a sustainable life and helping the environment by making sure we are not throwing away food that we could easily ferment and preserve for a longer period of time. This book is one of the pieces of the puzzle, designed to help people in their efforts towards a healthier, planet-friendly life.

To celebrate the International Year of Caves and Karst we have joined forces with biologist Slavko Polak, Senior Curator at Notranjska Museum in Postojna, Slovenia, and an expert in research of subterranean fauna, in preparation of an educational publication Secret Life in Karst Caves.

The book, which will be published in Slovene and English language, is suitable for secondary education, as well as for anyone who would like to learn more about the richness of life underground. Examples are based on typical representatives of cave animals in Slovenian Karst, however the variety of presented habitats gives the reader an overall idea of the types of animals that can be found living in caves around the globe.

Alongside the text, which is perfectly detailed to introduce the reader to the underground world, the book is enriched by incredible photographs, showing the researched animals in great detail.

A revelatory revisionist biography of Alexander Graham Bell ― renowned inventor of the telephone.

When Alexander Graham Bell first unveiled his telephone to the world, it was considered miraculous. But few people know that it was inspired by another supposed miracle: his work teaching the deaf to speak. The son of one deaf woman and husband to another, he was motivated by a desire to empower deaf people by integrating them into the hearing world, but he ended up becoming their most powerful enemy, waging a war against sign language and deaf culture that still rages today.

The Invention of Miracles tells the dual stories of Bell’s remarkable, world-changing invention and his dangerous ethnocide of deaf culture and language. It also charts the rise of deaf activism and tells the triumphant tale of a community reclaiming a once-forbidden language.

Katie Booth has researched this story for over a decade, poring over Bell’s papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell’s legacy on her deaf family set her on a path that upturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and technology.

The distinctive white-tailed sea eagle was driven to extinction in Britain more than 200 years ago, but this immense predator is making a return to our skies, thanks to Roy Dennis, an ornithologist, conservationist and arguably the driving force behind the UK’s reintroduction agenda.

Roy was instrumental in returning the Osprey, red kite and golden eagle to the British Isles, but the road to reintroduction isn’t an easy one. In what will surely be the seminal book on British reintroductions, Roy details the painstaking process of returning the Goldeneye to Scotland, one duckling at a time, the die-hard determination needed to make a dazzling success of the red kite reintroduction and the leap of faith we will all need to make to accept sharing our forests and skies with large carnivores again. He also illustrates all that we have to gain by restoring our ecosystems to balance.

Filled with a lifetime’s worth of stories from the front lines of conservation, Reintroduction offers an eye-opening insight into the complexities of reintroducing extinct animals to Britain. It’s also an intimate portrait of these apex predators and a reminder of why we need them.

Eat Bike Cook brings together 40 delicious easy recipes created to meet the energy demands of cyclists, with tips, hacks and food diaries from women cyclists, both professionals and enthusiastic amateurs.  There are quick, up-and-at-‘em breakfast ideas to charge you up pre-ride, energy-boosting back pocket picnics to keep you going strong while you’re on the road and wonderfully restorative main meals to share with friends once you’ve crossed the finish line.

At the heart of the book are 19 illustrated food diaries by Kitty Pemberton-Platt, whose drawings have lit up Instagram with their honest visualisations of what female cyclists eat to fuel their rides. Contributors range from elite athletes like Tiffany Cromwell, Lizzy Banks and Hannah Barnes  to adventure traveller and bike packers like Vendangi Kulkarni to weekend warriors who use cycling to find some freedom in their every day life.

As well as providing inspiration on easy and tasty ways to fuel for days on the bike, this book is a celebration of the female cycling community: of the great chat in a cafe mid-ride, of the handful of Haribos that gets you through the last 25km and the shared beer and burger at the end of the day.

The free guide by Historic Environment Scotland, developed with partners from across the historic environment sector and beyond, can be used to identify and share climate change adaptation solutions, demonstrating the resilience and adaptability of our historic environment.

The guide identifies many of the risks and hazards of climate change that are facing Scotland’s historic environment and offers owners, local communities and carers of historic sites routes to take action, to implement adaptation measures and enhance resilience to climate change.

Divided into seven distinct elements, the guide provides a tool for assessing the different hazards and levels of risk that threaten different types of sites in Scotland’s historic environment.

