THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Analyses Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson against the background of Anglo-American print culture and oral performance

Develops a new analytical framework for the study of nineteenth-century transatlantic writing that combines literary studies, book history and cultural sociology

Reframes canonical works through unfamiliar texts and contexts

Draws on a rich body of archival sources and historical periodical publications

Offers an in-depth account of nineteenth-century Anglo-American print culture and the transatlantic lecture system

Examining the transatlantic writings and professional careers of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, this book explores the impact of literary, cultural, political and legal manifestations of authority on nineteenth-century British and American writing, publishing and lecturing. Drawing on primary texts in conjunction with a rich body of archival sources, this study retraces Romantic debates about race and nationhood, analyses the relationship between cultural nationalism and literary historiography and sheds light on Carlyle’s and Emerson’s professional identities as publishing authors and lecturing celebrities on both sides of the Atlantic.

A pioneering study of women poets exploring the four laureate roles of the United Kingdom and Ireland

Includes case studies of Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy, Liz Lochhead and Paula Meehan

Re-values the authority of poetry by women

Considers how poetry can be both nation-building and promote cultural internationalism

Explores the treatment of poetry in the school curriculum

The concurrent tenures of Gillian Clarke as National Poet of Wales, Carol Ann Duffy as UK Poet Laureate, Liz Lochhead as Scots Makar, and Paula Meehan as Ireland Professor of Poetry, defied historic rifts between women, poetry and nation. This book explores the extraordinary changes these women fought to achieve as each made her way from marginalised ‘poetess’ of the 1970s to laureate at the heart of cultural establishment in the 21st century. It looks at how they revitalised these public offices, and explores their interventions in contemporary geopolitics and national self-understanding. It considers how they shaped their roles by engaging with poetic icons of the past, by linking poetry and education, and by joining poetry with politics.

Meet some of Scotland’s most spectacular women in this inspiring collection of biographies written for young people. From authors to athletes, scientists to singers, queens to campaigners, this diverse collection of women have influenced the world in incredible ways.

Read the eye-opening life stories of many amazing Scottish women you know, and many you won’t believe you hadn’t heard of:– Feel the rhythm with ground-breaking deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie– Rock the runway with model Eunice Olumide– Command the country with iconic monarch Mary, Queen of Scots– Pen a literary gem with poet and author Jackie Kay– Campaign for change with schoolgirl activist Roza Salih– Step on set with actor Karen Gillan– Race to the finish line with para-athlete Kayleigh Haggo– Discover a new planet with scientist Mary Somerville

Scottish author and former journalist Louise Baillie presents empowering stories of persistence, achievement, ingenuity and innovation while bestselling Scottish illustrator Eilidh Muldoon captures the essence of each extraordinary woman with her vibrant and dynamic illustrations.

This fascinating and uplifting celebration of iconic women from Scotland’s past and present is essential reading for children aged seven and up and a perfect gift for the spectacular Scottish women of the future.

An illustrated history of how the Luftwaffe intended ‘the Blitz’ to knock Britain out of the war, emphasising the German point of view and detailing how Britain’s defences and civilians responded.

The Blitz – the German ‘blitzkrieg’ of Britain’s industrial and port cities – was one of the most intensive bombing campaigns of World War II. Cities from London to Glasgow, Belfast to Hull, and Liverpool to Cardiff were targeted in an attempt to destroy Britain’s military-industrial facilities and force it out of the war.

Most histories of the Blitz concentrate on the civilian experience of “life under the bombs” or the fighter pilots of the RAF but, in military terms, the Blitz was also the Luftwaffe’s biggest and most ambitious strategic bombing campaign. Focusing on both sides, this book places particular emphasis on the hitherto under-represented Luftwaffe view of the campaign and looks at the new technology and tactics at its heart. From the innovative development of specialist night-fighters to the ‘Battle of the Beams’ that pitted German electronic navigation systems against British countermeasures, the Blitz demonstrated the effects of developing technology on aerial warfare.

Describing and analyzing the strategy, tactics and operations of both the Luftwaffe and the UK’s air defences during the period between September 1940 and May 1941, author Julian Hale demonstrates that, for a variety of reasons, there was little chance of the Luftwaffe achieving any of its aims.

