THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

By reimagining how we design and use our gardens, we can all do our bit to support local wildlife, improve our health and help tackle the climate crisis. If we all take positive steps in our gardens, no matter how small, we can all really make a difference in the world.This book focuses on the activities and planting suitable for a Scottish climate but also contains lots of useful information relevant for gardeners throughout the UK. Practical information on planning is followed by expert guidance on:Planting for wildlife in nectar-rich borders, wildflower meadows, hedgerows, trees and shrubsBuilding for wildlife with bird boxes, bug boxes, feeders and pondsGreen gardening approaches with fruit and veg production, rain gardens, green roofs, compost making and creating new plants through propagationAttracting birds, bees, butterflies and other insects, aquatic life and nightlife

For over three centuries, the inhabitants of North Britain faced the might of Rome, resulting in some of the most extraordinary archaeology of the ancient world.Drawing on his on his extensive experience, John H. Reid considers many of the controversies surrounding Roman Scotland, several of which remain points of lively debate. From a reassessment of the loss of the Ninth Legion and the reasons for building and maintaining Hadrian’s Wall, to considering what spurred at least four Roman Emperors to personally visit the edge of the Empire, he offers an informed view of what it was like to be at the dark heart of imperialism and slavery, and to be on the receiving end of Rome’s merciless killing machine.

A classic BBC Radio adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novels of adventure and romanceFirst published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson’s rollicking historical novel Kidnapped was an instant bestseller. It was followed by an 1893 sequel, Catriona, which Stevenson regarded as his ‘high water mark’, declaring that he would ‘never do a better book’. Included here is the epic 10-part BBC radio dramatisation of both action-packed tales.Narrated by the central character, David Balfour, this riveting retelling sees him looking back over his eventful life and recalling his escapades as a young man. It begins in 1751, with Scotland in turmoil in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion. Newly orphaned, 17-year-old David sets out for Edinburgh and the House of Shaws, to meet his rich Uncle Ebenezer. Betrayed by his scheming relative and kidnapped, he finds himself aboard the brig Covenant, to be sold into slavery in America – but the ship has a castaway on board, a certain Alan Breck…Though David is a Lowlander and Alan a Highland Jacobite, the two become fast friends. Together they face danger on the high seas and in the Scottish wilderness, as they head south to confront the treacherous Ebenezer and claim David’s fortune. But even with his inheritance secured, our hero’s adventures are not over. He must find safe passage to France for Alan, endeavour to prove a man’s innocence – and win the heart of Catriona, the feisty granddaughter of infamous outlaw Rob Roy McGregor.David Rintoul stars as David Balfour, with Paul Young as Alan Breck and Gerda Stevenson as Catriona. Among the distinguished cast are Rikki Fulton, Sandy Neilson, Rose McBain, Iain Cuthbertson and Siobhan Redmond.First published 1886 (Kidnapped) and 1893 (Catriona)Production creditsWritten by Robert Louis StevensonDramatised by Catherine L. CzerkawskaDirected by Marilyn ImrieCastDavid Balfour – David RintoulAlan Breck – Paul YoungEbenezer Balfour – Rikki FultonHoseason – Jonathan BattersbyCampbell – John SheddenRansome/Seaman – Ray DunsireJennet – Marilyn GrayLandlord/Seaman – Tam Dean BurnRiach – Billy RiddochShuan/Seaman – Stuart BishopGaelic fisherman/Highland gillie/Gaelic servant/Neil – John CarmichaelMr Henderland – Henry StamperCrofter – Ian StewartNeil Roy – Iain AgnewMungo – Brown DerbyColin Campbell – Sandy NeilsonJames of the Glens – Bob DochertyMistress Stewart – Rose McBainCluny Macpherson – David McKailJohn Breck MacColl – Finlay McLeanMistress McLaren – Ann Louise RossAlison Hastie – Terry CaversMistress Rankeillor – Harriet BuchanRankeillor – Gerard SlevinTorrance – Iain WotherspoonStewart the Writer – Iain CuthbertsonCatriona – Gerda StevensonThe Lord Advocate Prestongrange – Russell HunterJames More – Alec HeggieBalfour of Pilrig – Michael ElderSimon Fraser – John McGlynnBarbara Grant – Siobhan RedmondIsabella Grant – Ann LannanJean Grant – Hilary LyonWoman/Goodwife – Ann Scott JonesPorter/Robin Oig – John BuickServant – Simon DonaldMistress Ogilvy – Edith MacArthurDuncansby – Ian BriggsRobert Macintosh – Leon SindenAndy Dale – Tony RoperSheriff – Paul KermackDuke of Argyle – Charles KearneyDuncan Dhu McLaren – Simon DonaldDoig – John SheddenCapt Sang – Don GallagherSprott – Finlay WelshFirst broadcast BBC Radio 4 16th June – 25th August 1985(c) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

