Books
Book review: A Shetland Childhood
Growing up in the 1950s seems a long time ago – and growing up in 1950s Shetland was another world entirely. Catherine Emslie presents a fascinating insight to life away from mainland Scotland, from going to school, doing the errands and hunting for treasure, capture a snapshot of life on an island, all brought together…
Read MoreBook review – Bloody Scotland, by 12 of Scotland’s best crime writers
Scotland is currently dripping with talented crime writers, and this novel brings together 12 of them under the one roof. The writing team includes Chris Brookmyre, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Ann Cleeves, Doug Johnstone, Stuart MacBride, Val McDermid, Craig Robertson, Sara Sheridan, ES Thomson, Louise Welsh and Denise Mina. They have contributed 12 short stories,…
Read MoreBook review: Whiskies Galore – A Tour of Scotland’s Island Distilleries
With nearly 30 years of experience in and around the whisky industry, Ian Buxton is well-placed when it comes to going on a tour of Scotland’s island distilleries. From Arran to Orkney, he brings together his expert knowledge with entertaining travelogues, to make for a read that should appeal to more than just the connoisseurs of…
Read MoreBook review: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and The Art of the Four by Roger Billcliffe
Wherever you go in the world, there’s absolutely no mistaking the work, style and influence of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Although Mackintosh is the name most remembered today, he was one of a quartet whose work is known today as the Glasgow Style, with Margaret Macdonald – Mackintosh’s future wife – alongside Herbert MacNair and Frances…
Read MoreBook review – The Great Horizon: 50 Tales of Exploration
Show a cat an empty box and the chances are, they’ll jump into it. Show a human a mountain and it’s quite probably they’ll feel the urge to climb it. That’s what’s at the heart of Jo Woolf’s excellent The Great Horizon – the need for mankind to get out there and explore. Over the…
Read MoreBook review: A Sea Monster’s Tale
Colin Speedie’s new book A Sea Monster’s Tale: In Search of the Basking Shark takes us from swashbuckling hunts of giant sharks by reckless individuals with makeshift harpoons, through an age of mass slaughter, to the author’s personal shark-tracking adventures. At up to eleven metres in length and seven tonnes in weight, this plankton-feeding fish…
Read MoreBook review: An Enormous Reckless Blunder
An Enormous Reckless Blunder tells the little-known story of the Lewis Chemical Works. In 1844, James Matheson purchased the Isle of Lewis with the fortune had had made from trading in the far east. He hoped to exploit peat deposits, which led to him creating the Lewis Chemical Works, to produce lighting oil and paraffin…
Read MoreBook review: Giants of the Clyde
The River Clyde in Glasgow was known internationally and recognised as the ultimate shipbuilding accolade. By as late as the 1950s around a seventh of the world’s total sea-going tonnage was built on the Clyde. It’s certainly no Mississippi or Amazon in size – but its history is legendary. From the many yards on its…
Read MoreBook Review: Highland Retreats
The north of Scotland is famous for its large country homes – so many great buildings, hidden away in quiet corners, surrounded by acres of rolling woodland. Mary Miers has brought together a collection of stunning images and informative text which tells the story of how, in the days long before inter-continental travel became an…
Read MoreBook review: The Haldanes of Gleneagles
In an age when celebrity names come and go in the blinking of an eyelid, there’s a Scottish family that has endured for over 900 years. The Haldanes played their part in Bruce’s Wars of Independence, religious struggles in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Act of Union and the Jacobite rebellion – showing just…
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