Reviews
How Glasgow survived the devastation of WW2
Glasgow At War 1939-45 is an important account which focuses on the devastating impact of the Luftwaffe’s relentless bombing of the city in WW2. The text is at times a little dry, but the sections where Armstrong retells the horror of the raid on Clydebank in March 1941 which killed over 500 and left only…
Read MoreThe Bad Fire takes Bob Skinner into retirement
It takes some skill to write 31 novels in a crime series and ensure that the narrative, plot and characters don’t go stale. But The Bad Fire, Quintin Jardine’s latest offering to the Bob Skinner series, takes the veteran Chief Constable in a new direction – retirement. Despite a greater focus on his daughter Alex,…
Read MoreRemembering Scotland’s Collosus of Roads
Telford began as a young apprentice to a stonemason and by the end of his years was called ‘The Collosus of Roads’. He was unquestionably one of Britain’s finest engineers. This book recounts the history of one of the Industrial Revolution’s heroes, highlighting the work and life of a man of culture who remembered his…
Read MoreThe amazing story of a Scottish piano
Mrs Findlay’s Broadwood Square Piano is the remarkable story of an 1804 Broadwood square piano, and two great Scottish families. Originally bought by a Mrs Dorothy Findlay from Glasgow in 1804, the piano appeared in an Irish auction in 1977 where the author’s mother, Hilda Hannon, nee Denny of the Dumbarton shipbuilding family, bought it…
Read MoreA masterclass on how to cook venison
Senior chef and lecturer in culinary arts at Westminster Kingsway College in London, Jose Souto is a game expert who gives master classes on game cookery to chefs worldwide. Alongside world-renowned photographer Steve Lee, Souto has created a book which not only teaches the reader how to cook venison, but celebrates it. As venison becomes…
Read MoreStars shine brightly in this Scots novel
Cameron Sparks’ life isn’t going to plan, in Bright Stars by Sophie Duffy. He and his wife have separated and he is being forced to move back in with his widowed dad, plus he’s awaiting a disciplinary at work following an incident in the underground vaults of Edinburgh where he works as a Ghost Tour…
Read MoreSpending a season with the wild geese
It is impossible not to be charmed by the poignant and lyrical way in which Wintering effortlessly sketches vivid portraits of these often underappreciated birds. The reader is invited to share in the solace which Stephen Rutt finds in nature through the book’s elegant and very readable prose, which although soothing, never loses its poetic…
Read MoreDark secrets in Highland Perthshire
Highland Perthshire’s rolling hills may now be the picture of tranquillity. But as Mark Bridgeman’s book reveals, its picturesque villages conceal a dark past of murderous crimes and unsolved mysteries. From whisky smuggling to gruesome murders, con men to psychics, each of the 19 spine-tingling true stories are retold in vivid and compelling detail which…
Read MoreThe struggles of a community fighting to survive
Shrouded in negative stereotypes and widely misunderstood, the Scottish travelling community are at the forefront of this novel. Lorn Macintyre has created characters with real depth, who draw empathy from the reader throughout their journey and remind us to withhold hasty judgements. Set in the Scottish landscape, the book draws on the power of nature…
Read MoreA celebration of Edinburgh’s New Town architecture
I’m not normally an avid reader of architectural volumes. But this collection of essays which reflects on the intellectual, economic and political contexts which provided the impetus for the expansion of Edinburgh’s New Town can be appreciated for its depth, high-class imagery and superior finish. The writing is dense, but the book is far from…
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