THE BEST OF SCOTTISH BOOKS

Twenty-five years of a Scottish parliament presents the opportunity to take stock of a new Scotland, to be seen in the context of wider social, political and cultural changes occurring over the previous fifty years. The book draws upon a wealth of empirical material to enable us to ‘read’ this changing Scotland. The time-frame is crucial. We can now see that the transformative moment lay in the long decade of the late 1960s and 1970s, when social, economic and political processes began to transform Scotland in a radical way. Fifty years on, we live in a quite different country. Scotland sits at the nexus of three key concepts: civil society, nation and state. This book tells that story, explains how it came about and its legacy in understanding this new Scotland.

Carved in Stone is a comprehensive guide to early medieval Pictish society. Through its pages you will see, touch, taste, hear and smell your way through everything that modern scholars currently know of the Picts’ enigmatic culture.

Everything you need to tell stories, run games and go on adventures in Pictland are laid out across 5 dramatic acts:

• Contexts: Get up to speed on who the Picts were, and how we know what we know about them today.
• Landscapes: Navigate through ancient Scotland first-hand, hiking between shaded temperate rainforests, open lush peat bogs, and wind swept mountain peaks.
• Kingdoms: Chart out where you live, what languages you spread, and figure out who you can trust.
• Perspectives: Witness the spiritual, the magnificent, the divine and the mundane, and uncover how each weaves their way through Pictish society.
• Lives: Experience daily Pictish life, from seasonal feasts to blacksmiths’ enchanted forge-fires. Find out what clothes are in your wardrobe, where you rest your head at night, and who you meet while travelling Pictland.

Celebrate 150 years of Hibs.

Charting the highs, lows and many misadventures of Hibernian FC, and featuring countless characters, from George Best to John McGinn via the Famous Five and the side that became world champions, this is the ultimate celebration of the beloved Edinburgh sporting institution. It sweeps from the founding of the club in 1875 to the triumphs and tribulations of the 21st century.

In 150 bitesize helpings, the story of Hibs is served up in delicious fashion. Who could forget the pass of the millennium or the swoon-inducing swagger of sixties heartthrob Peter Marinello? And who wouldn’t recoil at the memory of the wine bar empire entwined in the club’s darkest hour? Written by a lifelong Hibee, Hibs at 150 bridges the generations and peels back the layers of a century and half of Hibsteria.

This fascinating history of the Earldom of Orkney, which was established in the Viking Age, records the adventures, feuds and battles of powerful Norsemen during its first three centuries. The medieval earls of Orkney owed allegiance to the kings of Norway but their influence ranged from Britain and Ireland to Sweden and Russia, and they travelled as far as Narbonne, Crete and Jerusalem. Advised by bishops and formidable women, they and their henchmen jockeyed for power with each other and with neighbouring rulers in Scotland, often with murderous outcomes. In between the high politics and violence, the world of the earls was one of piety, poetry and feasting.

The Saga also provides rare glimpses of culture and everyday life in northern Scotland when it was central to the Viking diaspora. Set in a recognisable landscape, it mentions features, sites and even buildings that can still be seen today.

This new translation of the manuscripts of the Saga uses an innovative approach to presenting medieval sources to non-specialist audiences, highlighting textual variations that affect its interpretation. It also reflects saga style and language more closely than previous translations and is ideal for both research and reading aloud. This is an essential, detailed and up-to-date resource for academics and general readers who wish to know more about Viking and Norse Scotland.

‘Weathershaker, of unknown meaning’
[Scottish National Dictionary]

Weathershaker begins with meanings lost, recovered and imagined. Digging into the material and textual record through place names, fictional histories, translations and fragmentary texts, Sanderson’s second full-length collection speaks of the past from an unsteady present. In a small country of big winds and shifting light, where the weather itself is shaken by our actions as a species, these poems turn towards a contingent future while seeking meaning gone astray.

Dwell Time, the full-length debut collection from award-winning poet Taylor Strickland, begins from the idea that ‘dwelling’ requires both place and the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’. In taking us from the US to Scotland to Portugal, Strickland interrogates this central notion, along with ideas of non-place and environment, to explore our contemporary experience of love, language, technology, and spirituality. Ultimately these are poems that advocate for a world against isolation, one in which we go beyond our own witness to embrace another’s, and shrink the distance between us.

