THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Fully-dramatised adaptations of all 60 Sherlock Holmes stories, brought to life with a full cast of actors, sound effects and music

‘A remarkable undertaking… applauding them, and particularly Clive Merrison’s Holmes, made my hands sore’ The Times

Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his dear friend Dr Watson are among the most enduringly popular fictional characters ever created. Their adventures have been dramatised countless times on radio, TV and film, but until BBC Radio 4 took on the challenge in 1989, no-one had ever attempted to adapt all sixty stories.Beginning with A Study in Scarlet and concluding with The Hound of the Baskervilles, their epic project took over 8 years to complete – and this landmark collection contains the extraordinary result of their labours. Here is the world’s first ever fully-dramatised Sherlock Holmes canon: 56 short stories and 4 novels, all made by the same team of directors, producers, dramatists and leading actors, and packed with the high production qualities of a film or TV drama that set it apart.Starring one of radio’s great double acts, Clive Merrison and Michael Williams, as Holmes and Watson, and with guest stars including Brian Blessed, Judi Dench, Maurice Denham, Andrew Sachs, Peter Davison, Robert Glenister and Harriet Walter, this definitive collection contains over 48 hours of enthralling listening.

Also included is a bonus interview with Adrian Conan Doyle about his father, Sir Arthur, and some fascinating behind-the-scenes revelations from the series’ head writer, Bert Coules, about the making of the radio adaptations.

Cast

Sherlock Holmes – Clive Merrison

Dr John Watson – Michael Williams

Mrs Hudson – Anna Cropper/Mary Allen/Joan Matheson/Judi Dench/

Inspector Gregson – John Moffatt

Inspector Lestrade – Donald Gee/Stephen Thorne

Mary Morstan/Mary Watson – Moir Leslie/Elizabeth Mansfield/Hannah Gordon

Irene Adler – Sarah Badel

Inspector Jones – Nigel Carrington

Colonel Moran – Fraser Kerr/Frederick Treves

Mycroft Holmes – John Hartley

Professor Moriarty – Michael Pennington

Production credits

Written by Arthur Conan Doyle

Dramatised by Bert Coules with David Ashton, Michael Bakewell, Roger Danes, Robert Forrest, Denys Hawthorne, Gerry Jones, Peter Ling, Vincent McInerney and Peter Mackie

Produced and directed by Ian Cotterell, David Johnston, Patrick Rayner and Enyd Williams

Musicians: Alexander Balanescu, Leonard Friedman, Richard Friedman, Michael Haslam, Ian Humphries and Abigail Young

Contents

A Study in Scarlet

The Sign of the Four

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Valley of Fear

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

A Scandal in Bohemia

The Red-Headed League

A Case of Identity

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

The Five Orange Pips

The Man with the Twisted Lip

The Blue Carbuncle

The Speckled Band

The Engineer’s Thumb

The Noble Bachelor

The Beryl Coronet

The Copper Beeches

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Silver Blaze

The Yellow Face

The Stockbroker’s Clerk

The Gloria Scott

The Musgrave Ritual

The Reigate Squires

The Crooked Man

The Resident Patient

The Greek Interpreter

The Naval Treaty

The Final Problem

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

The Empty House

The Norwood Builder

The Dancing Men

The Solitary Cyclist

The Priory School

Black Peter

Charles Augustus Milverton

The Six Napoleons

The Three Students

The Golden Pince-Nez

The Missing Three-Quarter

The Abbey Grange

The Second Stain

His Last Bow

Wisteria Lodge

The Cardboard Box

The Red Circle

The Bruce-Partington Plans

The Dying Detective

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax

The Devil’s Foot

His Last Bow

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

The Illustrious Client

The Blanched Soldier

The Mazarin Stone

The Three Gables

The Sussex Vampire

The Three Garridebs

The Problem of Thor Bridge

The Creeping Man

The Lion’s Mane

The Veiled Lodger

Shoscombe Old Place

The Retired Colourman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between November 1989 and March 1995© 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

After being sacked from his high-power executive job, Morris now has nothing to lose. He is free – sort of. Determined to devote what time he has left to creating music, his lifelong dream, he returns to his childhood home, ‘to kickstart his life once more – and this time get it right!’ Very soon, however, things start going wrong. Very wrong. Not only does his past catch up with him, but the future that is rushing towards him becomes more threatening by the day. Old bad habits creep back in again. Then he meets Jess.