In this second collection of poetry, Bridget Nolan explores the human experience in some unexpected ways. Her ability to stir emotions provokes thought, triggers laughter and occasions tears.From the comical title poem ‘When Robert Burns came to Tea’ to the heartbreaking ‘Why would I Imagine?’ Bridget presents a collection of stories in poetic form. In her varied style, she conveys a myriad thoughts and feelings: the joy of love; the pain of a continuing sense of loss; the embarrassment of a hospital visit and the comfort of the natural world are all woven into the narrative of this diverse collection. This anthology celebrates the human condition in all its shades of dark and light.

The 1820 Scottish Rising has been increasingly studied in recent decades. This collection of essays looks especially at local players on the ground across multiple regional centres in the west of Scotland, as well as the wider political circumstances within government and civil society that provide the rising’s context. It examines insurrectionist preparation by radicals, the progress of the events of 1820, contemporary accounts and legacy memorialisation of 1820, including newspaper and literary testimony, and the monumental ‘afterlife’ of the rising.As well as the famous march of radicals led by John Baird and Andrew Hardie, so often seen as the centre of the 1820 ‘moment’, this volume casts light on other, more neglected insurrectionary activity within the rising and a wide set of cultural circumstances that make 1820 more complex than many would like to believe. 1820: Scottish Rebellion demonstrates that the legacy of 1820 may be approached in numerous ways that cross disciplinary boundaries and cause us to question conventional historical interpretations.

1941, Berlin. After Police Chief Investigator Rolf Schneider is summoned to a meeting with Himmler and tasked with investigating the assassination of Heydrich, he exposes a web of corruption and secrecy involving the highest-ranking figures in the Reich.Schneider is faced with an agonising dilemma, for the secret he discovers is both the only thing that can save his life and what will mark him down for certain death. His choice will propel him into a desperate race against the clock, one in which he literally has to travel to the very heart of darkness to realise his goal.

A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure….In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the country to take the throne. Now he is leaving in exile and abject defeat.In prose that is by turns poetic, comic, macabre, haunting and humane, multi- award-winning author Alan Warner traces the frantic last journey through Scotland of a man who history will come to define for his failure.

Could you be a Euro Spy? Try to solve the cryptic clues as you read along in a race against the clock!Samia, Ava and Frankie are thrilled to win a whirlwind trip of European capital cities. But when the Euro Metro rumbles through the night to their first destination and shots are fired, it becomes crystal clear that this is no ordinary school trip.Their enigmatic chaperone, Miss Watson, is forced to admit that the children are being used as cover for a spying mission. Her colleague in M16 has vanished-presumed dead-and has left behind a trail of cryptic clues leading to vital information.On their arrival in Paris, Samia, Ava and Frankie are catapulted into a world of art, espionage and terrible danger. Can the children solve the fiendish clues hidden on famous European landmarks and avoid the scary strangers who are stalking their every move?

I felt that Mary was there, pulling at my sleeve, willing me to appreciate the artistry, wanting me to understand the dazzle of the material world that shaped her.At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom.In sixteenth-century Europe women’s voices were suppressed and silenced. Even for a queen like Mary, her prime duty was to bear sons. In an age when textiles expressed power, Mary exploited them to emphasise her female agency. From her lavishly embroidered gowns as the prospective wife of the French Dauphin to the fashion dolls she used to encourage a Marian style at the Scottish court and the subversive messages she embroidered in captivity for her supporters, Mary used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her own story.In this eloquent cultural biography, Clare Hunter exquisitely blends history, politics and memoir to tell the story of a queen in her own voice.

Jackie Kohnstamm’s mother rarely talked about what had happened during the war and had kept little evidence of her early life. It was only after her uncle and aunt had died that Jackie inherited an archive of material relating to the family back in Germany. Jackie’s mother had managed to get out of Berlin in 1936, following her brother and sister who had already escaped. But Jackie’s grandparents had remained.One night, on a whim, Jackie Googled her grandparents’ names. What she found felt like a sign: four days earlier two Stolpersteine (‘stumble stones’) had been laid in their names outside the house in Berlin where they had once lived. Someone had commissioned this memorial to her grandparents. Each listed their name, year of birth, date of deportation to Theresienstadt and date of their murder by the Nazis. Here, then, was the first step, and what followed was a remarkable story of loss, discovery and memory.