‘It shall be finished!’ Robert Louis Stevenson made this proud boast in a letter to Sydney Colvin. He was referring to his latest project, The Great North Road, a rollicking tale of highwaymen, murder, mayhem and doomed love, hoping it would emulate the success of Treasure Island. He had written nineteen thousand words before he abandoned the narrative in 1886. In fact, the prolific but inconsistent Stevenson had left a total of fourteen unfinished works at the time of his death including the acclaimed novel Weir of Hermiston. In his introduction Campbell considers why Stevenson left so many works of fiction unfinished. Finally, Stuart Campbell has taken it upon himself to complete The Great North Road. Acting as a literary sleuth he has located a list of twenty-five intended chapter headings and, after a robust discussion with the abandoned characters, he has concluded the unfinished tale.

This fully revised edition of the classic SMC title is the ultimate guide to the Scottish skiing experience. Short trips up single tops, longer journeys taking in multiple adjacent peaks, and even an epic multi-day traverse, here you’ll find comprehensive route descriptions for over 140 tours spanning the length and breadth of Scotland, from rolling hills of Dumfries and Galloway to the isolated summits of the far north. New additions to classic routes, stunning photography and clear, intuitive maps offer inspiration whether you’re still honing your skills or an experienced skier seeking new challenges. 
 
Unrivalled access, a unique network of bothies and the ephemeral nature of skiing in Scotland make days out especially memorable. With this guide, you’ll be best placed to seize every opportunity to travel deep into the wilds and carve fresh turns in some truly magical landscapes

Robbie MacLeòid’s debut pamphlet, Am Measg Luaithrean, Beò (‘Living Among the Ashes’), is about transgression in many forms. From sharing dead tongues in living mouths, to setting institutions ablaze, and summoning superheroes and fae beings; these provocative and bilingual poems break form and language to interrogate Scotland, sensuality, and sin.

Robbie MacLeòid is a queer Glasgow-based writer from the Highlands. He writes in both Scottish Gaelic and in English. His writing has been published in Gutter, New Writing Scotland, and STEALL, as well as elsewhere and internationally. He holds a PhD in love and gender, and still spends way too much time thinking about both of those themes. In 2023 he received a Scottish Book Trust’s New Writer’s Award for Poetry. The manuscript for this, his first poetry pamphlet, won Best Unpublished Manuscript at the Gaelic Literature Awards, and was Highly Commended by the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award committee.

‘I mean, it’s nothing really. An old face from the past.’

When two men meet on a dating app, it’s supposed to be a casual encounter between strangers. Jordan is only back in Edinburgh to visit his complicated family, and Davie is reeling from a painful breakup.

Yet Davie recognises Jordan as someone he knew long ago, when they were both closeted teenagers at the same school. Back then, Jordan was relentlessly bullied and Davie was one of the bullies. But Jordan doesn’t remember him at all.

Against the backdrop of a city steeped in memories, Davie and Jordan find themselves drawn together again and again. A fragile intimacy blossoms between them, but can anyone ever be free of their past?

How colonialism shaped the Scottish Enlightenment’s conception of race and humanity

In the decades after 1750, an increasing number of former medical students from the University of Edinburgh construed humanity as a subject of both intellectual curiosity and colonial interest. They drew on a shared educational background, blending medicine with natural history and moral philosophy, in a range of encounters with non-European and Indigenous peoples across the globe whom they began to classify as races. Focusing on a surprising number of these understudied students, this book reveals the gradual predominance of race in Scottish Enlightenment thought.   Teaching provided a toolbox of concepts and theories for students who went on to careers as military and naval surgeons, colonial administrators, and natural historians. While some, such as Mungo Park–who traveled in Africa–are well known, many others such as the long-term residents in the Russian Empire, Matthew Guthrie and his wife, Maria Guthrie, or the Caribbean botanist Alexander Anderson are less remembered. Among this group were those such as the Pacific traveler Archibald Menzies and the circumnavigator of Australia, Robert Brown, who are known primarily as botanists rather than as ethnographers. Together they formed a global network of colonial travelers and natural historians sharing a common educational background and a growing interest in race.

