THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Henny is a baby chick, she is sweet and fluffy just like her friends. But unlike her friends, Henny has one tiny problem. Henny is stuck in her shell. Yes, her tiny legs and her tiny wings peep out. But Henny is most definitely stuck. Follow Henny on her journey as she and her friends try to solve her problem and along the way end up saving the day. ‘Henny is Stuck’ is the debut picture book from award-winning Dublin-based illustrator and animator Aileen Crossley. With an illustration style honed and developed over years in a lithographic print studio, the loveable characters are brought to life in a tale of friendship, determination and bravery. Aileen is currently creating an animated short to accompany her picture book. This book would make the perfect Easter gift.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartetOne day in post-Brexit, mid-pandemic Britain, artist Sandy Gray receives an unexpected phone call from university acquaintance Martina Pelf. Martina is calling Sandy to ask for help with a mysterious question she’s been left with after she’s spent half a day locked in a room by border control officials for no reason she can fathom:’Curlew or curfew? You choose.’And what’s any of this got to do with the story of a young and talented blacksmith hounded from her trade and her home more than five hundred years ago?Ali Smith’s novel takes wing, soaring between our atomised present and our medieval past in the hope we can open our locked down homes and selves to all the other times, other species, other histories, other possibilities.'[An] entertaining and expert portrayal of the world we live in, seen by the most beguiling and likeable of novelistic intelligences’ Telegraph'[Companion piece] makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one’ New StatesmanLONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022

Britain’s waters are home to only one pod of orca, and they’re heading rapidly towards extinction.In 2014, Dr Natalie Sanders joined the crew of the HV Silurian to seek out the West Coast Community of Orca and study them before we lose them forever.In The Last Sunset in the West, Sanders discusses them one by one, exploring the many issues surrounding their lives in a captivating account that will take the reader deep into the history of our relations with these sentient and beautiful creatures.

Britain’s waters are home to only one pod of orca, and they’re heading rapidly towards extinction.In 2014, Dr Natalie Sanders joined the crew of the HV Silurian to seek out the West Coast Community of Orca and study them before we lose them forever.In The Last Sunset in the West, Sanders discusses them one by one, exploring the many issues surrounding their lives in a captivating account that will take the reader deep into the history of our relations with these sentient and beautiful creatures.

A GRIPPING HISTORICAL THRILLER SET IN INVERNESS IN THE WAKE OF THE 1746 BATTLE OF CULLODEN.’This slice of historical fiction takes you on a wild ride’ THE TIMESAfter Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drummossie Moor. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he’s searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night.The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him – a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites. With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for – and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.******************PRAISE FOR THE BOOKSELLER OF INVERNESS’Fresh and intriguing . . . Her best yet’ ANDREW TAYLOR’Everything you could ask for from a historical thriller’ ANTONIA HODGSON’An intricately wrought, compulsively page-turning tale’ CRAIG RUSSELL’A first rate historical thriller’ 5* READER REVIEW’From the moment I began reading I was hooked’ 5* READER REVIEW’Hugely entertaining . . . fast paced, twisting and turning’ 5* READER REVIEW

Did you know that jellyfish have no brain, heart or blood? Or that there’s an animal called a sea potato?Come rain or shine there is always something interesting to spot at the seaside! Grab this handy nature guide and head to the beach to explore the wonders of the seashore.Nature Guide Seashore is jam-packed with facts – you’ll learn that seaweed is used to make ice cream, and that grey seals can eat 10kg of fish a day (that’s about the weight of two bowling balls!). From bright-beaked puffins and sunbathing seals to slippery seaweed and limpets clinging to rocks, there are over 200 different animals, plants and other wildlife to discover in this spotter’s guide.Discover how to be a wildlife detective, what animals you might find when you go rock pooling and tips on how to look after our coastline. Includes easy to look up fact boxes, a checklist to tick off everything you spot and activities such as making sand art.What will you spot?Full of charming and life-like illustrations by Kate McLelland, RSPB Nature Guide: Seashore is the perfect contemporary spotter’s guide for young wildlife watchers. Published in collaboration with the RSPB, the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe. This is the fourth book in the RSPB Nature Guide series, following Birds, Wildlife and Minibeasts.

