One Never Quite Knows the Mountain

Take a tour of Scotland through the words of the people who have known and loved its wild places, from practical guides to insightful histories, from moving meditations to poetic tributes.

The Living Mountain

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the ‘essential nature’ of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Extract from The Living Mountain By Nan Shepherd Published by Canongate Books

Summer on the high plateau can be delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge. To those who love the place, both are good, since both are part of its essential nature. And it is to know its essential nature that I am seeking here. To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. This is not done easily nor in an hour. It is a tale too slow for the impatience of our age, not of immediate enough import for its desperate problems. Yet it has its own rare value. It is, for one thing, a corrective of glib assessment: one never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it. However often I walk on them, these hills hold astonishment for me. There is no getting accustomed to them.

The Cairngorm Mountains are a mass of granite t...

Scotland’s Still Light

Scotland’s Still Light explores the relationship between photographic imagery and the words of some of Scotland’s most highly respected writers. It is not an attempt to illustrate the texts but to give a sense of place through the combination of words and images. Sometimes it is a whole piece, sometimes a paragraph or verse, a few lines, or occasionally a single line that encapsulates the experience of trying to capture ‘the moment’ with a camera. All of the photographic images evolve from a study of the unique quality of light that prevails in the exquisite diversity of Scotland’s landscapes and cities.

Extract from Scotland’s Still Light By Andy Hall Published by ...

The Eagle’s Way

Eagles, perhaps more than any other bird, spark our imaginations. These magnificent creatures encapsulate the majesty and wildness of Scottish nature. But change is afoot for the eagles of Scotland: golden eagles now share the skies with sea eagles after a successful reintroduction programme. In The Eagle’s Way, Jim Crumley draws upon his years of observing these spectacular birds to paint an intimate portrait of their lives and illustrate how they interact with each other and the Scottish landscape.

Extract from The Eagle’s Way By Jim Crumley Published by Saraband Books

THE GOLDEN EAGLE GLEN ends abruptly in a wide headwall, lightly wooded with mostly birch, craggy, bouldery...

Doubling Back

‘I wondered whose step it was that caught at the back of mine’

The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland

‘The earth’s great plates collide’

J.M.W. Turner: The Vaughan Bequest

‘Amidst the gigantic scenery’

Volcanoes and the Making of Scotland

‘The ice sheets put the finishing touches’

Around a Thin Place

‘Two ferries and a fair bit of walking’

David Robinson Reviews: Upon a White Horse by Peter Ross

‘Ross is always lucid, almost reverent, about the whole process of archaeological discovery.’
Abdullah’s Bear Needs a Name! by Yasmin Hanif

‘”Why don’t you guess?” said Abba. “You’ll know in your heart when you’ve found the right one.”‘
Food, Whisky, Life by Ghillie BaŞan

‘Pastries filled with ground nuts, baked fruit or creamy, semolina mixtures, and bathed in honey or …
A Chaos of Light: New Writing Scotland

‘The attic lowed like a crystal haal, last I saa her – / dark-eyed and ready tae furgit me.’
The Fathers by John Niven

‘The pleasures of the unexamined life and all that. Dan had read somewhere that the lower classes – …
Mrs Burke & Mrs Hare by Michelle Sloan

‘If you rip these bodies from the place that’s been blessed as their final place of peace, where fam …