An enchanting history of the otherworld of elves and fairies, from the nature spirits of Iceland and Ireland to Avalon and Middle Earth

Originating in Norse and Celtic mythologies, elves and fairies are a firmly established part of Western popular culture. Since the days of the Vikings and Arthurian legend, these sprites have undergone huge transformations. From J. R. R. Tolkien’s warlike elves, based on medieval legend, to little flower fairies whose charms even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle succumbed to, they permeate European art and culture.

In this engaging cultural history, Matthias Egeler explores these mythical creatures of Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and England, and their continental European cousins. Egeler goes on a journey through enchanted landscapes and literary worlds. He describes both their friendly and their dangerous, even deadly, sides. We encounter them in the legends of King Arthur’s round table and in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in the terrible era of the witch trials, in magic’s peaceful conquest of Victorian bourgeois salons, in the child-friendly form of Peter Pan, and even as helpers in the contemporary fight against environmental destruction.

One final adventure for Ropa Moyo – orphan, mischief-maker and failed magician. Secrets of the First School is the mystery-filled finale to T. L. Huchu’s enchanting Edinburgh Nights series.

‘I’ve had my arse kicked more times than I can count’

Ropa Moyo is dead, banished to the Other Place by the reanimated spirit of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville of Scotland. Turns out being on the losing side sucks worse than being skint.

Now, the Cult of Dundas intends to ascend to godhood, spreading their corrupting reach from Edinburgh to all of Scotland’s schools of magic. Ropa must find some way to escape the Other Place, save her sister and gather allies across the country before Edinburgh falls.

A royal plot, a family secret and a stolen body. As Scotland descends into petty in-fighting, Ropa’s only hope lies in her grandmother’s final secret: the first school of magic.

An ancient power is returning . . . and is hungry for revenge.

DSI William Lorimer first meets Meredith St Claire when he is giving a careers talk at his goddaughter’s school. The popular and glamorous drama teacher is distraught, begging him to investigate her fiancé’s recent disappearance, but with a report already made to the relevant authorities, there’s nothing more Lorimer can do.

Until a body is discovered on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Guy Richmond was a wealthy and charismatic actor, adored by everyone. Or so it first seems. But as Lorimer and his team are drawn deeper into the mystifying world of professional theatre, they find themselves caught in a web of confidences and rivalry, thwarted dreams and ruthless ambition.

For it seems the finest actors of all are those with the darkest secrets to hide.

‘The Seeker is Winner of the 2015 CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger’

London, 1654. Oliver Cromwell is at the height of his power and has declared himself Lord Protector. Yet he has many enemies, at home and abroad.

London is a teeming warren of spies and merchants, priests and soldiers, exiles and assassins. One of the web’s most fearsome spiders is Damian Seeker, agent of the Lord Protector. No one knows where Seeker comes from, who his family is, or even his real name. All that is known of him for certain is that he is utterly loyal to Cromwell, and that nothing can be long hidden from him.

In the city, coffee houses are springing up, fashionable places where men may meet to plot and gossip. Suddenly they are ringing with news of a murder. John Winter, hero of Cromwell’s all-powerful army, is dead, and the lawyer, Elias Ellingworth, found standing over the bleeding body, clutching a knife.

Yet despite the damning evidence, Seeker is not convinced of Ellingworth’s guilt. He will stop at nothing to bring the killer to justice: and Seeker knows better than any man where to search.

Banish the winter blues, embrace the stark beauty of the colder months and step into an invitingly warm world of comfort and culinary delight.

In this her eagerly anticipated fourth cookbook, food writer, acclaimed bakery owner and Bake Off semi-finalist Flora Shedden invites readers on a joyous, heart-warming journey through the enchanting winter season in Scotland, celebrating the region’s rich and distinctive culinary heritage and cherished festive traditions.

Offering creative, deliciously do-able savoury and sweet recipes that cater for the entire winter season, it includes a mix of both traditional dishes and modern alternatives, as well as tips to get ahead for Christmas, Hogmanay and Burns Night, ensuring your table is always graced with warmth and flavour from the first snowfall to the final thaw. Set against the backdrop of Scotland’s dramatic landscapes and picture-post­card wintertime charm, it is a stunning culinary adventure that is nothing short of magical.

