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100 Best Scottish Books

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A Disaffection - James Kelman (1989)

James Kelman - A Disaffection (1989)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

How Late it Was, How Late may have grabbed the headlines, The Busconductor Hines may have been more seminal, but it is A Disaffection, quietly, which is James Kelman’s best book. Its ‘hero’ (a problematic term; it’s James Kelman we’re talking about) is…

The Divided Self - RD Laing (1960)

RD Laing - The Divided Self (1960)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Cometh the hour cometh the book. I had a bit of a Jungian experience with The Divided Self. I'd been working on a play in which the main character is schizophrenic and was trawling my bookcases for drama as I like to read a lot of plays when I'm…

William McIlvanney - Docherty (1975)

William McIlvanney - Docherty (1975)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Docherty is the most brilliant, forceful and yet measured example of William McIlvanney’s desire to ‘give working-class life the vote in the literature of heroism’. The struggles of the eponymous Docherty family in the early decades of the 20th century…

David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Only three years after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops at Culloden, a book was published that shattered the world of philosophy and paved the way for the Scottish Enlightenment. David Hume, then aged 37, recast the opening parts of his…

Electric Brae - Andrew Greig (1997)

Andrew Greig - Electric Brae (1997)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Throughout the 1990s, when the majority of the emerging Scottish novelists seemed fixated with gritty urban realism, a handful of authors were taking their inspiration from the dramatic landscape of the country's remoter climes. Notable among these was…

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollett (1771)

Tobias Smollett - The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Tobias Smollett's last and best novel is misleadingly named. Clinker - a comically over-enthusiastic Scottish manservant - does not appear until a third of the way through the book, and is often conspicuous by his absence. Instead, the central figure is…

Flemington - Violet Jacob (1911)

Violet Jacob - Flemington (1911)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Flemington is a finely wrought historical adventure written by a poet. It belongs to a Scottish tradition reaching from Scott through Stevenson and John Buchan, who described Flemington as 'the best Scots romantic novel since The Master of Ballantrae'.

For the Love of Willie - Agnes Owens (1998)

Agnes Owens - For the Love of Willie (1998)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

It is often remarked that Scottish scribes have a particular proclivity for mining the dark and devilish in their fiction. Agnes Owens' For the Love of Willie displays all the pitch-black humour and acute observation that have characterised her work…

From Russia, With Love - Ian Fleming (1957)

Ian Fleming - From Russia, With Love (1957)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

'My name is Bond, James Bond.' There are few characters of the 20th century that can boast the kind of global renown of Ian Fleming's British secret agent. Widely regarded as the best of Fleming's novels (JFK rated it among his top ten favourite books…

The Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett (1961)

Dorothy Dunnett - The Game of Kings (1961)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Dorothy Dunnett started writing books having complained to her husband that she had run out of things to read. Her debut, The Game of Kings, appeared at the end of 18 months fuelled by the extensive research that would characterise all of her historical…

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