The Stornoway Way
10 best books like The Stornoway Way (Kevin MacNeil): Sunset Song, The Cutting Room, The Lighthouse Stevensons: The extraordinary story of the building of the Scottish lighthouses by the ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson, Author, Author, The Fanatic, The Silver Darlings, Grace Notes, Whisky Galore, The Cone Gatherers, Lord of the Isles
| Author | Lewis Grassic Gibbon |
| ISBN | 0862411793 |
Voted "Best Scottish Book of All Time" by "the public" in 2005
Look here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/sc...
The lines are gorgeous. When you listen to this you are there in the Scottish Highlands. When? At the beginning of the 20th century. Writing can be all about creating...
| Author | Louise Welsh |
| ISBN | 1841954748 |
When Rilke, a dissolute and promiscuous auctioneer, comes across a collection of highly disturbing photographs during a house clearance he feels compelled to unearth more about the deceased owner who coveted them.
Driven to discover whether the images represent a real event or a fantasy,...
| Author | Bella Bathurst |
| ISBN | 0006530761 |
I for one had no idea that the 14 lighthouses dotting the Scottish coast were all built by the same Stevenson family that produced Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotland's most famous novelist. But Bella Bathurst throws a powerful, revolving light into the darkness of this historical tradition.
Robert...
| Author | David Lodge |
| ISBN | 0143036092 |
"A cunning, audacious portait of Henry James."--The Boston Globe
Henry James takes center stage in this brilliant story about literary ambition, creativity, and rivalry as revealed in the public career and private life of this most singular writer. Framed by a moving and dramatic account...
| Author | James Robertson |
| ISBN | 1841151890 |
An impressive debut from an exciting new Scottish voice – a stunning novel about history, identity and redemption. A no. 2 best-seller in Scotland.
It is Spring 1997 and Hugh Hardie needs a ghost for his Tours of Old Edinburgh. Andrew Carlin is the perfect candidate. So, with cape, stick and...
| Author | Neil M. Gunn |
| ISBN | 0571200788 |
This 1941 novel is what you may choose as a holiday book or, as I did, to read its near 600 pages over the Christmas period. First and foremost it’s one of those lovely warm stories to become immersed in, unworried about its cleverness or literary wit. Easy to hold up as an example of the ‘classic realist...
| Author | Bernard MacLaverty |
| ISBN | 0393318419 |
The award-winning Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us into the life of Catherine McKenna — estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother, and...
| Author | Compton Mackenzie |
| ISBN | 0099453541 |
It's 1943 and the war has brought rationing to the Hebridean islands of Great and Little Todday. When food is in short supply, it is bad enough, but when the whisky runs out, it looks like the end of the world.
Morale is at rock bottom. George Campbell needs a wee dram to give him the courage to stand...
| Author | Robin Jenkins |
| ISBN | 1841955922 |
It’s easy to see why The Cone Gatherers is used as a set text for Higher English classes (in Scotland at least - I don’t know if this is the case elsewhere) - it’s a short but dense novel, heavy with symbolism, at times almost threatening to collapse under the weight of its symbolic and thematic density....
| Author | Nigel Tranter |
| ISBN | 0340368365 |
Enjoyed this when I read it, but only actually recall the opening now as the Lordship over the Isles is created through conquest using row boats. Even when I first read them it was easier to find Trantor in libraries than on bookshop shelves. However he is a consistent historical novelist with a sense of...
| Author | John Buchan |
| ISBN | 1406501298 |
“The function of man is to live, not to exist.” Jack London, Tales of Adventure
This is a quote John Buchan would probably have agreed with, as the need for constant challenge in order to prevent decay of the body, mind and spirit is a common theme in his books. In fact, he would probably take...
Ian McEwan’s Atonement meets Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth in this extraordinary debut.
A novel set between the past and present with magical realist elements. Goblin is an outcast girl growing up in London during World War 2. After witnessing a shocking event she increasingly...
| Author | Nicola Barker |
| ISBN | 0060185694 |
Wesley, spurting with kinetic energy, nasty wit, and kindness to animals, ought to be a star. Or so it seems to those who nip at his heels, turn up everywhere he goes, and lie in wait for him around every corner. They are his followers -- he calls them Behindlings. And they make quite an ensemble, with their...
| Author | Alan Spence |
| ISBN | 1841959596 |
The year is 1858. Thomas Glover is a restless young man with dreams of escaping Aberdeen. Abandoning his childhood sweetheart, he takes a posting as a trader in Japan. Within ten years he amasses a great fortune, learns the ways of the samurai and helps overthrow the Shogun - a rapid rise from lowly shipping...
| Author | George Mackay Brown |
| ISBN | 1904598331 |
This book takes the reader on a journey from Orkney, over to Norway, into Iceland and Ireland, recreating with historical accuracy the customs and landscapes of the time while bringing the age to life through a large cast of engaging characters. Through the telling of Ranald's story, Mackay Brown displays...
| Author | Ali Smith |
| ISBN | 0151003505 |
When we meet Amy Shone, she is a young parent struggling to raise Kate, a precocious eight-year-old. Amy is an enigma-a brilliant scholar who has forgotten how to read. She is estranged from her wealthy English parents and lives a nomadic life in Scotland, dragging Kate from one school to the next, barely...
| Author | Scott McBain |
| ISBN | 0002259192 |
Beyond Presidents and dictators there lies the Master; The Mastership Game is a brilliant novel of ethical responsibility and international intrigue. Set up in the late Middle Ages, the Institute is an intelligence service devoted to the resolution of conflict and the preservation of peace, and...
| Author | Sheila Hancock |
| ISBN | 0747588821 |
Sheila Hancock is a well-known British actress and comedienne in her own right, and was also the wife of John Thaw, the original 'Morse' on TV. This book is a memoir of how she coped with his loss, and it reflects the woman that I always hoped she was, gutsy, vulnerable and funny. It follows her previous memoir...
The Hungry Years: Confessions of a Food Addict
| Author | William Leith |
| ISBN | 1592401554 |
Combining the revealing cultural commentary of Fast Food Nation with the visceral insights of A Million Little Pieces, this is the story of a journalist’s struggle with weight, and an unflinching look at our own culture of fat and thin. “I thought: if I can understand the despair, my own and everybody’s...
| Author | Alan Bissett |
| ISBN | 0755319400 |
By day, Charlie Bain is the school's most inspiring teacher. By night he prowls the stylish bars of Glasgow seducing women. Fuelled by art, drugs and fantasies of being an indie star, Charlie journeys further into hedonism, unable to see the destruction his desires are leading everyone towards...
One...
| Author | Kitty Fitzgerald |
| ISBN | 1401360106 |
Hailed as a "tour de force" (Los Angeles Times) and a "surprisingly sweet story" (Entertainment Weekly), Kitty Fitzgerald's Pigtopia is a spellbinding debut, featuring one of the most singular characters to come along since Christopher Boone in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.Society...
| Author | John Burnside |
| ISBN | 0224097032 |
In these remarkable stories, John Burnside takes us into the lives of men and women trapped in marriage, ensnared by drink, diminished by disappointment; all kinds of women, all kinds of men – lonely, unfaithful, dying – driving empty roads at night. These are people for whom the idea of ‘home'...