In Wild Winter, John D. Burns, bestselling author of The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, sets out to rediscover Scotland’s mountains, remote places and wildlife in the darkest and stormiest months. He traverses the country from the mouth of the River Ness to the Isle of Mull, from remote Sutherland to the Cairngorms, in search of rutting red deer, pupping seals, minke whales, beavers, pine martens, mountain hares and otters. In the midst of the fierce weather, John’s travels reveal a habitat in crisis, and many of these wild creatures prove elusive as they cling on to life in the challenging Highland landscape.

As John heads deeper into the winter, he notices the land fighting back with signs of regeneration. He finds lost bothies, old friendships and innovative rewilding projects, and – as Covid locks down the nation – reflects on what the outdoors means to hillwalkers, naturalists and the folk who make their home in the Highlands.

Wild Winter is a reminder of the wonder of nature and the importance of caring for our environment. In his winter journey through the mountains and bothies of the Highlands, John finds adventure, humour and a deep sense of connection with this wild land.

Femke, her mother Trijn and her grandfather have very different ideas about how to run their family farm. Tensions between mother and daughter are growing; Femke wants to switch to sustainable growing principles, whilst her mother considers this an attack on tradition. To make matters worse, their home province of Groningen is experiencing a series of earthquakes caused by gas extraction near their farm. While the cracks and splinters in their farmhouse increase, the authorities and the gas company refuse to offer the local farming community any help.

In Shocked Earth, Saskia Goldschmidt investigates what it means to have your identity intensely entwined with your place of birth and your principles at odds with your closest kin.

And how to keep standing when the world as you know it is slowly falling apart.

After Highland shepherd Colvin Munro disappears, a mysterious trail of his possessions is found in the Cairngorm mountains. Writing the eulogy for his memorial years later, his foundling-sister Mo seeks to discover why he vanished. Younger brother Sorley is also haunted by his absence and driven to reveal the forces that led to Colvin’s disappearance. Is their brother alive or dead?

Set on a farming estate in the upper reaches of the River Spey, Of Stone and Sky follows several generations of a shepherding family in a paean to the bonds between people, their land and way of life. It is a profound mystery, a passionate poem, a political manifesto, shot through with wisdom and humour.

This is a book about abandoned places: ghost towns and exclusion zones, no man’s lands and fortress islands – and what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place.

In Chernobyl, following the nuclear disaster, only a handful of people returned to their dangerously irradiated homes. On an uninhabited Scottish island, feral cattle live entirely wild. In Detroit, once America’s fourth-largest city, entire streets of houses are falling in on themselves, looters slipping through otherwise silent neighbourhoods.

This book explores the extraordinary places where humans no longer live – or survive in tiny, precarious numbers – to give us a possible glimpse of what happens when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. From Tanzanian mountains to the volcanic Caribbean, the forbidden areas of France to the mining regions of Scotland, Flyn brings together some of the most desolate, eerie, ravaged and polluted areas in the world – and shows how, against all odds, they offer our best opportunities for environmental recovery.

By turns haunted and hopeful, this luminously written world study is pinned together with profound insight and new ecological discoveries that together map an answer to the big questions: what happens after we’re gone, and how far can our damage to nature be undone?

Dive into these fishy facts: Did you know that the prehistoric shark, megalodon, had jaws so big that it could swallow a car? Or that goats, pigs, dogs, cats, and even an alpaca have all learned how to surf? And if that’s not weird enough for you, one man even rowed solo across the Pacific Ocean for 312 days!

In this book filled with 300 wacky facts and pictures, you’ll glimpse the ocean’s weirdest wildlife, uncover shocking shipwrecks, and meet sensational seafarers, from pirates and sailors to ground-breaking marine scientists. Perfect for ocean enthusiasts and trivia-loving landlubbers alike!

A glossary of 192 Gaelic terms (with English translations) connected with the moorland of the Isle of Lewis, compiled by Anne Campbell in collaboration with Finlay Macleod, Donald Morrison and Catriona Campbell.

The first section relates to the Isle of Lewis moorland in general, the second section to the peat-cutting terminology of (mainly) the west side of Lewis and Ness.