Using primary sources, spectacular original artwork, 3D diagrams and maps, this study shines a fresh light on how and why the world’s first true strategic air offensive failed.

An island of magic and mayhem floating above the flooded Earth, Bastion has long been the last country left in the world. Then one day best friends Kurt (an eight-foot mushroom with a fear of heights) and Flicker (a tiny, tough-talking gemstone faerie) stand on the edge of the land and see the impossible: a plane from nowhere is heading straight for them.

Kurt and Flicker join forces with a brave gang of misfits — including wood-nymph twins (one bounty hunter, one bookworm) and a gruff, shapeshifting wolf — to rescue the pilot and face a dangerous enemy. Can the Cloudlanders save their floating island from crashing into the Endless Sea and the terrifying tentacles of a massive monster?

Cloudlanders is a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud fantasy adventure with a unique cast of characters, tonnes of heart, and gasp-inducing moments. Fans of Ben Miller, Tom Fletcher and Terry Pratchett will love this quirky and sharply written debut novel from Kelpies Prize winner, Christopher Mackie.

The essential teenage guide to tackling anxiety, from award-winning well-being expert Nicola Morgan, author of the bestselling Blame My Brain.

Anxiety is on many teenager’s minds – it’s the word they use most often when they talk about their mental health. Award-winning author and teenage brain expert Nicola Morgan is here to help, with this practical guide to help young people understand their anxiety and cope with the challenges of modern life. Based on the latest science, No Worries is packed with advice to help teenagers master the best tricks and hacks to stay firmly in control of worries and embrace calm. From understanding how anxiety works, to building strategies to calm the body and mind, this essential guide equips young people with the tools to tackle their worries and live brilliantly.

The essential teenage guide to tackling anxiety, from award-winning well-being expert Nicola Morgan, author of the bestselling Blame My Brain.

Anxiety is on many teenager’s minds – it’s the word they use most often when they talk about their mental health. Award-winning author and teenage brain expert Nicola Morgan is here to help, with this practical guide to help young people understand their anxiety and cope with the challenges of modern life. Based on the latest science, No Worries is packed with advice to help teenagers master the best tricks and hacks to stay firmly in control of worries and embrace calm. From understanding how anxiety works, to building strategies to calm the body and mind, this essential guide equips young people with the tools to tackle their worries and live brilliantly.

“The greatest playwright Scotland never had.” – Mark Fisher, The Guardian

Michel Tremblay is considered the most important playwright in Quebec theatre history. His ground-breaking work for theatre presents Montreal’s working class speaking the city’s vernacular French. Tremblay’s plays and novels create a family saga where many characters appear in more than one work.

Bill Findlay, a Scot, and Martin Bowman, a Montrealer of Scottish descent, translated eight Tremblay plays into Scots. The energy, versatility, and range of the Scots language capture the essence of Tremblay’s drama. These critically acclaimed translations, produced professionally in Scotland from 1989 to 2003, constitute an important body of work in modern Scottish theatre.

Three of this volume’s translations premiered in Edinburgh: The House among the Stars and Solemn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer at the Traverse and If Only… at the Royal Lyceum. Albertine, in Five Times premiered at Glasgow’s Tron, touring to eight Scottish cities. In them, Tremblay – without diminishing the intensity of his dissection of family life – considers possible acceptance and reconciliation in the face of the difficulties and challenges confronting his characters.

Besides playtexts, both volumes of Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots contain a foreword and introductions to each volume as well as to each play, including historical background material.

“The greatest playwright Scotland never had.” – Mark Fisher, The Guardian

Michel Tremblay is considered the most important playwright in Quebec theatre history. His ground-breaking work for theatre presents Montreal’s working class speaking the city’s vernacular French. Tremblay’s plays and novels create a family saga where many characters appear in more than one work.

Bill Findlay, a Scot, and Martin Bowman, a Montrealer of Scottish descent, translated eight Tremblay plays into Scots. The energy, versatility, and range of the Scots language capture the essence of Tremblay’s drama. These critically acclaimed translations, produced professionally in Scotland from 1989 to 2003, constitute an important body of work in modern Scottish theatre.