An intimate story of a Polish family torn apart by war: of heartbreak, loss, and survival against the odds.Julian Czerkawski was born in 1926 near Lwow, in Polish Galicia, on a farm with fertile grain fields and orchards. He was the son of a Polish lancer-one of the famous cavalrymen who carried forward the legacy of the hussar knights.But there would be no idyllic childhood for young Julian. Soviet annexation and then, in 1941, the German occupation of Lwow changed everything. At the age of eighteen, he was sent to a labour camp. Fortunate to escape after the war with his life, eventually he made his way to the UK. Here, he married and started a family, but an ache remained for the people and places of his childhood memories, even if he spoke of them only rarely.In 2022, Putin’s war in Ukraine and the sight of refugees passing through Lviv-the former Polish city of Lwow-added urgency to his writer daughter Catherine’s project of a lifetime, to try to uncover for herself everything that had been lost a generation before.The Last Lancer pieces together glimpses of how the Czerkawski family lived and died in a region with a proud but turbulent history. It sheds light on their trauma, at the same time offering a deep and very personal understanding of a troubled place.

The chambered tomb of Maeshowe sits in one of the richest and best preserved Neolithic landscapes in Europe. This was a place of stone circles, villages and burial monuments; a place where people lived, worshipped and honoured their dead. The surviving evidence tells us that about 5,000 years ago, Orkney was a thriving focus whose influence was felt many miles away.Aside from Maeshowe, visitors can discover Neolithic houses at Skara Brae and Barnhouse, dramatic stone-circled henges such as the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, and the astonishing ceremonial centre at Ness of Brodgar, still being uncovered by archaeologists.The importance of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney was marked in 1999 when some of its key monuments were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This book will help you to explore and understand the Site, and discover other related monuments in the area.

It would be difficult to over-estimate the pivotal role played by the Bible College movement in training workers for global mission. The BTI/Glasgow Bible College had close connections with missions in China and Asia and the China Inland Mission/OMF received great numbers of graduates from the college – graduates who emerged with a passion for the Bible, for evangelism, for missionary service in East Asia, and prepared for service in an inter-denominational and international missions.As one of the very first Bible Colleges in Britain, the BTI was an influential model for subsequent Bible Colleges.”From Glasgow to the world” gives the stories and testimonies of a handful of the hundreds of graduates who spread the Christian gospel around the world and of the many who made an enormous contribution to churches and Christian agencies in the UK and in secular employment.The BTI started as an act of faith to meet of the workmen from the foundries and shipyards and coal mines, shopkeepers and housemaids, among many others, who had been converted at the missions of the American evangelist D.L. Moody in 1874. They were eager to share their own-found faith, but were not welcomed by most of the rather austere Church of Scotland churches because of their lack of education (many of them had left school at 14 with little or no education) and certainly did not have a university degree.

Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks has been written both as a self-tuition course for beginners and also for use within the classroom. You may want to learn Gaelic because of a general interest in Celtic or Scottish history and culture, or because it was the everyday language of your ancestors. The cynical observer may wonder if the exercise is worthwhile, when only 1.5 per cent of Scotland’s population speak the language.However, Gaelic is far from dead; in some parts of the Highlands and Western Isles it is the everyday language and it represents an important part of the United Kingdom’s cultural mix. There are Gaelic-learning classes in almost every area of Scotland. Each lesson in the book contains some essential points of grammar explained and illustrated, exercises, a list of new vocabulary (with a guide to pronunciation, using the International Phonetics Alphabet), and an item of conversation.This new edition includes an audio download link.

We are in a small boat in the company of six Arran men on their way to sit on the Jury at the Court of Session in Inverary. No sooner has the boat left Brodick in Arran than things start to go wrong and in the conflict that arises the men begin to reveal their own sins.Travelling through the South-west corner of the Gealtacht in the early 19th century we get a flavour of life in the area before it would be altered for ever under the influence of the great changes happening in the wider world. Each character’s fate is bound in different ways to these changes and how they deal with them together.Will the group manage reach the court in Inverary and if the do will they be competent to judge their fellow men with clear consciences?

