Birlinn & John Donald New Titles Catalogue 2016

Page 1


Birlinn Limited was established in 1992 by Managing Director Hugh Andrew, and is comprised of a number of imprints. Birlinn publishes Scottish and general UK interest books, from biography to history, military history, cookery and Scottish Gaelic. The name comes from the old Norse world ‘birlinn’, meaning a long boat or small galley used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages. BC Books is a new children’s imprint, launched in 2015. It is designed to provide writing and illustration of the highest quality for young readers in Scotland and beyond. Birlinn is dedicated to nurturing young readers and helping them discover a passion for reading that will last a lifetime. Polygon publishes literary fiction and poetry, both classic and modern, from Scottish writers such as Robin Jenkins, George Mackay Brown and the author of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith, as well as selected music and film titles. International writers including Jan-Philipp Sendker are also published under this imprint. Polygon was originally set up by students of Edinburgh University in the late 1960s. Arena Sport is Birlinn’s sport imprint. The sport books range from football and rugby, to golf and cycling. These books have an international as well as national appeal. Arena’s first titles were published in June 2013. John Donald publishes academic books.

www.birlinn.co.uk www.polygonbooks.co.uk


2016 NEW TITLES BIRLINN JOHN DONALD

www.birlinn.co.uk


NEW TITLES 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22

Darien: A Journey in Search of Empire John McKendrick Poacher’s Pilgrimage: An Island Journey Alistair McIntosh Keeping the Jewel in the Crown: The British Betryal of India Walter Reid Supreme Sacrifice: A Small Villiage and the Great War Walter Reid Remembering Sam: The Life and Times of Sam Galbraith Graham Teasdale The Radical Rising: The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 Peter Berresford Ellis & Seumas Mac a’ Ghobhainn The Question of Scotland: Devolution and After Tam Dalyell My Remarkable Journey: The Autobiography of Britain’s First Muslim MP Mohammad Sarwar Wild Island: A Year in the Hebrides Jane Smith Island on the Edge: A Life on Soay Anne Cholawo The Way it Was: A History of Gigha Catherine Czerkawska ’S Ann An Ìle: Islay Voices Jenni Minto & Les Wilson The Colouring Book of Scotland Eilidh Muldoon Tobermory Sam Jones, Nic Davies & Brian Swinbanks Landscapes in Stone: Arran Alan McKirdy Landscapes in Stone: Skye Alan McKirdy Landscapes in Stone: Caringorms Alan McKirdy Landscapes in Stone: Edinburgh Alan McKirdy Glasgow: The Autobiography Alan Taylor The Fall of the Tay Bridge David Swinfen Bobby the Birdman: Celebrating the Life and Work of Bobby Tulloch Jonathan Wills & Mike McDonnell A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botannical Fraud Karl Sabbagh Scotland: Mapping the Islands Christopher Fleet, Margaret Wilkes and Charles W.J. Withers Oxford: Mapping the City Daniel MacCannell The Chain Bridge Honey Bible Liz Ashworth The Scottish Oats Bible Nichola Fletcher The Three Chimneys Marmalade Bible Shirley Spear Scottish Baking Sue Lawrence Upper Clydesdale: A History and Guide Daniel Martin Enlightenment Edinburgh: A Guide Sheila Szatkowski Celtic Scotland Ian Armit The Crinan Canal Marian Pallister The Lady of the Lake Sir Walter Scott The Broken Journey Kenneth Roy Best of Scotland: A Caledonian Miscellany John MacLeod Whisky Aeneas MacDonald, edited by Ian Buxton Faithful and Brave: A Celebration of James Gillespie’s High School, Edinburgh John MacLeod Abbotsford to Zion: The Story of Scottish Place-names Around the World Elspeth Wills

NEW EDITIONS 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27

Isolation Shepherd Iain R. Thomson The Man Who Gave Away His Island: A Life of John Lorne Campbell of Canna Ray Perman The Grand Scuttle: The Sinking of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919 Dan Van der Vat Bannockburn: The Battle for a Nation Alistair Moffat A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable Ian Crofton Summer Walkers Timothy Neat The Highland Clearances Eric Richards Mingulay: An Island and Its People Ben Buxton Set Adrift Upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances James Hunter Whiskypedia Charles MacLean


NEW EDITIONS 28 28 29 29

Tir a'Mhurain: The Outer Hebrides of Scotland Paul Stramd Nicola Sturgeon: A Political Life David Torrance The Picts: A History Tim Clarkson Hidden Scotland: Scotland's Hidden Past Ann Lindsay

