River Tweed fishing museum set to open

A MUSEUM telling the story of rod and line salmon fishing on the River Tweed will open in Kelso on 4 September. Rod and line techniques were developed on the Tweed during the middle of the 18th century and influenced the economic and cultural development of the Eastern Borders. The River Tweed Salmon Fishing Museum…

Read More

Authors pick top lockdown crime novels

Ahead of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival, which begins online on 18 September, authors Alex Gray and Gordon Brown – who writes as Morgan Cry – pick their favourite lockdown books. Alex Gray Three books that were really good during lockdown days include Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky. A terrific read, thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully written and quirky.…

Read More

Outlander star Sam Heughan reflects on his Steiner school days

HOLLYWOOD heartthrob Sam Heughan has spoken about his time as a pupil at the Edinburgh Steiner School during a new online video interview. The star of Outlander, the television series based on the historical fantasy books by Diana Gabaldon, said: “The Steiner education gives you this understanding about the world; that you are not being…

Read More

Birds of a feather….

While most small businesses have been poleaxed by the pandemic, it has led to a remarkable growth in sales for one fledgling Scottish business. Edinburgh-based Rare Birds Book Club, a book subscription service aimed at women, has seen a 52% increase in sales since the lockdown. The company’s offering, which is a monthly book delivery…

Read More

The May 2020 edition of Scottish Field is available

With the country in lockdown with the coronavirus outbreak, the May edition of Scottish Field is now available, to keep you company through these trying times. Our focus this month is on Orkney and Shetland, and we discover how a pack of the most photogenic pooches found fame on Shetland and beyond. We meet young…

Read More

Six book shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize

The judges of the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction announced its eleventh shortlist today. The six-book shortlist is: The Narrow Land by Christine Dwyer Hickey (Atlantic); The Parisian by Isabella Hammad (Jonathan Cape); To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek (Canongate); Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker); The Redeemed by Tim Pears…

Read More

The fascinating story of historic Dumfries House

Dumfries House holds a very special place in Scottish history. When the foundation stone was laid in 1754, it became the first home to be designed by John, Robert and James Adams, the architects whose practice became arguably the most famous in the UK. The house hit the headlines in 2007 when Prince Charles, the…

Read More

Pupils booked up for an exciting train journey

Pupils at a Scots school received a visit from the authors of an exciting new book. Prior to schools closing with the coronavirus pandemic, more than 150 East Lothian school children listened to bestselling and award-winning author Maya Leonard and her co-author Sam Sedgeman talk about their brand new book, Adventures on Trains: The Highland…

Read More

The life and crimes of author Craig Robertson

Crime writer Craig Robertson confesses to a fondness for cemeteries and his local 19th-century pub, as well as taking plenty of inspiration from his home town of Stirling. I could probably be accused of being a bit of a fraud in one aspect of my writing. All but one of my books are set in…

Read More

Romance, politics intrigue and crime in Edinburgh

Edinburgh, Yuletide 1743, and Redcoat officer Robert Catto would rather be anywhere else on earth than Scotland. Seconded back from the wars in Europe to captain the city’s Town Guard, he fears his covert mission to assess the strength of the Jacobite threat will force him to confront the past he tries so hard to…

Read More