THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Imagine you could be rid of your sadness, your anxiety, your heartache, your fear. Imagine you could take those feelings from others and turn them into something beautiful. Imagine the power that would give you, how valuable you would be to others…

Lynx is a Grief Nurse. Kept by the Asters, a wealthy, influential family, to ensure they’re never troubled by negative emotions. Kept at their manor house, limited to its walls, plush rooms and the elegant grounds on the family’s Scottish island, she knows no other life.

When news arrives that the Asters’ eldest son is dead, Lynx does what she can to alleviate their sorrow. But as guests flock to the island for the wake, bringing their own secrets, lies and grief, tensions rise and Lynx finds herself trapped at the centre of a family tearing itself apart.

But the son’s death is not the last and the island soon becomes a vortex of jealousy, suspicion, hatred and tragedy – with Lynx caught in the middle. With romance, intrigue and spectacular gothic world-building, this spellbinding novel, set in a subtly reimagined 1920s Scotland, marks the debut of an extraordinary new voice in fiction.

Richard Hannay Returns.

JULY, 1942.

Once again veteran adventurer Richard Hannay is called into action on a mission that will test him as never before. At stake is the fate of the beleaguered island of Malta where Hannay’s son is stationed as a fighter pilot. The German master spy Ravenstein has stumbled upon a centuries old secret which will give the Nazis the key to conquering Malta and so take control of the entire Mediterranean.

To stop them, Hannay and his allies the Gorbals Diehards must track down the mysterious Karrie Adriatis, who alone knows the nature of the ancient secret. The quest takes them on a perilous journey from Gibraltar, to Casablanca, to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and finally on to Malta itself. Here Hannay and Ravenstein come face to face in a battle that will determine the future of the war.

Keen to explore a different side of Edinburgh? Like a Local is the book for you.

This isn’t your ordinary travel guide. Beyond Edinburgh’s iconic arts festival and hilltop castle are beautifully curated galleries, haunted alcoves and secret distilleries in old railway buildings – and that’s where this book takes you. Turn the pages to discover:

– The small businesses and community strongholds that add character to this vibrant city, recommended by true locals

– 6 themed walking tours dedicated to specific experiences such as thrift store shopping and gin tasting

– A beautiful gift book for anyone seeking to explore Edinburgh

– Helpful what3word addresses, so you can pinpoint all the listed sights

– A range of sights and establishments that will take you well beyond the beaten path.

Compiled by four proud Edinburgh residents, this stylish travel guide is packed with Edinburgh’s best experiences and secret spots, handily categorized to suit your mood and needs.

Whether you’re a restless Edinburger on the hunt for a new hangout, or a visitor keen to discover a side you won’t find in traditional guidebooks, Edinburgh Like A Local will give you all the inspiration you need.

About Like A Local:

These giftable and collectable guides from DK Eyewitness are compiled exclusively by locals. Whether they’re born-and-bred or moved to study and never looked back, our experts shine a light on what it means to be a local: pride for their city, community spirit and local expertise. Like a Local will inspire readers to celebrate the secret as well as the iconic – just like the locals who call the city home.

Looking for another guide to Edinburgh? Explore further with our DK Eyewitness or Top 10 guides to Scotland.

An exploration of the diverse lived experiences of marginality in Scottish society from the sixteen to the eighteenth century.

Throughout the early modern period, Scottish society was constructed around an expectation of social conformity: people were required to operate within a relatively narrow range of acceptable identities and behaviours. Those who did not conform to this idealised standard, or who were in some fundamental way different from the prescribed norm, were met with suspicion. Such individuals often attracted both criticism and discrimination, forcing them to live confirmed to the social margins.

Focusing on a range of marginalised groups, including the poor, migrants, ethnic minorities, indentured workers and women, the contributors to this book explore what it was like to live at the boundaries of social acceptability, what mechanisms were involved in policing the divide between “mainstream” and “marginal”, and what opportunities existed for personal or collective fulfilment. The result is a fresh perspective on early modern Scotland, one that not only recovers the stories of people long excluded from historical discussion, but also offers a deeper understanding of the ordering assumptions of society more generally. Specific topics addressed range from the marginalisation of people with disabilities in the domestic sphere to female sex workers, and the place of executioners in society.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR: FICTION

‘A trailblazer in the world of short-form prose’ New Yorker

Lydia Davis is a virtuoso at detecting the seemingly casual, inconsequential surprises of daily life and pinning them for inspection. In Our Strangers, conversations are overheard and misheard, a special delivery letter is mistaken for a rare white butterfly, toddlers learning to speak identify a ping-pong ball as an egg and mumbled remarks betray a marriage. In the glow of Davis’s keen noticing, strangers can become like family and family like strangers.