RE-ISSUES 30 30 31 31 32 32 33 33

The Hunt for Rob Roy: The Man and the Myths David Stevenson Scots Who Made America Rick Wilson Lost Plymouth: Hidden Heritage of the Three Towns Felicity Goodall Lost Devon: Devon's Lost Heritage Felicity Goodall Lost Cornwall: Cornwall's Lost Heritage Joanna Thomas Lost Bristol Victoria Coules Lost Perthshire: Perthshire's Lost Architectural Heritage Ann Lindsay Lost Argyll: Argyll's Lost Architectural Heritage Marian Pallister

JOHN DONALD 34 34 35 35 36 36 37 37 38 39 39 40

‘The Wild Black Region’: Badenoch 1750 - 1800 David Taylor Voices of the Forest: A Social History of Scottish Forestry in the Twentieth Century Mairi Stewart Kinship, Church and Culture: Collected Essays and Studies by John W.M. Bannerman Edited by Dauvit Broun and Martin MacGregor Brilliant Lives: The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish Enlightenment John Arthur The Campbells of the Ark: Men of Argyll in 1745 Ronnie Black Immortal Memory: Burns and the Scottish People Christopher A. Whatley Scotland’s Merlin: A Medieval Legend and its Dark Age Origins Tim Clarkson Scottish Arctic Whaling: 1750 to World War I Chelsey W. Sanger Outlaws of Medieval Scotland: Challenges to the Canmore Kings 1058-1266 R. Andrew MacDonald Hadrian's Wall: Paintings by the Richardson Family David J. Breeze Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game Craig Murray Cremation in Modern Scotland: History, Architecture and the Law Peter C. Jupp (et. al)

STATIONERY 41 42 42

Hebridean Stationery 2017 Mairi Hedderwick Scottish Historical Maps Calendar 2017 In Association with the NLS Puffer Calendar 2017 David Hawson

KEY TITLES FROM 2015 43

44

Set Adrift Upon the Word: The Sutherland Clearances James Hunter The Railway Atlas of Scotland: 100 Years of History in Maps David Spaven Edinburgh: Mapping the City Chris Fleet and Daniel MacCannell Glasgow: Mapping the City John Moore Scotland: A History From Earliest Times Alistair Moffat 101 Gins To Try Before You Die Ian Buxton The Great Tapestry of Scotland Andrew Crummy, Alistair Moffat, Alexander McCall Smith, Susan Mansfield


Non-Fiction Darien

A Journey in Search of Empire John McKendrick

JOHN MCKENDRICK was born and brought up in Glasgow. He studied at the LSE and Oxford and is currently a barrister in London and an advocate in Edinburgh. He also worked for two years in Panama And the Caribbean.He was Times Lawyer of the Week in September 2013.

The Company of Scotland and its attempts to establish the colony of Caledonia on Panama in the late seventeenth century is one of the most tragic moments of Scottish history. The stratagem was to create a major trading station between Europe and the East. It could have been a triumph, but inadequate preparation and organization ensured it was a catastrophe – of the 3000 settlers who set sail in 1688 and 1699, only a handful returned, the rest having succumbed to disease, and the enormous financial loss was a key factor in ensuring union with England in 1707. Based on archive research in the UK and Panama, as well as travelling to Darien itself, John McKendrick explores this fascinating and seminal moment in Scottish history.

ISBN: 9781780273204 Price: £20 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 288pp

Poacher’s Pilgrimage An Island Journey Alistair McIntosh ALASTAIR MCINTOSH is an independent writer, broadcaster, speaker and activist who is involved in a wide range of contemporary issues, from land reform, globalization and nonviolence to psychology, spirituality and ecology.

The islands of the Outer Hebrides are home to some of the most remote and spectacular scenery in the world. They host an astonishing range of mysterious structures – stone circles, beehive dwellings, holy wells and ‘temples’ from the Celtic era. Over a twelveday pilgrimage, often in appalling conditions, Alastair McIntosh returned to the islands of his childhood and explored the meaning of these places. The book is a walk through space and time, across a physical landscape and into a spiritual one. Alastair had just come back from lecturing at military institutions across Europe. This is a moving book, a powerful reflection not simply of this extraordinary place and its people met along the way, but of imaginative hope for humankind.

2

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273617 Price: £17.99 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 272pp 16pp colour plates


Non-Fiction Keeping the Jewel in the Crown The British Betrayal of India Walter Reid This a stimulating and controversial account of Britain’s role in Indian independence, written by a respected and prolific historian.

WALTER REID studied at the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh. He has written a number of acclaimed books of military and political history, including Churchill: Under Friendly Fire and Empire of Sand: How Britain Made the Middle East.