This is a book about what it’s like being a birder in an age of natural decline. It is part autobiographical – tales of spell-binding birding encounters that left indelible memories – and it is part reflective. The travellers’ tales of birding adventures are about places and events that were variously entertaining, amusing, captivating, inspiring, exciting and awesome, literally. They also feature the amazing, eccentric, dedicated, inspiring people in the birding community. Travels to Madagascar, Cambodia, India and many other places are recalled. There is birding in the Himalayas, in the Australian outback, on the Southern Oceans and in hotel gardens and city parks and there are tales of the ‘big listers’, ‘big-lensers’, professional guides, and local conservation workers who try to keep their habitats safe for us. There are lots of images to accompany these stories.

Martin’s experiences in becoming a birder late in life revealed some strange behaviour which he soon learnt to take for granted as a member of the birding community. Why tear off chasing the next tick when we were having such a good time in the forest we were already exploring? Why was seeing a rare parrot in a cage less significant than seeing a ‘wild’ one that was being hand-fed in a nature reserve? Why was he visiting all those rubbish tips and sewerage farms in search of birds when birding excursions to a forest or a natural wetland were so much more pleasing?

There are chapters about all of these puzzles and oddities, and more – their origins and, in some cases, how they shape our behaviour in somewhat perverse ways – on ‘authentic’ birding, the origins and importance of the life list, on rarities and trophy birds, and why the idea of a ‘species’ is elusive yet so important. All these tales and reflections are shaped by birding during an extinction crisis and the growing biodiversity crisis. As he observed trashed habitats and vanishing bird populations during his travels, Martin’s growing dismay and alarm about these issues coloured everything. So he came to ponder what birders are doing in response, whether it is for good or harm.

There is the paradox of ‘extinction birding’ – it is not difficult today to see some vanishingly rare birds, because they are hanging on in reserved, fenced spaces, kept alive by artifices such as captive breeding. Because our visits to these places provide funds, we are also among these species’ last hopes for survival. Is this the best we can do? More self-reflection among all birders is necessary. Faced with the growing crisis, we can all do better.

Kerri ní Dochartaigh was born in Derry, on the border of the North and South of Ireland, at the very height of the Troubles. She was brought up on a council estate on the wrong side of town. But for her family, and many others, there was no right side. One parent was Catholic, the other was Protestant. In the space of one year they were forced out of two homes and when she was eleven a homemade petrol bomb was thrown through her bedroom window. Terror was in the very fabric of the city, and for families like Kerri’s, the ones who fell between the cracks of identity, it seemed there was no escape.

In Thin Places, a mixture of memoir, history and nature writing, Kerri explores how nature kept her sane and helped her heal, how violence and poverty are never more than a stone’s throw from beauty and hope, and how we are, once again, allowing our borders to become hard, and terror to creep back in. Kerri asks us to reclaim our landscape through language and study, and remember that the land we fight over is much more than lines on a map. It will always be ours but, at the same time, it never really was.

In this explosive thriller of bad choices and dark crimes, Detective Levine knew his transfer was a punishment – but he had no idea just how bad it would get.

Cooper, Nebraska, is forgettable and forgotten, a town you’d only stumble into if you’d taken a seriously wrong turn. Like Detective Thomas Levine’s career has. But when a young woman is found lying dead in the snow, choked to death, her eyes gouged out, the disgraced detective is Cooper’s only hope for restoring peace and justice.

For Levine, still grieving and guilt-ridden over the death of his girlfriend, his so-called “transfer” from the big city to this grubby backwater has always felt like a punishment. And when his irascible new partner shoots their prime suspect using Levine’s gun, all hope of redemption is shattered. With the case in chaos, and both blackmail and a violent drug cartel to contend with, he finds himself in a world of trouble.

It gets worse. The real killer is still out there, and he’s got plans for Detective Levine. And Cooper may just be the perfect place to get away with murder.

Cynthia Miller’s debut poetry collection, Honorifics, is an astonishing, adventurous, and innovative exploration of family, Malaysian-Chinese cultural identity, and immigration. From jellyfish blooms to glitch art and distant stars, taking in Greek gods, space shuttles and wedding china along the way, Miller’s mesmerizing approach is experimental, luscious, and expansive with longing – “My skin hunger could fill a galaxy”.

Here, the poetry is interwoven with the words for all the things we honour – our loved ones and our ancestors, home and homecomings, and all that is precious and makes us feel that we belong and are beloved. It is also a book that examines contemporary issues of migration in sharp and enquiring relief. Language itself becomes a radical power for reimaging, challenging, and making change, and Miller’s distinctive and multifaceted poetry creates an extraordinary space for multiplicity and celebration.