Timeless or Topical? by Margaret Kirk
It happened a few weeks ago. After a long period submerged in various sorts of book-related tasks (my debut novel, Shadow Man, will be published on 2nd November) I’d met … Continue reading
Group Post:What We Read on Our Summer Break
Though the Foxes were recently on Summer Break, that didn’t mean we took a break from reading. Goodness gracious, no. Some of us did take some fun trips to exotic … Continue reading
316 Years Without Us – a Vulpes Libris Random
For many years I have been a trustee of the oldest (probably) public lending library in England. Founded in 1701 as the Reigate Publick Library, it is now known (after … Continue reading
The Isabel Dalhousie mysteries by Alexander McCall Smith.
Though the author is better known for his “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” line and deservedly so, he has a number of other series, one of which features Isabel Dalhousie, … Continue reading
Frank Fraser Darling’s Island Years, Island Farm
I bought this book at The Ceilidh Place bookshop in Ullapool last week. I’d just taken a blowy boat trip to the Summer Isles, and wanted to read Frank Fraser … Continue reading
Nan Shepherd’s The Quarry Wood
Nan Shepherd’s three novels – The Quarry Wood (1928), The Weatherhouse (1930 and A Pass in the Grampians (1933) – were reprinted by Canongate in the 1990s with her memoir … Continue reading
Jim Carruth’s Killochries
This is a poem to be read in an evening, a novella in half-lines of sparse words, of how a young man’s life gets changed because his mum Lizzie sends him … Continue reading
Sea Room, by Adam Nicolson
The Shiants, pronounced Shants, are three little tiny specks of islands. Two of them Eilean Garbh (Rough Island) and Eilean an Tighe (the Isle of the House) are joined by … Continue reading
The Wee Mad Road by Jack and Barbara Maloney
“The region to the south of Assynt, bounded on the east by by the main A835 road from Ullapool to Ledmore Junction, is known as Coigach. A lone, single track … Continue reading
Stonemouth by Iain Banks
Stonemouth is the most recent of Iain Banks’ non-Culture novels. His new book, The Quarry, also non-Culture, is due for publication this month and it will be the last. This … Continue reading
Native Stranger by Alastair Scott
A Journey in Familiar and Foreign Scotland Scotland. The word is not so much weighed down by luggage as by the entire contents of the cargo hold of an Airbus. … Continue reading
Maxwell’s Ghost. An Epilogue to Gavin Maxwell’s Camusfearna, by Richard Frere
When I was a child, about 11 years old, I remember exactly where I was and how I felt when I first read Gavin Maxwell’s Ring Of Bright Water. I … Continue reading
The Curiosity Cabinet, by Catherine Czerkawska
Perhaps we need to consult more in the den – I had no idea that the Island in Anne’s choice yesterday would be so close to the island setting of … Continue reading
The Lives of Ghosts by Megan Taylor: surrendering to the poetry of the dark
After her parents are killed in a car accident, twelve-year-old Liberty Fuller is left in the care of her young pregnant stepmother, Marie. Bewildered and grief stricken, Marie and Liberty … Continue reading
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