All In

The campaign for the National Year of Reading encourages us to 'Go All In' with our reading, and at BooksfromScotland, we'd say we're already there. In this issue, we're All In for celebrating classic fiction; we're All In for cracking crime fiction; we're All In for children's adventures, we're All In for non-fiction on music, nature, desire and landscape; we're All In for poetry; in short, we're All In to keep providing you with reading recommendations from writers and publishers across Scotland. Find out for yourselves - Go All In!

Agnes Owens

David Robinson Celebrates

2026 is Agnes Owens’ centenary year. To celebrate, Polygon are publishing seven new editions of her novels and short stories in collaboration with the official Agnes Owens Archive. The first four are released in May 2026, with more to be released in September 2026. David Robinson looks back at her life and career.

A Working Mother Gentlemen of the West For the Love of Willie Like Birds in the Wilderness By Agnes Owens Published by Polygon

Most reviewers of Agnes Owens’s 1994 novel A Working Mother—to my mind the most intriguing of her four books published this May to celebrate the centenary of her birth—concentrate on the booze-fuelled loveless triangle between Betty, its main protagonist, and the two men in her life: her husband Adam and his friend Brendan. They’re quite right to do so too, but I’m going to start with a much less important character, a Polish Jew called Mrs Rossi who runs a small employment agency.

When Betty goes to see her, Mrs Rossi fixes her up with a job as a temp with a legal firm, whose boss, Mr Robson, offers her a permanent job. He soon asks if Betty w...

Boyhood by David Keenan

Boyhood, David Keenan’s latest novel, opens in 1979 with the abduction of a young boy outside a Glasgow football ground. Nine years later, the boy’s brother, Aaron Murray, meets a new friend, The Special Gift, who takes Aaron, through dreams and visions to Ireland in the 70s, Paris during World War Two, and Mexico. It is a tale of love, violence, art, beauty and inheritance. These extracts focus on Aaron’s relationships with his parents and the way memory both sustains and wounds him.

Boyhood By David Keenan Published by White Rabbit

The first words that Aaron’s dad Donald Murray forgot, the first words that slipped through the slow-widening hole in his head, were ‘crowbar’ (he used the word ‘jackdaw’ instead) and ‘geraniums’...

Raveheart by Graeme Armstrong

‘Glowsticks and Tam o’ Shanter bonnets at the ready.’

Quite Ugly One Evening: A Q & A with Chris Brookmyre

‘It begins with Jack Parlabane locked in a state room with a body: not only is he covered in the dead man’s blood, but the corpse is liberally soused with his too. In terms of DNA, it’s as big a slam …

David Robinson Reviews: Borrowed Land by Kapka Kassabova

‘The pain is real because the love of place is real.’

The Driving Seat by Abigail Abbas

‘Nothing sounded as sinister as Hilary saying Mommy.’

Rat Race by Callum McSorley

‘I’ve always been a sucker for a reluctant detective.’

The Catventures of Sparky and George by Alan Windram

‘I had so much fun. With no real pressure or deadline, I was just trying to create a story that made me laugh, capturing what I thought Sparky and George got up to when they weren’t nagging us for foo …

Everything Everyday by Hannah Lavery

‘We will remember what we did. We will / be remembered for what we did not do.’

Aphrodisia: A Q & A with Jean Menzies

‘I am always blown away by the way individuals are able to connect with and find solace in the ancient world.’

An Island Burning by Colin MacIntyre

‘Islands are all about community. I hope you might enjoy mine. ’

The Book … According to Andrew Meehan

‘Even though the pendulum of friendship swings in unpredictable ways, I’d like to think their bond is as strong as any love affair.’

Caledonia Screaming: Scottish Punk 1976 – 1977 by Grant McPhee

‘Punk didn’t need Scotland, but Scotland needed punk.’

The Weight of Quiet Things

Together, these works trace a Scotland shaped by labour, collective memory and inheritance of a land that can never be owned. This is a collection about what we take from the land, what the land takes …

Enter Eddie Shakespeare: A Q & A with Barbara Henderson

‘Being human hasn’t changed. We still have the same concerns: we seek love, meaning, recognition. Our flaws are what they were in the past: jealousy, vain ambition, pomposity, lethargy, foolishness, n …

The Waterlands by Stephen Rutt

‘Water and land are not separate, nor are they two sides of the same coin, but more profoundly intertwined. They are the blood and bone of the earth.’

Awake Awake by Fiona Mozley

‘There were no hallucinations. No voices, at least, not in the here and now. Only memories.’

Abyss by Nicholas Binge

‘There is only Joe, and this man, who looks like he’s been waiting for him.’

Chantelle Streete Reviews: The Miseducation of Caroline Bingley

‘McLeod uses these moments to great comic effect, while also showcasing the class tensions and ingrained behaviours that underpin the time.’

Cast Away by Francesca de Tores

‘And as he passes me, I get a true sense of his size – twice my length, he is as thick as a forty- two- pound cannon, and looks about as solid. ‘

Spring 2026 Round Up of Scots & Gaelic Releases

‘Discover Jansson’s uninhibited imagination full of love, kindness, and adventure.’
Walking Edinburgh’s Lost Railways By Robin Howie and John McGregor

‘In earlier times it was a site where lovers came to relax and dream, hence the beautiful traditiona …
David Robinson Reviews: The Loch of the Bees

‘The past’s current flows through the characters in his fiction so strongly that it almost becomes t …
The Nightkeeper’s Apprentice by Jude Reid

‘She’d never seen anything like it. The whole sky was lit up in ribbons of colour – blue, green, yel …
David Robinson Interviews: Gavin Francis

‘He’s not my GP so I can’t say this for sure, but based on this book – wise, informed, well-written, …
The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona MacLean

‘No one in the room could have been unaware of what it was that Dr Fraser alluded to. The horrors pe …