‘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…
‘Literature and Union, Scottish Texts, British Contexts,’ edited by Gerard Carruthers and Colin Kidd (Oxford University Press) This is something of a cat among the pigeons book. In fact there…
‘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…
Ernest Hemingway’s remarkable first novel, ‘The Sun Also Rises’, published in 1926, opens with an account of a character called Robert Cohn. Jake Barnes, the novel’s narrator, an American newspaperman…
‘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…
‘The Blade Artist’, by Irvine Welsh What would be an appropriate TW rating for this novel? In case you happen to be unfamiliar with this particular abbreviation, let me explain…
I have just returned from my own sentimental journey to the far north of Scotland. I went back to Wick, where I was born and brought up, to John O’Groats,…
‘Scotland and Arbroath 1320-2020 ‘, edited by Klaus Peter Müller (published by Peter Lang) This a very strange book in a range of ways. Its striking subtitle is ‘700 Years…
‘Mary Queen of Scots, A Study in Failure’ by Jenny Wormald (John Donald, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd) Few recent Scottish history books have resonated as loudly as Wormald’s account…