Singing Like Larks opens a rare window onto the ancient song traditions of the British Isles, interweaving mesmerising lyrics, folklore and colourful nature writing to uncover the remarkable relationship between birds and traditional folk music.Birds are beloved for their song and have featured in our own music for centuries. This charming volume takes us on a journey of discovery to explore why birds appear in so many folk songs.Today, folk songs featuring our feathered friends are themselves something of a threatened species: their melodies are fading with the passage of time, and their lyrics are often tucked away in archives. It is more important than ever that we promote awareness of these precious songs and continue to pass them down the generations. Lifetimes of wisdom are etched into the words and music, preserving the natural rhythms of nature and our connection to times past.An important repository and treasury of bird-related folk songs, Singing Like Larks is also an account of one young nature writer’s journey into the world of folk music, and a joyous celebration of song, the seasons, and our love of birds.

Scotty is a little Scotty dog who was blown onto the Isle of Mull, deep in theheart of a storm. But when a fisherman gives him an old collar with ancientwriting on it, Scotty is whirled off on a series of extraordinary journeys withhis best friend Owl. Crotchety old Owl loves trees – his home being one – andthe collar whisks them away to India to see the Banyan, to Brazil to see thelast tree left standing, and to East Africa, where new seedlings are sproutinggently into fresh forests.Climate change can sometimes be a little frightening, and Scotty’s story is atale about the small changes we can all make to protect the planet. WillScotty and Owl get home safely from their journeys around the world? WillOwl manage not to lose all his feathers flapping after the little Scotty, with hisnose for adventure? Will they both learn something extraordinary abouttrees, home, and how to protect it by planting just one seed? Hold tight…Multi-million selling author Conn Iggulden teams up again with fantasticillustrator Lizzy Duncan on this environmental adventure.The story of Scotty was initially produced by the Scotia Group fordistribution to all delegates in attendance at the UN’s COP26 climate summitin Glasgow. Conn and Lizzy are thrilled to be working with Little Door Books toexpand Scotty into a series that continues to tell the story about how nobodyis too small to make a difference, and no difference is too small to make whenit comes to saving our planet.Excellent for schools and families wanting to find out more about our worldand how to help protect it.Publishing on World Earth Day 2023

Jackie Kohnstamm’s mother rarely talked about what had happened during the war and had kept little evidence of her early life. It was only after her uncle and aunt had died that Jackie inherited an archive of material relating to the family back in Germany. Jackie’s mother had managed to get out of Berlin in 1936, following her brother and sister who had already escaped. But Jackie’s grandparents had remained.One night, on a whim, Jackie Googled her grandparents’ names. What she found felt like a sign: four days earlier two Stolpersteine (‘stumble stones’) had been laid in their names outside the house in Berlin where they had once lived. Someone had commissioned this memorial to her grandparents. Each listed their name, year of birth, date of deportation to Theresienstadt and date of their murder by the Nazis. Here, then, was the first step, and what followed was a remarkable story of loss, discovery and memory.

The history of the Scottish monarchy is a long tale of triumph over adversity, characterised by the personal achievements of remarkable rulers who transformed their fragile kingdom into the master of northern Britain. The Kings and Queens of Scotland charts that process, from the earliest Scots and Pictish kings of around ad 400 through to the union of parliaments in 1707, tracing it through the lives of the men and women whose ambitions drove it forward on the often rocky path from its semi-mythical foundations to its integration into the Stewart kingdom of Great Britain.It is a route waymarked with such towering personalities as Macbeth, Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots, but directed also by a host of less well-known figures such as David I, who extended his kingdom almost to the gates of York, and James IV, builder of the finest navy in northern Europe. Their will and ambition, successes and failures not only shaped modern Scotland, but have left their mark throughout the British Isles and the wider world.

‘A real page-turner’ – Ian Rankin

The Party House by Lin Anderson is a deeply atmospheric psychological thriller set in the Scottish Highlands, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware. Devastated by a recent pandemic brought in by outsiders, the villagers of Blackrig in the Scottish Highlands are outraged when they find that the nearby estate plans to reopen its luxury ‘party house’ to tourists. As animosity sparks in the community, a group of locals take action. By the end of the night, the house hot tub has been smashed to pieces and, in the ensuing chaos, the body of a young woman is found in the foundations. Seventeen-year-old Ailsa Cummings went missing five years ago, never to be seen again. Until now. The excavation of Ailsa’s remains reignites old suspicions towards the men of this small community, including Greg, the estate’s gamekeeper. He is loath to discuss old wounds, but Greg’s new lover, Joanne, is frightened by his reaction to the missing girl’s discovery. Joanne begins to doubt how well she knows this new man in her life. Then again, he’s not the only one with secrets in their volatile relationship . . .’ Lin’s first standalone sees her expertly mix psychological thrills with a perplexing mystery simmering in a small community. It has all the ingredients of a hit to stand alongside her Rhona MacLeod series’ – Douglas Skelton, author of The Blood is Still