From one of our most treasured BBC broadcasters, The Spy Across the Water is the the third instalment in James Naughtie’s brilliant spy series, woven around three brothers bound together forever through espionage.We live with our history, but it can kill us.Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear.From Washington, he’s pitched back into the Troubles in Northern Ireland and an explosive secret hidden deep in the most dangerous but fulfilling friendship he has known.And while he confronts shadowy adversaries in American streets, and looks for solace at home in the Scottish Highlands, he discovers that his government’s most precious Cold War agent is in mortal danger and needs his help to survive.In an electric story of courage and betrayal, Flemyng learns the truth that his life has left him a man with many friends, but still alone.Praise for James Naughtie:’As convincing as any of John le Carre’s.’ Independent’The Madness of July is one hell of a debut and one hell of a read. Beautifully written, deftly plotted, skilfully paced, imaginatively conceived.’ Robert Littell’His first novel was good. This is even better… An involved and beautifully plotted spy story.’ Allan Massie’Hugely gripping and atmospheric.’ Mail on Sunday’Complex and psychologically detailed.’ Charles Cumming’A tour de force.’ Kate Mosse

It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The Prime Minister is an eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.Hyperorganised and formidable, Eve Starkey defeated her boss, the louche magical adept and billionaire Rupert de Montfort Bigge, in a supernatural duel to the death. Now she’s in charge of the Bigge Corporation, just in time to discover the lethal trap Rupert set for her long ago . . .Wendy Deere is investigating unauthorized supernatural shenanigans. She swore to herself she wouldn’t again get entangled with Eve Starkey’s bohemian brother Imp and his crew of transhuman misfits. Yeah, right.Mary Macandless has powers of her own. Right now she’s pretending to be a nanny in order to kidnap the children of a pair of famous, Government-authorized adepts. These children have powers of their own, and Mary Macandless is in way over her head.All of these stories will come together, with world-bending results…’For all of Stross’s genuine ability to spook and dismay, The Laundry Files are some of the most tremendously humane books I’ve ever read’Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth

Find Others Like You: Tucson Hardcore in the 1980s is a personal documentation of the 80s punk scene there with unseen photos of some of the most influential punk and hardcore bands of the era – including Black Flag, Meat Puppets, The Vandals, Conflict (US) and Suicidal Tendencies.By 1982, Hardcore shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington were getting large turnouts. It was becoming something that spoke to people, the freaks, the disaffected. Touring bands from all over would pass through Arizona on their way to or from somewhere. Word got out that Tucson had friendly floors to sleep on. A small, but meaningful scene. No barricades, bouncers, or cops. Crowds of forty people max.At nineteen years old, Edwin Arnaud was there. He saw, experienced and photographed the bands and the people in this book. The sights, smells, sounds, the kinetic energy, all in a single shot.Though there are plenty of other books documenting the hardcore scene of the 1980s, Find Others Like You is different because it happened in Tucson, Arizona.Tucson’s a warm city in the Sonoran Desert that has a real passion and a real heart and a real scene that wasn’t concerned with a permanent legacy; they just liked what was finally happening for them.To quote one of the legends of the scene, Henry Rollins, “Most of the people who call me a sellout were seven when I was down in the pit.” This book has the energy only an insider can bring.

This volume, eleventh in the Yale Boswell Editions Research Series of correspondence, is of James Boswell’s journals (including memoranda and notes for journals) in Scotland, England and Ireland from the autumn of 1766 to May 1769. The journals covered by the volume record much of Boswell’s life as a young advocate during the first few years of his practice at the Scottish bar. The journals also record much information about Boswell’s composition and publication of his instant best-seller, Account of Corsica, his involvement as a volunteer for the Douglas camp in the great Douglas Cause and his search for a wife. During Boswell’s visits to London and Oxford in 1768, he produced some of his finest journal-writing, including details of memorable and significant conversations with Samuel Johnson. The manuscript journals in the volume have been printed to correspond to the originals as closely as is feasible in the medium of print.

Covering many locations not seen in the first two volumes, this book is a continuation of Ian McLean’s series on the popular Class 47 loco. Beginning in 1987 and continuing through the following year, it features many previously unpublished photographs of Class 47s in operation the length and breadth of the UK. The informative captions detail this period of great change, when the years of Corporate Blue livery gave way to a myriad of more colourful liveries.

Un ingles cae de un acantilado en Nepal, y yace inerte en la cornisa. Dos sherpas se arrodillan en el borde del abismo, permanecen alli, intercambian algunas palabras a la espera de que el hombre tome la decision de moverse, de descender. En esos minutos, el mundo se abre para Kathmandu: un pueblo soleado en otro continente, las paginas de Julio Cesar. Montanismo, colonialismo, compromisos y obligaciones; en la fluida prosa de Sebastian Martinez Daniell, cada respiro es cristalino, y brinda una perspectiva desde la que se puede ver la inmensidad del mundo.An Englishman has fallen from a cliffside in Nepal, and lies inert on a ledge below. Two sherpas kneel at the edge, stand, exchange the odd word, waiting for him to move, to make a decision, to descend. In those minutes, the world opens up to Kathmandu, a sun-bleached beach town on another continent, and the pages of Julius Caesar. Mountaineering, colonialism, obligation-in Sebastian Martinez Daniell’s effortless prose each breath is crystalline, and the whole world is visible from here.A British climber has fallen from a cliffside in Nepal, and lies inert on a ledge below. Two sherpas kneel at the edge, stand, exchange the odd word, waiting for him to move, to make a decision, to descend. In those minutes, the world opens up to Kathmandu, a sun-bleached beach town on another continent, and the pages of Julius Caesar. Mountaineering, colonialism, obligation-in Sebastian Martinez Daniell’s effortless prose each breath is crystalline, and the whole world is visible from here.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATUREWith great lyricism, Anna Fleming charts two parallel journeys: learning the craft of traditional rock climbing and the developing appreciation of the natural world it brings her. Through the story of her progress from terrified beginner to confident lead climber, she shows us how placing hand and foot on rock becomes a profound new way into the landscape.Anna takes us from the gritstone rocks of the Peak District and Yorkshire to the gabbro pinnacles of the Cuillin, the slate of North Wales and the high plateau of the Cairngorms. Each landscape, and each type of rock, brings its own challenges and invites us into the history of a place.