‘Instructive and convincing . . . deftly tracks Whitehall’s half-baked attempts to deflect the Indian demand for self-determination. One can only sympathise with those who had to wrestle with the consequences’ John Keay, author of India: A History ‘‘A fascinating, robust and provocative version of the sunset of the Raj’’ Lawrence James, author of Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India

9781780270616 £12.99 pbk

9781843410591 £12.99 pbk

When India became independent in 1947, the general view, which has prevailed until now, is that Britain had been steadily working for an amicable transfer of power for decades. In this book Walter Reid argues that nothing could be further from the truth. He shows how Britain held back political progress in India for as long as possible – a policy which led to unimaginable chaos and suffering when independence was granted, and which created a legacy of hatred and distrust that continues to this day.

ISBN: 9781780273365 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 224pp

Supreme Sacrifice

A Small Village and the Great War Walter Reid The war memorial in the Scottish village of Bridge of Weir lists 72 men who died during the First World War. Their deaths occurred in almost every theatre of the war. They were awarded very few medals and their military careers were not remarkable – except in the important respect that they, like countless other peaceful civilians, answered their country’s call in its time of need. This book follows the lives of these sons of Bridge of Weir, not just as soldiers, sailors and airmen, but as husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and members of a small local community which felt their loss intensely. At the same time it also paints a larger picture of the war – of the politicians and generals and military campaigns which shaped it.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273501 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages August 2016 224pp 8pp b/w plates

3


Non-Fiction Remembering Sam

The Life and Times of Sam Galbraith edited by Graham Teasdale GRAHAM TEASDALE, The editor, is Emeritus Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow and knew Sam Galbraith well. The 27 contributors include fellow politicians such as Alistair Darling and Brian Wilson, eminent figures from the world of medicine, such as Harry Burns, David Hamilton and Harpreet Kohli, as well as close friends like Muriel Gray and members of Sam Galbraith’s family.

Sam Galbraith, an exceptionally talented young neurosurgeon in Glasgow, was led by strong socialist values to seek a political career. Soon after election to Parliament in 1987 at 42 years old, he devloped a serious lung condition that required him to undergo a lung transplant and left him with limited health. Despite this, he went on to hold Ministerial posts, first in Westminster and then in the new Scottish Parliament. In government he abolished markets in the NHS in Scotland and, by highlighting the relation between deprivation and illness, he was able to achieve his ambition to make a difference to health on a large scale. When Sam died aged 68 he was the longest living survivor of a lung transplant. His story is told by colleagues, friends and family.

ISBN: 9781780273389 Price: £12.99 Format: 198 x 129mm hbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 208pp

The Radical Rising

The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 Peter Berresford Ellis & Seumas Mac a’ Ghobainn PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS, an acknowledged expert on the Celtic world, is an historian, literary biographer and novelist. He is author of the bestselling Sister Fidelma historical mysteries (writing as Peter Tremayne). SEUMAS MAC A’ GHOBAINN was a Scottish author, essayist and propagandist who died in 1987. He was co-author (with Peter Berresford Ellis) of The Problem of Language Revival (1971).

4

Glasgow, April 1820. The last armed uprising on British soil, intent on severing the Union and establishing a radical Scottish republic, ended in executions, imprisonments, transportations and 85 trails for high treason. Yet despite its political and social importance, the story of this working-class revolution vanished from the historical record. This book restores the radical rising to its rightful place in history, offering an incisive analysis of the rising itself and the events which led up to it, vividly recapturing the extraordinary heroism of its leaders, John Baird and Andrew Hardie, and the savagery with which the movement was crushed by the forces of the British state.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273839 Price: £14.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World English Language May 2016 416pp 16pp b/w plates


Non-Fiction The Question of Scotland Devolution and After Tam Dalyell

TAM DALYELL was born in Edinburgh in 1932. He joined the Labour Party in 1956 after the Suez Crisis and served as an MP from 1962 to 2005, first for West Lothian and then for Linlithgow. He retired as Father of the House and Scotland’s longest serving politician in 2005.

In September 2014, with the Scottish independence referendum, the United Kingdom came close to being broken apart after three centuries as one of the most successful political unions in history. Yet despite a conclusive No vote, the SNP took almost every seat in Scotland at the 2015 general election. In this book Tam Dalyell offers a personal reflection on why the UK is on the brink of the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. But this is not just a history of why we have ended up where we are. Dalyell also offers sage advice and suggests ways forward which will inform debate as the UK moves into a new political era.

ISBN: 9781780273686 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 176pp

My Remarkable Journey

The Autobiography of Britain’s First Muslim MP Mohammad Sarwar with Bob Wylie

MOHAMMAD SARWAR is a prominent Pakistani politician and successful businessman. Sarwar is a former British politician, who served as a Labour parliamentarian from 1997 to 2010, representing Glasgow Central. He was also the first Muslim to sit in the British parliament. He renounced his British citizenship in August 2013 following confirmation of his governorship.