Upbeat, laugh-out-loud funny, this compelling novel, set in the Borders, swinging sixties London and present-day Edinburgh, touches on music, Scottish independence, love in later life and, most of all, how to make the most of one’s life before it is too late.

Six years after Brexit, it can feel like we’re still having the same conversations.

This is the explainer we need to move on.

And we do need to move on, because in the meantime so much has changed. The economic realities that are making the UK less competitive, less productive and less well-off are ever more obvious – and more and more people are finding out the Brexit they were sold was based on falsehoods and fantasy.

So what exactly went wrong with Brexit?

In this book, Peter Foster dispels the myths and, most importantly, shows what a better future for Britain after Brexit might look like. With clear-headed practicality, he considers the real costs of leaving the EU, how we can recover international trust in the UK, how to improve cooperation and trade with our neighbours, and how to begin to build the Global Britain that Brexit promised but failed to deliver.

The politicians won’t talk about it, so we need to.

South-West Scotland, 2010. Air-traffic controller Helena’s baby is born with unexplained paralysis. Faced with an unforgiving medical establishment, she turns to the Jewish grandmother she never knew, unfolding the past in search of answers.

Berlin, 1937. Single mother and kitchen hand Dora struggles in a city growing increasingly hostile, with questions being asked of bloodlines and identity. Will she always be alone? And how long will she and her daughter be able to call this home?

Based on extensive research into Eleanor Thom’s lost family history, Connective Tissue is a story of migration, motherhood, and our need to know the people and places that make us.

Small but spectacular, this country offers bucket-list experiences in abundance.

Whether you want to explore Edinburgh Castle, drive the North Coast 500, or sample ancient malts, your DK Eyewitness travel guide makes sure you experience all that Scotland has to offer. Famed for its majestic mountains, moody moorlands and tranquil lochs, this richly varied hinterland is a joy for outdoor enthusiasts. Meanwhile, urban Scotland offers cutting-edge art galleries, lively nightlife and a flourishing food scene.

Our updated guide brings Scotland to life, transporting you there like no other travel guide does with expert-led insights, trusted travel advice, detailed breakdowns of all the must-see sights, photographs on practically every page, and our hand-drawn illustrations which place you inside the country’s iconic buildings and neighbourhoods. We’ve also worked hard to make sure our information is as up-to-date as possible following the COVID-19 outbreak.

You’ll discover our pick of Scotland’s must-sees, top experiences and hidden gems; the best spots to eat, drink, shop and stay; detailed maps and walks which make navigating the country easy; easy-to-follow itineraries; expert advice: get ready, get around and stay safe; colour-coded chapters to every part of Scotland, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Southern Scotland to the Highlands and Islands; a lightweight format, so you can take it with you wherever you go

Touring the UK? Try our DK Eyewitness Great Britain. Want the best of Scotland in your pocket? Try our DK Eyewitness Top 10 Scotland.

Small but spectacular, this country offers bucket-list experiences in abundance.

Whether you want to explore Edinburgh Castle, drive the North Coast 500, or sample ancient malts, your DK Eyewitness travel guide makes sure you experience all that Scotland has to offer. Famed for its majestic mountains, moody moorlands and tranquil lochs, this richly varied hinterland is a joy for outdoor enthusiasts. Meanwhile, urban Scotland offers cutting-edge art galleries, lively nightlife and a flourishing food scene.

Our updated guide brings Scotland to life, transporting you there like no other travel guide does with expert-led insights, trusted travel advice, detailed breakdowns of all the must-see sights, photographs on practically every page, and our hand-drawn illustrations which place you inside the country’s iconic buildings and neighbourhoods. We’ve also worked hard to make sure our information is as up-to-date as possible following the COVID-19 outbreak.

You’ll discover our pick of Scotland’s must-sees, top experiences and hidden gems; the best spots to eat, drink, shop and stay; detailed maps and walks which make navigating the country easy; easy-to-follow itineraries; expert advice: get ready, get around and stay safe; colour-coded chapters to every part of Scotland, from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Southern Scotland to the Highlands and Islands; a lightweight format, so you can take it with you wherever you go

Touring the UK? Try our DK Eyewitness Great Britain. Want the best of Scotland in your pocket? Try our DK Eyewitness Top 10 Scotland.