This volume’s four translations premiered at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre, during Michael Boyd’s tenure as artistic director. They include three of Tremblay’s early masterpieces: The Guid Sisters, Hosanna, and Forever Yours, Marie-Lou. The fourth play, The Real Wurld?, shares Tremblay’s devastating critique of family life. These plays confront topics such as domestic and sexual abuse. These are strong plays, as relevant today as when first produced.

Besides playtexts, both volumes of Michel Tremblay: Plays in Scots contain a foreword and introductions to each volume as well as to each play, including historical background material.

A powerful new history of the Great Strike in the miners’ own voices, based on more than 140 interviews with former miners and their families Forty years ago, Arthur Scargill led the National Union of Mineworkers on one of the largest strikes in British history. A deep sense of pride existed within Britain’s mining communities who thought of themselves as the backbone of the nation’s economy. But they were vilified by Margaret Thatcher’s government and eventually broken: deprived of their jobs, their livelihoods, and in some cases, their lives. In this groundbreaking new history, Robert Gildea interviews those miners and their families who fought to defend themselves. Exploring mining communities from South Wales to the Midlands, Yorkshire, County Durham, and Fife, Gildea shows how the miners and their families organized to protect themselves, and how a network of activists mobilized to support them. Amid the recent wave of industrial action in the United Kingdom, Backbone of the Nation highlights anew the importance of labor organization – and intimately records the triumphs, losses, and resilience of these mining communities.

Lottie is apple picking when a large, angry, fire-breathing dragon appears, wanting to eat her for breakfast! As the townsfolk rush to hide from the beast within their high walls only Lottie wonders why the dragon is so fierce: could it just be lonely?

The Mayor doesn’t listen and calls on St Michael to slay the dragon. Can brave Lottie convince the great knight of her plan to save both the town and the dragon?

This is a charming story about courage, defying expectations and looking beneath the surface which is perfect for sharing with younger children during Michaelmas, and all year round. The beautiful illustrations by Sandra Klaassen, creator of the much-loved picture books Uan the Little Lamb and Peg the Little Sheepdog, are lively, soft and enchanting.

A cultural history of artisans and hand skills against the background of technical and commercial modernisation in Scotland

Shortlisted for Saltire Society Scottish Research Book of the Year 2022

Draws on personal, business, institutional and official records as well as newspaper reports and visual illustrations

Examples cover the whole of Scotland and all areas of craftwork and handmade goods

Considers the changing cultural value accorded to handmade goods for craftworkers and their customers

This book examines individuals, families and communities of craftworkers and their changing experience in town and country. Based on case studies drawn from personal, business, institutional and official records, as well as newspaper reports and visual illustrations, it looks at workplace dynamics and handmade wares shaped by personal consumption, rather than industrial production.

Stana Nenadic examines the ‘things’ that were made and the values they embodied at a time when most Scots were still engaged in hand making either for income or pleasure despite Scotland’s emergence as a great industrial powerhouse.

The most personal book yet from the acclaimed author of As the Women Lay Dreaming and In a Veil of Mist

Even as he grew up on the edge of Lewis, the vastness of Russia never felt too distant for Donald S Murray. Its great literary traditions were often discussed in his home village, while the political unrest and religious fervour that marked its past and present were often reflected in his life on the island.

Inspired by the Russian canon, the songs, verse and stories contained in Red Star Over Hebrides draw upon the experiences of that youth, shifting continually between myth and history, the absurd and moving, the satirical and everyday. Its extraordinary and diverse narratives underline the truth of its opening line: ‘I can see these islands mirror Russia.’

Berlin, 1948. A city besieged. A boy reaches for the sky.

Otto Hartmann would do anything to be a pilot. With Berlin blockaded by the Soviets, the Americans fly to the rescue and Otto’s captivated by the matinee-idol pilots dropping chocolate for the city’s hungry kids. But never mind the Hershey bars – he wants to be up there with them.

Now Otto has to choose between those he loves or flying from a ruined city where danger lurks around every corner. And nobody is who they seem, but children are battling to survive in a desperate war-torn city.