This is the inspirational account of how Mohammad Sarwar rose to political power from modest beginnings in rural Pakistan. Born in Punjab in 1952, Sarwar’s early years were characterized by hardship and persecution. But this all changed after arriving in Glasgow, where he transformed a corner shop on the verge of bankruptcy to a Cash-and-Carry wholesale business with a turnover of more than £200m a year. From business he moved into politics, becoming MP for Glasgow Govan, then Glasgow Central. No stranger to controversy – he voted against Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq, and was famously caught in a News of the World sting in 1997 for allegedly bribing an election rival – he has also been heavily involved in extensive charity humanitarian work in Pakistan.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273167 Price: £20 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World January 2016 288pp 16pp colour plate section

5


Non-Fiction Wild Island

A Year in the Hebrides Jane Smith

JANE SMITH was born in Sussex. After gaining a degree in Zoology, she became a wildlife filmmaker for the BBC Natural History Unit and National Geographic, winning an Emmy for her work. When her children were born she changed direction, creating wildlife artwork as another way of communicating her passion for the natural world. She now lives in Argyll with her husband, also a wildlife film-maker, and children.

This is a book for anyone interested in wildlife, for art lovers, for tourists wanting a memento of their holiday, for everyone who loves the west coast of Scotland. It depicts a year in the life of Oronsay, a remote island that is farmed by the RSPB for the benefit of wildlife, and follows artist Jane Smith, as she attempts to portray the interactions of wildlife, farm animals and human inhabitants. A humorous, first-hand, personal view of island life, both human and otherwise, this book is illustrated with Jane Smith’s vibrant and acutely observed sketches, paintings and prints.

ISBN: 9781780272696 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 190mm hbk Rights: World All Languages March 2016 160 pp Colour illus. throughout

Island on the Edge A Life on Soay Anne Cholawo ANNE CHOLAWO was born and brought up in Luton. She studied Art and Design at college and later became a graphic artist and studio manager at a number of advertising agencies in London, including Saatchi and Saatchi. She moved to Soay to live in 1990. While on the island she met the man who is now her husband, Robert Cholawo.

Anne Cholawo was a typical 80s career girl working in a busy London advertising agency, when in 1989, holidaying in Skye, she noticed an advert for a property on the Isle of Soay. She had never heard of Soay before, let alone visited it, but something inexplicable drew her there. Within ten minutes of stepping off the fishing boat, she had fallen under the spell of the island, and after a few months she moved there to live. She is still there. When she arrived on the remote west coast island there were only 17 inhabitants. Today, including Anne and her husband Robert, there are only three. This is their story.

6

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273495 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages August 2016 240pp


Non-Fiction The Way it Was

A History of Gigha Catherine Czerkawska

CATHERINE CZERKAWSKA is a playwright and novelist who writes for the theatre, and for BBC Radio. Her novel The Curiosity Cabinet was published by Polygon in 2005 and was shortlisted for the Dundee Book Prize. She has a postgraduate degree in Folk Life Studies, hence her lifelong interest in oral history and tradition.

The island of Gigha is a small gem, the most southerly of the true Hebridean islands, lying just off Tayinloan on Scotland’s Kintyre peninsula. Gigha’s good harbours, fertile land, mild climate and strategically useful position have given it a fascinating history. Catherine Czerkawska relates the sometimes turbulent story of the people of Gigha, from the settlers of prehistoric times, through successive incomers including the Celts, the Vikings, and the McNeill lords of this island. The author, like so many people, fell helplessly in love at first sight with Gigha and returns to it time and again. This book explores just what it is that makes the island such an enchanting place.

ISBN: 9781780273853 Price: £12.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 336pp 16pp b/w plate section

’S Ann An Ìle: Islay Voices Jenni Minto & Les Wilson JENNI MINTO studied accountancy at Aberdeen University and worked for BBC Scotland in a variety of business support roles. She has played a prominent role in setting up of Islay’s community owned wind turbine and currently works at the Museum of Islay Life. LES WILSON is a writer, and award winning documentary maker who specialises in Scottish Historical subjects. Jenni and Les are married and moved to Islay of Islay in 2011, after having a holiday home there for many years.

Many travellers and local people alike have had their imaginations captured by the beautiful Hebridean island of Islay and have been moved to write about it. Among them are the renowned Thomas Pennant and Martin Martin, as well as Gaelic bards, the folklorist John Francis Campbell and the crusader for crofters’ rights, John Murdoch The written records of Islay are varied, rich and rewarding. This anthology distils the essence of Islay through a very personal selection of writing. Some of the writing is profound, some of it quirky, but all reveals a fascinating aspect of Islay that together presents a revealing and moving ‘people’s history’ of Islay.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780272917 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages November 2016 256pp 16pp b/w illus.