Liz Lochhead is one of the leading poets writing in Britain today. Her debut collection, Memo for Spring (1972), was a landmark publication. Writing at a time when the landscape of Scottish poetry was male dominated, hers was a fresh, new voice, tackling subjects that resonated with readers – as it still does. Her poetry paved the way, and inspired, countless new voices including Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy.

Still writing and performing today, more than fifty years on from her first book of poetry, Liz Lochhead has been awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and was Scotland’s second modern Makar, succeeding Edwin Morgan.

This pioneering account of Modern Spiritualism in late 19th and early 20th-century Scotland is a compelling history of the international movement’s cultural impact on Scottish art. From spirit-mediums creating séance art to mainstream artists of the Royal Scottish Academy, this exposition reveals for the first time the extent of Spiritualist interest in Scotland.

With its interdisciplinary scope, Modern Spiritualism and Scottish Art combines cultural and art history to explore the ways in which Scottish art reflected Spiritualist beliefs at the turn of the 20th century. More than simply a history of the Spiritualist cause and its visual manifestations, this book also provides a detailed account of scepticism, psychical research, and occulture in modern Scotland, and the role that these aspects played in informing responses to Spiritualist ideology.

Utilising extensive archival research, together with in-depth analyses of overlooked paintings, drawings and sculpture, Michelle Foot demonstrates the vital importance of Spiritualist art to the development of Spiritualism in Scotland during the 19th century. In doing so, the book highlights the contribution of Scottish visual artists alongside better-known Spiritualists such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Daniel Dunglas Home.

In 1830, the little Hebridean island of Lismore was one of the granaries of the West Highlands, with every possible scrap of land producing bere barley or oats. The population had reached its peak of 1500, but by 1910, numbers had dwindled to 400 and were still falling. The agricultural economy had been almost completely transformed to support sheep and cattle, with ploughland replaced by the now familiar green grassy landscape.

With reference to documentary sources, including Poor Law reports, the report of the Napier Commission into the condition crofters in the Highlands and Islands, as well as local documents and letters, this book documents a century of emigration, migration and clearance and paints an intimate portrait of the island community during a period of profound change. At the same time, it also celebrates the achievements of the many tenants who grasped the opportunities involved in agricultural improvement.

The northern parish of Assynt boasts some of the most spectacular scenery in Britain. The mountains of Quinag and Suilven dominate a very varied landscape with wild, white hills inland and a complex, intricate moorland to the west. Here, rocky crags, boggy flows, innumerable lochs and burns, stretch to a coast of equal variety with long fjords, high cliffs and sandy beaches. Close to many of the crofting townships are dense areas of native woodland.

In this book, Robin Noble, who has been intimately involved with this corner of the north-west Highlands of Scotland his whole life, celebrates its rugged beauty and shares many intimate encounters with the resident wildlife – including, golden eagles, otters, badgers and pine martens – which surrounded his cottage in its wooded glen under the “long mountain” of Quinag.

Assynt is also well known for its important role in the history of community land ownership, and Robin describes too his deep involvement with those who live there. He learned much from the old generation of shepherds and crofters whom he got to know in the 1960s, as well as from their children and incomers in later decades, and shared with them the challenges of living in a remote, fragile community.

It’s 1963. The year of the Profumo scandal, the Great Train Robbery, the rise of teenage consumerism and sexual emancipation, and Kennedy’s assassination . . . and the birth of Beatlemania, the pop revolution that transformed the slate-grey, post-war years of austerity into a Day-Glo landscape.

In the beginning, The Beatles were a band of brothers who really did make Britain twist and shout. This is the unprecedented story of the Beatles’ remarkable journey from Liverpool dance hall favourites to becoming the biggest band in the world in the space of just twelve rollercoaster months. From playing to fewer than twenty people in January in the remote Scottish Highlands to being met by a tsunami of screams from 10,000 fans at London Airport in November. From being bottom-of-the-bill after-thoughts to making royalty blush at a frenzied London Palladium.

It was a year lived at breakneck pace. Two number one albums, four number one singles, almost 300 gigs, countless radio and TV sessions and the astonishing transformation of four lives into something less ordinary.

Six years after Brexit, it can feel like we’re still having the same conversations.