Our Strangers is a fascinating collection that confirms the genius of a writer whose every attention is transformative.

Keen to explore a different side of Edinburgh? Like a Local is the book for you.

This isn’t your ordinary travel guide. Beyond Edinburgh’s iconic arts festival and hilltop castle are beautifully curated galleries, haunted alcoves and secret distilleries in old railway buildings – and that’s where this book takes you. Turn the pages to discover:

– The small businesses and community strongholds that add character to this vibrant city, recommended by true locals

– 6 themed walking tours dedicated to specific experiences such as thrift store shopping and gin tasting- A beautiful gift book for anyone seeking to explore Edinburgh

– Helpful what3word addresses, so you can pinpoint all the listed sights

– A range of sights and establishments that will take you well beyond the beaten path.

Compiled by four proud Edinburgh residents, this stylish travel guide is packed with Edinburgh’s best experiences and secret spots, handily categorized to suit your mood and needs.

Whether you’re a restless Edinburger on the hunt for a new hangout, or a visitor keen to discover a side you won’t find in traditional guidebooks, Edinburgh Like A Local will give you all the inspiration you need.

About Like A Local:

These giftable and collectable guides from DK Eyewitness are compiled exclusively by locals. Whether they’re born-and-bred or moved to study and never looked back, our experts shine a light on what it means to be a local: pride for their city, community spirit and local expertise. Like a Local will inspire readers to celebrate the secret as well as the iconic – just like the locals who call the city home.

Looking for another guide to Edinburgh? Explore further with our DK Eyewitness or Top 10 guides to Scotland.

‘It’s a wildly satisfying and moving read … I loved this special book’ ? Graham Norton

Six years ago, Jo Caulfield was about to go on stage when she found out that her big sister Annie had cancer. Not the best way to start a nationwide comedy tour. But the tour turns out to be a welcome distraction for both sisters. As Jo reports back from various hotels and service stations, they revisit their childhood and adolescence while navigating Annie’s illness, learning through trial and error how to behave when someone you love gets sick.

The Funny Thing About Death is a hilarious memoir of two unconventional girls growing up in the 1970s. They didn’t fit in at the Air Force bases they were raised on or the strict convent boarding school they were sent to. The Air Force was obsessed with communists and the nuns were obsessed with the Virgin Mary, neither of which were of interest to Jo or Annie.

Annie was witty, spiky and greedy for life, rushing to be ‘interesting’ and experience adventures. She travelled the world and became a screenwriter and broadcaster.

Jo was equally rebellious but didn’t have a plan. She just wanted to be interesting like her big sister and thought it might involve eyeliner, smoking and being in a band.

Like her stand-up, Jo Caulfield’s caustic wit and razor-sharp observations make her account of life with her sister, even in the worst of times, as entertaining as it is touching and relatable.

Savagery in Europe and beyond persists but now with smart, sassy Americans joining the fight against Hitler’s aggression, while Lesley’s startling announcement leads her to a challenging new way of life.

Enthusiasm initially in short supply, she is plunged into a different world, where new skills and the horrors of war test her endurance and resolve to the limit.

Meanwhile Stevie and Luuk, the Dutch boy rescued from the clutches of the Gestapo, now live safely in the Highlands of Scotland amongst a mixed bag of evacuees where Stevie proves a worthy beneficiary of the crown he is destined to wear.

Lesley, never failing to maintain close contact with the boy whose life she salvaged, continues to keep a finger on the pulse of his journey and those of the evacuees too, often with hilarious consequences, while her own transformation at last culminates in an experience of the romantic kind. The closing scene of Stevie’s journey prematurely catapults him to his rightful place at the head of the ancient Scottish family on the Harley Muir Estate, which means that for Lesley, her work there is done.

An unconventional, unexpectedly funny, brutally honest memoir about infertility, pregnancy and motherhood

‘You and your partner want a baby. But your two bodies can’t make a baby together.’

If you want a baby but your body says otherwise –

If you don’t know the polite way to say thank you for the sperm –

If you’re waiting for the sound of a brand-new heartbeat –

If you know it takes a village to raise a baby but have no idea who should be doing what –

If you’re lurching between bliss and bewilderment –

If you don’t fit the shape of what you’ve been told a mother should be –

Reach for The Unfamiliar and don’t let go.