7


Non-Fiction The Colouring Book of Scotland Eilidh Muldoon EILIDH MULDOON studied Art History and gained an MFA in Illustration from Edinburgh College of Art in June 2013, where she is currently Illustrator in Residence. She is also a freelance artist and illustrator whose work has appeared in prints, greetings cards and giftware.

A unique Scottish colouring book suitable for adults as well as children featuring 20 of the country’s most iconic places, including: Edinburgh Castle • Forth Rail Bridge • St Andrews • HMS Discovery, Dundee • Balmoral Castle • Loch Ness/Urquart Castle • Dunrobin • Castle, Stromness, Orkney • Skara Brae • Callanish standing stones • Lews Castle, Lewis • Highland Games • Eilean Donan • Duart Castle, Mull • Tobermory, Skye • Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow • Caerlaverlock Castle • Abbotsford House • Melrose Abbey • Rosslyn Chapel • Falkirk Wheel • Stirling Castle • Edinburgh Christmas Market Eilidh Muldoon’s illustrations are ideal for all levels of colouring – for those who like a colouring challenge, yet simple enough for those with less patience to create beautiful colour artwork in a short time.

8

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274058 Price: £8.99 Format: 250 x 250mm pbk Rights: World All Languages April 2016 48pp b/w illus. throughout


Non-Fiction Tobermory

Sam Jones, Nic Davies and Brian Swinbanks SAMANTHA (‘SAM’) JONES is a landscape photographer who runs her business, Islandscape Photography, on Mull. She was RNLI Photographer of the Year in 2011 and a finalist in the Scottish Nature Photography Awards in 2013.

Tobermory, the principal town on the island of Mull, is one of the prettiest towns in the Hebrides. Its principal street, Main Street, with its buildings painted in distinctive bright colours, is also one of the most well-known views in Scotland.

NIC DAVIES has worked in wildlife conservation and animal welfare since 1989. He now lives on Mull, engaged in photography, wildlife guiding and the conservation of otters and marine species.

This book includes the work of three local photographers, uniquely qualified to capture the spirit of this magical place in all its moods. In addition to pictures of the town, its views, surrounding countryside and wildlife – on land and sea – it also features the people of Tobermory itself, at work and at leisure. The result is a vivid portrait of a vibrant community in an exquisitely beautiful natural setting.

BRIAN SWINBANKS Is an Industrial and Graphic Designer. He has designed children’s toys at Raleigh Bicycles and was awarded with brother Duncan a British Design Award.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273150 Price: £9.99 Format: 248 x 190mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 96pp Colour Illus. throughout

9


Non-Fiction Landscapes in Stone: Arran Alan McKirdy

ALAN MCKIRDY has written many popular books and book chapters on geology and related topics and has helped to promote the study of environmental geology in schools. Before his recent retirement he was Head of Information Management at Scottish Natural Heritage. He is the author of Land of Mountain and Flood and Set in Stone.

ALSO AVAILABLE

Land of Mountain and Flood

The Isle of Arran dominates the Firth of Clyde. A favourite haunt of holidaymakers, it is also a place of fascination for the geologist, offering a huge variety of rocks that represent a massive slice through geological time. From the ancient bent and buckled strata of Dalradian - a small fragment of the roots of the once mighty Scottish Highlands – the dramatic Northern mountains though which ice gouged its way during the Ice Age, to the relatively recent (some 60 million years ago!) rocks associated with the Arran volcano, the geological record tells an amazing tale. This book is a fascinating introduction to the landscape of Arran – one of the most significant geological areas of the country

ISBN: 9781780273693 Price: £7.99 Format: 230 x 165mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 48pp Colour illus. throughout

Landscapes in Stone: Skye Alan McKirdy 9781841586267 £20.00 pbk

The Isle of Skye offers a magical combination of wild land and breathtaking natural beauty. Skye’s geological history involves some of the most ancient rocks on the planet, and the development of one of the mightiest volcanoes ever to blow its top. Skye is also known as Scotland’s ‘dinosaur island’, yielding the remains of many species of plant and meat-eating creatures that stalked land some 140 million years ago. This book provides key information about the formation of the island and the on-going processes of natural landscape evolution that continue to leave their mark on these spectacular vistas.

