Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland

Poised as I was to fly to Scotland for a pre-Christmas visit, this was an excellent guidebook to dip into. Sara Sheridan decided that a new guide to Scotland was needed, that included all the women who have not been celebrated as they should have been. She was inspired by Rebecca Solnit's map of the … Continue reading Where are The Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland →

Achachlacher, by Emma L Menzies

If you like the gentle narratives about English rural life in the early part of the twentieth century by 'Miss Read', you'll like Achachlacher. It's an epistolary novel about life in the Inner Hebrides, so gentle as to be barely there, and contains hardly anything said in anger, or that might cause controversy. Emma L … Continue reading Achachlacher, by Emma L Menzies →

John Buchan’s Jacobites

Rebellion, or Uprising? In this Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up I’m in the middle of the British eighteenth century, looking at the '1745', otherwise known as the Jacobite Rebellion, or Uprising, depending on which side you were on. This was the second attempt by the exiled Roman Catholic monarchy of Britain to reclaim … Continue reading John Buchan’s Jacobites →

Broadswords in the heather: John Buchan’s John Burnet of Barns

This week in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, we’re in the 17th century, in the fog of Scotland and the mud of northern Holland, in John Buchan’s early swashbuckler, John Burnet of Barns (1898). This novel was published when Buchan was just 23; it’s not his first novel, but his second, and … Continue reading Broadswords in the heather: John Buchan’s John Burnet of Barns →

Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Frank Fraser Darling’s Island Years, Island Farm

Over on Vulpes Libris I've posted a review of the Little Toller reprint of Frank Fraser Darling's two books on living in the Scottish Highlands and Islands for several years in the 1930s and 1940s, Island Years, Island Farm. He and his wife and young son lived in tents and wooden huts on uninhabited islands, rebuilt … Continue reading Now posting on Vulpes Libris: Frank Fraser Darling’s Island Years, Island Farm →

Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped

Allow Robert Louis Stevenson to give you a swashbuckling time in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. Kidnapped (1886) is the classic romp through the heather by the master of the modern Scottish adventure, though it's set in 1746. Stevenson dragged the historical novel out of the rather long-winded grip of Sir Walter Scott, and made it immediate, exciting and … Continue reading Great swashbuckling: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped →

Corncrakes on Coll: Kathleen Jamie’s Findings

This week's podcast scripts catch-up from Really Like This Book is a blissful swim through Kathleen Jamie’s book Findings. Like Robert Gibbings, she writes discursively, moving randomly but purposefully from one subject to another as the observations she’s making surface from her memory. Findings filled me a great desire to get on a boat to go whale watching, or climb … Continue reading Corncrakes on Coll: Kathleen Jamie’s Findings →

A G Macdonell and England, Their England

Today’s letter in the Really Like This Book's podcast script rerun is M. A G Macdonell’s England, Their England, from 1933, is a satirical novel about English society, and has long had a grip on my understanding of the English. I was (am) a hybrid Anglo-Scot, never quite accepted by my Scottish school-friends or my English cousins … Continue reading A G Macdonell and England, Their England →

Now Posting on Vulpes Libris: Nan Shepherd’s The Quarry Wood

I posted a review of Nan Shepherd's 1928 novel The Quarry Wood over at Vulpes Libris today. Liked the novel very much, the first in a trilogy of north-east Scottish farming novels that I should have read decades ago, reprinted by Canongate as a collected works called The Grampian Quartet (there's a non-fiction memoir of … Continue reading Now Posting on Vulpes Libris: Nan Shepherd’s The Quarry Wood →