Moving and immersive, and written with wisdom, disarming humour and raw honesty, The Unfamiliar casts a fresh eye on motherhood and challenges our assumptions about pregnancy, gender roles, queer identity and what it means to be a parent.

In 1922 Winston Churchill prepared to defend his parliamentary seat of Dundee in the General Election. He had represented the city since 1908, enjoyed a majority of more than 15,000 and, after five previous victories, confidently described it as a ‘life seat’. But one man had other ideas, and Churchill was in for the fight of his life.

This is the story of how god-fearing teetotaller Edwin Scrymgeour fought and won an election against Britain’s most famous politician. It begins with their first electoral contest in 1908 and follows their political sparring over the next 15 years until Scrymgeour’s eventual victory in 1922, when he became the only prohibitionist ever elected to the House of Commons.

As well as vividly bringing to life an extraordinary personal and political rivalry, the book also explores for the first time Churchill’s controversial relationship with Scotland, including his attitude to devolution.

“There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”

It is 1887 and a man has been murdered in an abandoned house. On his face is an expression of utter horror; in his pocket is a woman’s wedding ring. On the wall above him is the word RACHE, written in blood. But whose blood is it?

Thus begins the story of one of the world’s most famous partnerships. Join Manga Classics now as we return to the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes, in which he and his newfound partner Dr. John Watson unravel the mystery behind a murder that spans the globe!

Special Notes:

SHERLOCK HOLMES VOL. 2 A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA AND OTHER STORIES will be released in June 2025.

Tatting was Faith Compton Mackenzie’s last novel, and revisits the early years of her marriage living in the parish of an eccentric High Church Anglican vicar in Cornwall, beset by formidable women. Mandolinata was Faith’s first book, a collection of fourteen short stories set in Capri, Rome and London, all written in the 1920s, about sex, love and bad marriages. This volume bookends the lost works of this neglected British writer.

Tatting is a handicraft that uses thread to weave intricate patterns in knotwork. This idiosyncratic novel from 1957 by Faith Compton Mackenzie traces patterns across the Cornish landscape in the style of David Garnett and Sylvia Townsend Warner.

A mandolinata is played on mandolins: complex, melancholy and lyrical. This collection of fourteen short stories was Faith Compton Mackenzie’s first book from 1931, about sex, love and bad marriages.

Tatting is set in 1909. Ariadne is a starving Irish artist in St John’s Wood, existing on her memories of having once worked with Beardsley and Wilde. Laura has recently married Guy Mallory, a poet whom she had met only weeks before. They travel to Cornwall on the invitation of an old friend, Father St John (based on the eccentric priest the Reverend Sandys Wason) to stay at his vicarage, relieved to not have to pay their London rent for the summer or to have to finally learn to cook. But Cornwall is … odd. There is a large Alsatian called Rex who wants only to roam the fields at night, and a large farmer called Mr Williams who hides in ditches to spy on ladies. Miss Josephine Want, a domineering parishioner, is fuming at the unwanted visitors, and then Guy and Laura invite Ariadne to Cornwall to paint a fresco in the church. The visit of the triumphantly parasitical artist causes havoc all round.

In the hilarious new novel in the best-selling Detective Varg series, Ulf Varg will need to resolve both a sensitive crime and his own delicate dilemma in the hopes of preserving the peace.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes is downsizing in light of a recent downturn of sensitive crime, and staff members are wondering who among them will be transferred elsewhere. As the bickering between colleagues intensifies, Ulf tries his best to stay above the fray. But when Anna, a longtime friend and coworker, appears to blame him for an old case that went sideways, it seems she may be putting her own job prospects above their friendship.

In the midst of all this, Ulf embarks on an important inquiry: a man’s cabin has mysteriously disappeared and Ulf is tasked with finding out what happened. How exactly does one steal a house? And, more to the point, how does one track down a stolen house? Meanwhile, a promising veterinary treatment for deafness in dogs has been announced, and Ulf’s dog, Martin, might be the perfect patient.

This latest novel is another masterful, farcical installment in the series that defines the genre that Alexander McCall Smith is singlehandedly championing: Scandi blanc.

Them! by Harry Josephine Giles is a challenging and subversive collection of poems about trans life as it is lived today, through the lenses of work, technology and ecology. Witty, candid, furious, and always compelling, Them! negotiates the fraught and fruitful space between the worlds of ‘online’ and the ‘outside’, and how they fuse and diverge in the imagination.