10

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273723 Price: £7.99 Format: 230 x 165mm pbk Rights World All Languages July 2016 48pp Colour illus. throughout


Non-Fiction Landscapes in Stone: Cairngorms Alan McKirdy ALSO AVAILABLE

Set In Stone

9781780271514 £9.99 pbk

‘[A] concise and lavishly illustrated guide to the extraordinary landscape and geology of Scotland, a land mass that has traveled across the surface of the globe for 3,000 million years. The next time you look at a mountain, think about how it came to be there’ – Scotland Magazine

The geology of the Cairngorms was created on a timeline that stretches back hundreds of millions of years. Much of the land is underlain by granite that formed deep within the Earth’s crust and ‘surfaced’ as the overlying layers of rock were stripped away by ice, wind and water. Although the area has been heavily glaciated it still boasts 18 Munros, the highest of Scotland’s peaks. The area attracts climbers, walkers and assorted adventurers who want to pit themselves against some of the most challenging conditions to be found anywhere in the UK. The plants and animals of the Cairngorms need to be hardy to survive the severe winter conditions. The higher reaches of the mountains are rich in montane vegetation such as lichen-rich heath and other habitats support many rare species.

ISBN: 9781780273709 Price: £7.99 Format: 230 x 165mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 48pp Colour illus. throughout

Landscapes in Stone: Edinburgh Alan McKirdy

An ancient and long-extinct volcano lies at the heart of Scotland’s capital. It roared into life some 350 million years ago and has been a source of fascination since it was first studied in earnest during the Enlightenment by James Hutton, one of the most significant geologists of all time. Many of Hutton’s groundbreaking ideas of how the world works were predicated on the rocks and landscapes of his home city and surrounding area. This book is a fascinating exploration into Edinburgh’s geological history over millions of years - including the passage of ice during a great freeze that has left an indelible stamp on Edinburgh’s cityscape.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273716 Price: £7.99 Format: 230 x 165mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 48pp Colour illus. throughout

11


Non-Fiction Glasgow

The Autobiography edited by Alan Taylor

ALAN TAYLOR has been a journalist for over 30 years. He was deputy and managing editor at the Scotsman, and for the last 15 years has been Writer-at-Large for the Sunday Herald. He has contributed to numerous publications, including The TLS, The New Yorker and The Melbourne Age, and edited three acclaimed anthologies – The Assassin’s Cloak (2000), The Secret Annexe (2004) and The Country Dairies (2009).

Glasgow: The Autobiography tells the story of the fabled, former Second City of the British Empire from its origins as a bucolic village on the rivers Kelvin and Clyde, through the Industrial Revolution to the dawning of the second millennium. Arranged chronologically and introduced by journalist and Glasgowphile Alan Taylor, the book includes extracts from an astonishing array of writers. Some were visitors and left their vivid impressions as they passed through. Many others were born and bred Glaswegians who come from every walk of life. Together they present a varied and vivid portrait of one of the world’s great cities in all its grime and glory - a place which is at once infuriating, frustrating, inspiring, beguiling, sensational and never, ever dull.

ISBN: 9781780273532 Price: £17.99 Format: 256 x 134mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 320pp

The Fall of the Tay Bridge David Swinfen DAVID SWINFEN was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and has lived in Scotland most of his life. He has written many books and articles on Commonwealth, American and Scottish history. Currently chairman of the Tay Bridge Disaster Memorial Trust and a professor at Dundee University, he lives in Broughty Ferry with his wife Ann, the historical novelist.

It took 600 men six years to build and was one of the longest bridges in the world. On its completion in 1878, famous visitors came to pay homage to this marvel of Victorian engineering. Then, on the night of 28 December 1879, the unthinkable happened. Battered by an apocalyptic storm, the thirteen ‘high girders’ of the rail bridge over the Tay estuary fell headlong into the river below, carrying with them a train and all its passengers and crew. There were no survivors. Returning to the subject since the first edition of The Fall of the Tay Bridge in 1994, David Swinfen has meticulously analysed new evidence and now presents a solution to the riddle which has perplexed historians and engineers for generations: what really brought the bridge down?

12

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273570 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 144pp b/w illus. throughout


Non-Fiction

Bobby the Birdman

An Anthology Celebrating the Life and Work of Bobby Tulloch edited by Jonathan Wills & Mike McDonnell JONATHAN WILLS is a Shetland councillor who got to know Bobby while working as a student reporter on The Shetland Times and later worked closely with him in the early years of BBC Radio Shetland. Later still, Bobby was the inspiration for Jonathan’s successful wildlife tour business, Seabirds-andSeals. MIKE MCDONNELL was the Mid Yell and Fetlar doctor for 25 years, during which time Bobby was one of the boatmen who ferried him between the two islands. Mike inspired and helped to found the Old Haa heritage centre in Burravoe, which now houses Bobby’s photographic archives.