This is the explainer we need to move on.

And we do need to move on, because in the meantime so much has changed. The economic realities that are making the UK less competitive, less productive and less well-off are ever more obvious – and more and more people are finding out the Brexit they were sold was based on falsehoods and fantasy.

So what exactly went wrong with Brexit?

In this book, Peter Foster dispels the myths and, most importantly, shows what a better future for Britain after Brexit might look like. With clear-headed practicality, he considers the real costs of leaving the EU, how we can recover international trust in the UK, how to improve cooperation and trade with our neighbours, and how to begin to build the Global Britain that Brexit promised but failed to deliver.The politicians won’t talk about it, so we need to.

The dead talk. To the right listener, they tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died – and who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help justice to be done using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene or the faintest of human traces.

Forensics uncovers the secrets of forensic medicine, drawing on interviews with top-level professionals, ground-breaking research and Val McDermid’s own experience to lay bare the secrets of this fascinating science. And, along the way, she wonders at how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine time of death, how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer and how a team of young Argentine scientists led by a maverick American anthropologist uncovered the victims of a genocide.

In her crime novels, Val McDermid has been solving complex crimes and confronting unimaginable evil for years. Now, she’s looking at the people who do it for real, and real crime scenes. It’s a journey that will take her to war zones, fire scenes and autopsy suites, and bring her into contact with extraordinary bravery and wickedness, as she traces the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day.

Born the son of Scotland’s last telescope-maker, Stuart Braithwaite was perhaps always destined for a life of psychedelic adventuring on the furthest frontiers of noise in MOGWAI, one of the best loved and most ground-breaking post-rock bands of the past three decades.

Modestly delinquent at school, Stuart developed an early appetite for ‘alternative’ music in what might arguably be described as its halcyon days, the late ’80s. Discovering bands like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and Jesus and Mary Chain, and attending seminal gigs (often incongruously incognito as a young girl with long hair to compensate for his babyface features) by The Cure and Nirvana, Stuart compensated for his indifference to school work with a dedication to rock and roll . . . and of course the fledgling hedonism that comes with it.

Spaceships Over Glasgow is a love song to live rock and roll; to the passionate abandon we’ve all felt in the crowd (and some of us, if lucky enough, from the stage) at a truly incendiary gig. It is also the story of a life lived on the edge; of the high-times and hazardous pit-stops of international touring with a band of misfits and miscreants.

The search for a Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific was one of the great maritime challenges, and it was not until the 1850s that the first one-way partial transit of the passage was made. Previous attempts had all failed, and some, like the ill-fated attempt by Sir John Franklin in 1845, ended in tragedy with the loss of the entire expedition comprising two ships and 129 men.

This book charts the remarkable contribution to Arctic exploration made by the Scots – whose role has often been overlooked because they were identified as English by modern writers. It includes many significant names: John Ross, an eccentric hell-raiser from Stranraer, veteran of three Arctic expeditions; his nephew, James Clark Ross, the most experienced explorer of his generation and discoverer of the Magnetic North Pole; Dr John Richardson of Dumfries who became an accidental cannibal and deliberate executioner of a murderer as well as a most engaging natural historian; and Orcadian John Rae, the man who first discovered evidence of Franklin’s demise. But it also pays tribute to many others too, the Scotch Irish, the whalers and not least the Inuit, with whom the explorers cooperated and generally enjoyed good relations, in many crucial cases depending on their knowledge of the environment.

Did you know that long ago Scotland was buried under a layer of ice one kilometre thick? That Orkney’s neolithic village of Skara Brae is older than the Great Pyramid in Egypt? Or that, in order to take back Roxburgh Castle, Robert the Bruce’s soldiers disguised themselves as cows?

From Neolithic settlers and Viking invaders, to Jacobite rebels, great Enlightenment thinkers and World War II evacuees, this fun and fascinating historical atlas takes readers on a tour through time and place. Discover how Scotland’s islands, Highlands, cities, castles and crofts connect to the most amazing moments in this nation’s rich history.

Packed with interesting and informative facts from David MacPhail, and brilliantly vibrant illustrations by Anders Frang, An Amazing Illustrated History Atlas of Scotland will bring history to life for young readers.