A synoptic edition of the English version of John Arderon’s De judiciis urinarum containing the commentary on Giles of Corbeil’s Carmen de urinis as preserved in Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 328, from the early 15th century, and Manchester University Library, MS Rylands Eng. 1310, from the 16th century. The English version of De judiciis urinarum is a detailed uroscopic treatise instructing the mediaeval practitioner on the examination of urine with twenty colours and eighteen to nineteen contents, incorporating colour descriptions, diagnoses, medicines and information about urinary contents. The present edition offers the semi-diplomatic transcription of these hitherto unedited texts, accompanied by a glossary, notes and introduction, the latter containing the textual transmission of the text, a codicological/palaeographic description together with the analysis of the scribal language. The present edition will be useful as a primary source for research not only in Historical Linguistics but also in other related fields such as the History of Medicine or Ecdotics.

Spring, 1523. Henry VIII readies England for war with France. The King’s chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, prepares to open Parliament at Blackfriars. The eyes of the country turn towards London. But all is not well in Wolsey’s household. A visiting critic of the Cardinal is found brutally slain whilst awaiting an audience at Richmond Palace. He will not be the last to die.Anthony Blanke, trumpeter and groom, is once again called upon to unmask a murderer. Joining forces with Sir Thomas More, he is forced to confront the unpopularity of his master’s rule. As the bodies of the Cardinal’s enemies mount up around him, Anthony finds himself under suspicion. Journeying through the opulence of More’s home, the magnificence of Wolsey’s York Place, and the dank dungeons of London’s gaols, he must discover whether the murderer of the Cardinal’s critics is friend or foe.With time running out before Parliament sits, Anthony must clear his name and catch the killer before the King’s justice falls blindly upon him.

Far Field is the third and final book in The Auchensale Trilogy, a series of poetry cycles capturing the changing rural landscape of the West of Scotland. Following on from its predecessors Black Cart and Bale Fire, the book consists of three cycles bound together by footers.A number of poems in the early part of the book are in response to paintings by the Glasgow Boys particularly those painted during their time spent in agricultural communities. Many of the poems are highly personal with a number about family members. These include a series of elegies for his late father. It also focuses on the present day looking to the challenges ahead for the family farm and that passing baton to the next generation.

Glasgow: The Autobiography tells the story of the fabled, former Second City of the British Empire from its origins as a bucolic village on the rivers Kelvin and Clyde, through the Industrial Revolution to the dawning of the second millennium.Arranged chronologically and introduced by journalist and Glasgowphile Alan Taylor, the book includes extracts from an astonishing array of writers. Some, such as William and Dorothy Wordsworth, Dirk Bogarde and Evelyn Waugh, were visitors and left their vivid impressions as they passed through on. Many others were born and bred Glaswegians who knew the city and its inhabitants – and its secrets – intimately. They come from every walk of life and, in addition to professional writers, include anthropologists and scientists, artists and murderers, housewives and hacks, footballers and comedians, politicians and entrepreneurs, immigrants and locals.Together they present a varied and vivid portrait of one of the world’s great cities in all its grime and glory – a place which is at once infuriating, frustrating, inspiring, beguiling, sensational and never, ever dull.

A ride in the countryside spirals out of control for Meg and Merlin in this dramatic new addition to Tanya Landman’s lovable horse-riding series.Meg and her new friend Sam Houseman meet up to take their horses out on a hack, but after a lovely day in the countryside, Meg gets lost while making her way home. Then things take a dangerous turn when Merlin gets spooked and takes off, galloping straight towards a main road … Can Meg get him back under control before disaster strikes?

A ride in the countryside spirals out of control for Meg and Merlin in this dramatic new addition to Tanya Landman’s lovable horse-riding series.Meg and her new friend Sam Houseman meet up to take their horses out on a hack, but after a lovely day in the countryside, Meg gets lost while making her way home. Then things take a dangerous turn when Merlin gets spooked and takes off, galloping straight towards a main road … Can Meg get him back under control before disaster strikes?