Bobby Tulloch, known to his pals as ‘Tucker’, was the son of a crofter in the island of Yell. He’d started his working life as a baker and became, through his own extraordinary talents and a certain amount of good luck, a renowned field ornithologist, tour guide, author and wildlife photographer. In this book, some of those friends celebrate their many happy memories of his life. After a biographical sketch by Jonathan Wills the stories from other contributors tumble out – dramatic, insightful and usually very funny. The book is illustrated throughout with evocative pictures from those eventful days and Bobby’s wonderful wildlife and landscape photographs.

Cover not yet available

ISBN: 9781780274225 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages November 2016 224pp Colour & b/w illus. throughout

A Rum Affair

A True Story of Botanical Fraud Karl Sabbagh

KARL SABBAGH is a writer, journalist and TV producer. He is the author of a dozen books, including The Living Body (with Christian Barnaard), Power into Art and Palestine: A Personal Journey.

In the 1940s, the eminent British botanist John Heslop Harrison proposed a controversial theory: that vegetation on the islands off the west coast of Scotland had survived the last Ice Age. His premise flew in the face of what most botanists believed – that no plants had survived the 10,000year period of extreme cold. Harrison didn’t anticipate, however, an amateur botanist called John Raven, who boldly questioned whether these grasses were truly indigenous to the area, or whether they had been transported there. This is the story of what happened when a tenacious amateur set out to find out the truth, and how he uncovered a most extraordinary fraud.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273860 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 288 pp 8pp b/w plates

13


Non-Fiction Scotland: Mapping the Islands Christopher Fleet, Margaret Wilkes and Charles W.J. Withers CHRISTOPHER FLEET is Senior Map Curator in the National Library of Scotland with particular responsibilities for digital mapping. MARGARET WILKES is a member of the Steering Committee of the Scottish Maps Forum, a Director of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and Joint Chair of the Edinburgh Centre of the RSGS. CHARLES W.J. WITHERS is Ogilvie Chair of Geography at Edinburgh University and Geographer Royal in Scotland

14

This stimulating and informative book reproduces some of the most beautiful and historically significant maps from the National Library of Scotland’s magnificent collection in order to explore the many dimensions of island life and how this has changed over time. Arranged thematically and covering topics such as population, place-names, defence, civic improvement, natural resources, navigation, and leisure and tourism, Scotland: Mapping the Islands presents the rich and diverse story of Scottish islands from the earliest maps to the most up-to-date techniques of digital mapping in a unique and imaginative way.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273518 Price: ÂŁ30.00 Format: 250 x 246mm hbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 288pp Colour illus. throughout


Non-Fiction Oxford: Mapping the City Daniel MacCannell

DANIEL MacCANNELL lives in Bristol, where he runs the Historical Detective Agency Ltd. He has studied Scottish, English, Dutch and French buildings, landscapes and townscapes for more than twenty years, and was awarded a Ph.D. in History and Art History by the University of Aberdeen in 2010. His previous books include Edinburgh: Mapping the City and Understanding Scottish Buildings

Over the past four and a half centuries, the magnificent city of Oxford has been mapped for many reasons, few of which have involved the mere finding of one’s way through the streets. Maps were produced as part of schemes to defend Oxford from rampaging Roundheads, raging floodwaters, and the ravages of cholera, and even to plan a Soviet ground assault on the heart of the British motor industry. For the first time, this lavishly illustrated volume brings together sixty of the most remarkable maps and views of the area that have been made by friend and foe since 1575.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274003 Price: ÂŁ30.00 Format: 250 x 246mm hbk Rights: World All Languages November 2016 304pp Colour illus. throughout

15


Non-Fiction The Chain Bridge Honey Bible Liz Ashworth illustrated by Bob Dewar LIZ ASHWORTH is a Scottish food writer and food product developer, with a particular interest in using local products. The author of a pioneering series of cookery books for beginners of all ages, she writes food columns in various publications, and coordinates the food programme in the annual Orkney International Science Festival. Her most recent book is Orkney Spirit: Food Journeys with Liz Ashworth. BOB DEWAR has illustrated over 40 books, and his work has featured in the Scotsman, Herald, Sunday Post and Scottish Field.

Since before history, honey has added delicacy and sweetness to the Scottish diet. Scottish honey, with its fragrances of heather, meadowsweet, clover and birch, is a unique, magical ingredient, and the Honey Bible features a host of easy-to-prepare recipes drawing on this wonderful resource. Liz Ashworth introduces us to its versatility from dishes as varied as medieval sweet pickled salmon and honey-spiced beetroot, to the delectable cranachan and more contemporary chocolate honey fudge cake. Prepared in collaboration with one of the UK’s oldest and largest honey farms, Chain Bridge in the Borders, this book draws on the experience and traditions of generations of skilled beekeepers and Scottish cooks in the use of this quintessentially natural and organic food.