One hundred poems on the beauty and fragility of the natural world, collated by former Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Carol Ann Duffy.

The wonders of nature have inspired poets for centuries, stretching far back beyond the Romantics. Beautifully curated by Carol Ann Duffy, the one hundted poems in Earth Prayers span widely across time, but in their moments of joy, empathy or difference, even the earliest poems reveal a concern for the welfare of our planet. Duffy brings these early eco-poems into conversation with contemporary voices writing into the environmental crisis, and through this dialogue sounds a clarion call to cherish and defend the planet while we can.

From John Clare to Lucille Clifton to Kathleen Jamie, the poets collected in Earth Prayers speak at times as stewards and ambassadors of the earth, at others in anger at those who would exploit nature, or to question their own part in its decline. And the earth speaks back: in Stephanie Pruitt’s ‘Mississippi Gardens’ the soil bears witness to the worst of human history, while in ‘Poem’ Jorie Graham relays the earth’s plea: ‘remember me’.

To encounter nature, these poems tell us, is to be humbled, to have our own smallness magnified by the presence of the sublime. Earth Prayers is a testament to the immense beauty of the natural world, and a challenging reminder of our place in ‘the living skein / of which the world is woven’.

‘Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time’ – Guardian

When Fred returns home to her quant Scottish town she must confront her past and decide whether it can be a part of her future…

Fred Hallow-Hart isn’t in love with the idea of returning home to Pine Bluff. But after a bad breakup and a subsequent eviction, she’s fresh out of options.

Quickly roped in by her mother to help with the family Christmas cracker shop, Fred decides throwing herself into work might be for the best, especially when her ex-best-friend Ryan starts to give her butterflies she never expected.

But as Fred begins to hope for her heart, she’s forced to confront some harsh truths, which, if she doesn’t find a way through, might just ruin the holidays.

Can Fred let go of the past enough to recognize real love? And when she does, how far will she go to protect it?
Perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan, Heidi Swain, Jo Thomas and Phillipa Ashley!

For the first time since the beloved Shetland series, Detective Jimmy Perez is back. He’s traded the stark beauty of Shetland for the wild isolation of Orkney, but the darkness of human nature follows him everywhere.

When a ferocious storm rages across the islands, it leaves behind more than just damage: it uncovers the body of Archie Stout, a popular, larger-than-life member of the community.

The murder weapon? A Neolithic stone, bearing cryptic, ancient inscriptions.

Now living in Orkney with his partner, Willow, and their young son, Perez is drawn into a case that is chillingly personal―Archie was a friend from his own childhood. And the island is full of familiar faces, all of whom are potential suspects in the killing.

Perez must immerse himself in the lives of the islanders, separating truth from local legend before a desperate killer can strike again . . . and threaten the new life he’s desperately trying to build.

 

‘This solitude, the romance and wild loveliness of everything here . . . all make beloved Scotland the proudest, finest country in the world.’

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) wrote a diary nearly every day of her life. Originally intended for private circulation, later expanded to appeal to a wider public, these published diary entries cover not only the family holidays at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands which the Queen and Prince Albert enjoyed up until his death in 1861, but also the Queen’s journeys – as sovereign and as “Royal Tourist” – around Scotland, Ireland, and other regions within the British Isles. The books offer intimate views of the most important woman of her time as she shares her love of her family and of the Highlands, and demonstrates her intense interest in all corners of her realm and in the lives of individuals from all classes of society.

Queen Victoria’s writings about her life and travels in Scotland and the British Isles are fascinating and entertaining to read. Extremely popular when they first appeared, they shaped Victoria’s image in the nineteenth century, and their impact on public perceptions of the monarchy continues to this day. This volume includes complete and authoritative texts of the two journals; an introduction and explanatory endnotes providing historical and cultural contexts and new information about the Queen’s work as author and editor; maps of the Queen’s travels; a Cast of Characters briefly identifying many of the individuals the Queen meets or mentions; a Glossary of unfamiliar terms; and Suggestions for Further Reading.