Giles’ visual poetics create an unusually dynamic reading experience as she finds new ways ‘to sing, shout and strike in the cracks of what’s possible’. At a time when trans rights are to the fore in public discourse, Them! is a zestful poetic intervention from one of this generation’s most necessary poets.

Them! by Harry Josephine Giles is a challenging and subversive collection of poems about trans life as it is lived today, through the lenses of work, technology and ecology. Witty, candid, furious, and always compelling, Them! negotiates the fraught and fruitful space between the worlds of ‘online’ and the ‘outside’, and how they fuse and diverge in the imagination.

Giles’ visual poetics create an unusually dynamic reading experience as she finds new ways ‘to sing, shout and strike in the cracks of what’s possible’. At a time when trans rights are to the fore in public discourse, Them! is a zestful poetic intervention from one of this generation’s most necessary poets.

By drawing upon recent scholarship, original manuscript materials, and previously unpublished sources, this new biography presents an analytical narrative of King James VI and I’s life from his birth in 1566 to his accession to the throne of England and Ireland in 1603.

The only son of Mary Stuart and heir (apparent but not uncontested) to Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland was, from the moment of his birth, a focal point of countervailing hopes and fears for the confessional and dynastic future of the kingdoms of the British Isles. This study examines material from across the UK and beyond, as well as the newly deciphered letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, to reveal James as a highly capable, resourceful, deeply provocative and ruthless political actor. Analysis of James’s own writings is integrated within the narrative, providing fresh insights into the King’s inventive tactical engagement in the politics of publicity. Through a chronological approach, the events of his life are linked to wider issues associated with the early modern court, government, religion, and political and ideological conflict.

James VI, Britannic Prince will be of interest to all scholars of Scottish and British history in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

By drawing upon recent scholarship, original manuscript materials, and previously unpublished sources, this new biography presents an analytical narrative of King James VI and I’s life from his birth in 1566 to his accession to the throne of England and Ireland in 1603.

The only son of Mary Stuart and heir (apparent but not uncontested) to Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland was, from the moment of his birth, a focal point of countervailing hopes and fears for the confessional and dynastic future of the kingdoms of the British Isles. This study examines material from across the UK and beyond, as well as the newly deciphered letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, to reveal James as a highly capable, resourceful, deeply provocative and ruthless political actor. Analysis of James’s own writings is integrated within the narrative, providing fresh insights into the King’s inventive tactical engagement in the politics of publicity. Through a chronological approach, the events of his life are linked to wider issues associated with the early modern court, government, religion, and political and ideological conflict.

James VI, Britannic Prince will be of interest to all scholars of Scottish and British history in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Twenty-two long years, 264 torturous months, more than, 1,100 despairing weeks. The Tartan Army’s foot soldiers were waiting for a leader of substance and in Steve Clarke they finally found their general.

On his appointment in 2019 the former Chelsea stalwart faced the challenge of succeeding where a long line of predecessors could not. A string of household names all found tournament football out of reach – but under Clarke no summit feels to beyond Scotland’s grasp. With the experience of Euro 2020 under his belt and time spent moulding a squad capable of going toe to toe with the world’s finest, Euro 2024 represents another major milestone.

We Can Boogie goes behind the scenes of Scotland’s remarkable rise and explores the extraordinary story of the man who has led the revival and of the team he has shaped. It is a story told through the eyes of those who know him best. Former teammates and coaching colleagues lend their voices alongside an all-star cast of past and present Hampden favourites in a tale of triumph and hope.

This book takes little ones on a magical journey into the world of popular bedtime tales.

Read along with your children as you introduce them to well-known stories including Little Red Hen, Three Little Pigs, The Lion and the Mouse, and many more. Young readers will love poring over the endearing illustrations that accompany and enrich the stories and bring the quirky characters to life.

These classic tales we all know and love so well are perfect for bedtime reading, and will allow parents and young ones to enjoy them time and time again.

This book takes little ones on a magical journey into the world of popular nursery rhymes.

Read along with your little one as you introduce them to well-known nursery rhymes including Humpty Dumpty, Incy Wincy Spider, Little Bo-Peep, and many more. Young readers will love poring over the endearing illustrations that accompany and enrich the rhymes by bringing the quirky characters to life.

These classic rhymes we all know and love so well are perfect for bedtime reading, and will allow parents and young ones to enjoy them time and time again.