The next exciting adventure for Uncle Pete and TM sees them prepare for an Arctic expedition to get Berg, the little polar bear, back to his family. Gathering together their snow gear, they fit skis on the plane and head north with Berg. When they arrive where the family were last seen, the snow has melted and there is no sign of the bears. A passing whale tells the team they have been captured and taken off in a very sinister looking black ship. There is excitement aplenty, with wooden squirrel helicopters, tunnels, bears in disguises, evil animal hunters and a daring rescue. And so, the third quest for Uncle Pete and TM begins. The third title in the thrilling magical, fantasy adventure series for six- to nine year- olds. Written by award-winning writer and journalist David C Flanagan, featuring line drawings and illustrations by Will Hughes, with his quirky Quentin Blake-like style. This hilarious new adventure takes Uncle Pete and his fearless female sidekick, TM, on an incredible Arctic adventure, with themes of determination, collaboration, ingenuity, kindness and acceptance.

A tender and poignant debut of the redemptive power of unexpected friendship.

In an old-fashioned fishing community on Morecambe Bay, change is imperceptibly slow. Treacherous tides sweep the quicksands, claiming everything in their path.

As a boy, Arthur had followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footprints, learning to read the currents and shifting sands. Now retired and widowed, though, he feels invisible, redundant. His daughter wants him in a retirement home. No one listens to his rants about the newcomers striking out nightly onto the bay for cockles, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

When Arthur’s path crosses Suling’s, both are running out of options. Barely yet an adult, Suling’s hopes for a better life have given way to fear: she’s without papers or money, speaks no English, and chased by ruthless debt collectors. Her only next step is to trust the old man.Combining warmth and suspense and recalling a true incident, The Bay tells a tender story about loneliness, confronting prejudice, and the comfort of friendship, however unlikely – as well as exposing one of the most pressing social ills of our age.

These locomotives were introduced to British Rail in 1956 and were initially allocated to Eastfield Depot in Glasgow and Haymarket Depot in Edinburgh. They became known as Type 2s and were used for both passenger and freight services. In later years the Class 26 fleet became dedicated to various coal workings in the Ayrshire area. A number of Class 27 locos were later converted for push-pull operation on the busy Glasgow Queen Street?Edinburgh service from 1971 and lasted until 1980.This book covers all three classes from the BR era through to privatisation and beyond. All classes carried out sterling work all over Scotland and some are now preserved at various heritage lines throughout Scotland.

You’ve cracked the superhuman mystery and can give superpowers to six different people around the world. Who do you choose? The world’s greatest and most ambitious superhero comic needs the world’s greatest comic book artists. Step forward Frank Quitely, Travis Charest, Olivier Coipel and an international line-up of superstars introducing all the characters from the brand-new Netflix sensation. Collects THE AMBASSADORS #1-6

‘Uplifting and moving’ BBC RADIO 2′

A meditation on connection between humans and animals, and the homes we make in wild places. I was completely immersed’ Katherine May

Catherine Munro transforms her life when she moves to Shetland to study the hardy ponies who call this archipelago home. Over the course of her first year, she is welcomed into the rhythms and routines that characterise life at the edge of the world.

When faced with personal loss, Catherine finds comfort and connection in the shared lives of the people, animals and wild landscapes of Shetland. The Ponies at the Edge of the World is a heartfelt love letter to the beauty and resilience of these magical ponies and their native land. This is a stunning book on community, hope and finding home.

This is the story of Herb la Fouche, of St Julien, Ontario, a fictional town just over the Quebec border. It is the story of how Herb, a good, quiet and unassuming man, a chemistry teacher, comes up with a unique invention and ends up on the Caribbean island of Martinique. There he meets and marries Celine, the divorced sister of the local police chief, Alphonse Charbonneau. Herb’s life amounts to very little, but in this marriage he at last finds happiness and a certain nobility. All around are people whose voices are louder, their actions ostentatious, but it is the quiet life of Herb La Fouche that ultimately triumphs.

This engagingly crafted novel, about the nobility of an ordinary life, is written with considerable substance and gravity. With characteristic charm and grace, The Love Story of Herb la Fouche is unashamedly feel-good with plenty of humour, tinged with poignancy.