Reading a piece in The Guardian newspaper in mid-October, I came upon the following statement: ‘In grand bureaucracies such as the health service or social care, the citizen confronts what…
‘Landmarks: Hugh MacDiarmid: The Brownsbank Years’, by Alexander Moffat, Ruth Nicol and Alan Riach Some readers may recall that not so long ago I reviewed a book almost identical to…
Having not been down in over a year, I was keen to check the state of play in London. Facemasks are the acid test. Well, on the streets, and even…
‘Landmarks, Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland’ by Alexander Moffat, Ruth Nicol and Alan Riach (published by East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust) This is a very special and…
‘Walter Scott at 250, Looking Forward’ edited by Caroline McCracken-Flesher and Matthew Wickman (published by Edinburgh University Press) Caroline McCracken-Flesher is an old friend whom I visited decades ago at…
‘Frolics in the Face of Europe, Sir Walter Scott, Continental Travel and the Tradition of the Grand Tour’, by Iain Gordon Brown (published by Fonthill) A quotation from a letter…
‘A Friendship in Letters, Robert Louis Stevenson & J M Barrie’, edited by Michael Shaw (published by Sandstone Press, Inverness) Researching in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in…
‘The Ghost at the Feast: Religion and Scottish Literary Criticism’, edited by Patrick Scott, ‘with an essay and afterword by Crawford Gribben’ (published by ‘Studies in Scottish Literature’) My friend…
‘Shuggie Bain’, by Douglas Stuart (published by Picador) Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, this may well be the bleakest and saddest novel I have ever read. The Booker Prize…
‘Stepping Westward Writing the Highland Tour c.1720-1830 ‘, by Nigel Leask (published by Oxford University Press) This remarkable book is timely to a degree far beyond anything the author could…