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who insist that football is just a game, and those who know better. Take the April 1967 clash between England and Scotland.  Wounded by their biggest rivals winning the World Cup just nine months earlier, Bobby Brown’s Scots travelled to Wembley on the mother of all missions. Win and they would take a huge step towards qualifying for the 1968 European Championship, end England’s formidable 19-game unbeaten streak, and, best of all, put Sir Alf Ramsey’s men firmly back in their box.  Lose? Well, that was just unthinkable.  Meanwhile, off the pitch, the winds of change were billowing through Scotland. Nationalism, long confined to the margins of British politics, was starting to penetrate the mainstream, gaining both traction and influence. Was England’s World Cup victory a defining moment in the Scottish independence movement? Or did it consign Scotland to successive generations of myopic underachievement? Michael McEwan, author of The Ghosts of Cathkin Park, returns to 1967 to explore a crucial ninety minutes in the rebirth of a nation.

Brings together 15 principal essays by David Sellar (1941 2019), reflecting his pioneering contribution to Scottish legal history

Groups essays into topics, covering Celtic law and institutions, the influence of Canon and English law across a wide range of legal subjects (including family law, succession, criminal law, evidence) and customary law

Includes a paper written during Sellar’s time as Lord Lyon King of Arms (2008 14) but left unpublished at his death, dealing with the history of the office of Lyon itself and arguing for its ancient Celtic origins

Demonstrates the continuity of legal institutions in Scotland from the early middle ages on, assesses influences shaping change over time, and the processes of integration and then re-integration down to the present

Includes a general introduction by Hector L. MacQueen assessing and contextualising Sellar’s contribution to the field

David Sellar was a pioneering historian of Scots law who rejected previous interpretations of the subject as a series of false starts and rejected experiments. He emphasised instead the continuity of legal development, with change a process of integration of external influences from very early times on. Sellar’s approach, articulated mainly through essays published in diverse places over four decades, significantly influenced our general understanding of legal history in Scotland as well as leading to appreciation elsewhere of its comparative significance.

By gathering Sellar’s major essays in a single collection, this book demonstrates the scope and reach of Sellar’s overall contribution. It provides an opportunity to view Sellar’s work as a whole and to access his distinctive perspective on the overall trajectory of Scottish law.

Studies continuity and change in the practice of town and country planning in the Scottish Borders, 1946-1996

Provides a comprehensive appraisal of the changing role of town and country planning within a unique area of Scotland over a fifty-year period

Examines continuity and change in planning practice in the Scottish Borders

Explores the relationships between planning and economic development in stimulating development in a rural region of Scotland

Analyses how town and country planning in the Scottish Borders developed from a simple land use control mechanism to a dynamic, pro-active, and multi-disciplined activity

The book combines scholarly analysis with a practitioner’s perspective of town and country planning in Scotland at both central and local government level

The Scottish Borders comprises the historic counties of Peeblesshire, Selkirkshire, Roxburghshire and Berwickshire, traditionally an area synonymous with woven cloth [tweed], knitwear and agriculture. It is also an area that suffered from rural de-population during the first half of the twentieth century. Against the background of social, economic and political change in the twentieth century, the book provides a detailed account of continuity and change in the practice of town and country planning in the Scottish Borders from the 1940s to the re-organisation of local government in 1996. It shows how town and country planning emerged from being a fringe activity in Borders local government to become a beacon for rural regeneration at the forefront of rural development policy. This book will be an essential read for all those interested in the history of town and country planning in Scotland and for those who love the Scottish Borders.

Travelling a thousand miles and across three billion years, Christopher Somerville (walking correspondent of The Times and author of Coast, The January Man and Ships of Heaven) sets out to interrogate the land beneath our feet, and how it has affected every aspect of human history from farming to house construction, the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.

In his thousand-mile journey, Somerville follows the story of Britain’s unique geology, travelling from the three billion year old rocks of the Isle of Lewis, formed when the world was still molten, down the map south eastwards across bogs, over peaks and past quarry pits to the furthest corner of Essex where new land is being formed by nature and man.

Demystifying the sometimes daunting technicalities of geology with humour and a characteristic lightness of touch, Somerville’s book tells a story of humanity’s reckless exploitation and a lemming-like surge towards self-annihilation but also shows seeds of hope as we learn how we might work with geology to avert a climate catastrophe.

It cannot fail to change the way you see the world beyond your door.