ISBN: 9781780273440 Price: £4.99 Format: 156 x 111mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 96pp b/w illus. throughout

The Scottish Oats Bible Nichola Fletcher illustrated by Bob Dewar Scottish oats are famous the world over. In this practical and imaginative book, award-winning cookery writer Nichola Fletcher features 45 recipes which show the remarkable versatility of different kind of oats.

NICHOLA FLETCHER has written a number of highly acclaimed cookery books, including Charlemagne’s Tablecloth, Nichola Fletcher’s Ultimate Venison Cookery, Caviar: A Global History and Birlinn’s The Venison Bible. In 2014 she was awarded and MBE for services to the Scottish venison industry.

Arranged in themed sections – breakfasts; soups and savouries; desserts and sweets and drinks – the result is a huge variety of mouthwatering recipes, from fish haggis, wild mushroom risotto and grouse soup to oatmeal candy, spiced oatmeal cake and a detox oatmeal drink, that show how oats can be combined with a vast range of other ingredients and also take centre stage themselves.

BOB DEWAR has illustrated over 40 books, and his work has featured in the Scotsman, Herald, Sunday Post and Scottish Field.

16

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273648 Price: £4.99 Format: 156 x 111mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 96pp b/w illus. throughout


Non-Fiction The Three Chimneys Marmalade Bible Shirley Spear illustrated by Bob Dewar

SHIRLEY SPEAR grew up in Edinburgh. She began a career in journalism in Dundee, later moving to London where she met her husband-to-be, Eddie Spear. Together they opened a restaurant on the Isle of Skye, The Three Chimneys. Shirley and Eddie now divide their time between the Isle of Skye and a home in North Berwick, East Lothian. BOB DEWAR has illustrated over 40 books, and his work has featured in the Scotsman, Herald, Sunday Post and Scottish Field.

Marmalade is an iconic Scottish food, traditionally made every year in January and February. Shirley Spear, whose multi-award-winning Three Chimneys restaurant on the Isle of Skye is a magnet for foodies, has written the ultimate guide to marmalade – not just to making it, but to using it as an ingredient all the year round in a delicious variety of dishes. The recipes here are both sweet and savoury, from Chocolate Marmalade Tart to Glaze for Roast Gammon, to the use of Seville oranges in fish and shellfish dishes and Marmalade Chutney – and not forgetting the Three Chimneys’ own legendary Hot Marmalade Pudding. This book will be the ideal Christmas stocking-filler for anyone interested in cooking, and an irresistible impulse-buy at any time of the year.

ISBN: 9781780274133 Price: £4.99 Format: 156 x 111mm pbk Rights: World All Languages November 2016 96pp b/w illus. throughout

Scottish Baking Sue Lawrence

In recent times Britain as a whole can’t get enough of programmes like The Great British Bake-off and The Fabulous Baker Boys, but Scotland has always had a wonderful tradition of baking in both sweet and savoury recipes.

SUE LAWRENCE is a food writer and journalist who has written many books on cooking and baking, including The Scottish Kitchen (2002), The Sue Lawrence Book of Baking (2004) and Eating In (2011). She lives in Edinburgh.

Leading cookery writer Sue Lawrence has now combined her two passions, for baking and Scottish cooking, into one definitive book. A compendium of 70 easy-to-follow recipes, it brings together the traditional breads, scones and cakes that have shaped Scotland’s great baking heritage and new contemporary bakes.

‘There couldn’t be a book by Sue Lawrence that I wouldn’t want to own. She writes beautifully . . . and her recipes make me ravenous’ – Nigela Lawson www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274102 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 190mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 144pp

17


Non-Fiction Upper Clydesdale A History and Guide Daniel Martin DANIEL MARTIN was born in Carluke and lived there his whole life. Widely respected as a local historian, he was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and taught Mathematics at Glasgow University. He died in 2006.

Upper Clydesdale, the rural part of South Lanarkshire, is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. Its main centres of population include Carluke, Carnwath, Lanark, New Lanark, Biggar, Lesmahagow, Douglas and Coulter, Abington, Crawford and Leadhills. In this affectionate and intimate portrait of the area, local historian Daniel Martin roves from prehistoric and Roman through medieval and covenanting to industrial and modern times, covering a huge range of themes – including archaeology, history (natural, local and ecclesiastical) and the many places of interest in the area, such as New Lanark, the Falls of the Clyde and Craignethan Castle. Famous figures connected with the area include William Wallace, Robert Burns, Lord Braxfield, William Gladstone and Hugh MacDiarmid.

ISBN: 9781780273976 Price: £12.99 Format: 216 x 138mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 256pp

Enlightenment Edinburgh A Guide Sheila Szatkowski

SHEILA SZATKOWSKI is a writer and historian based in Edinburgh. Her interest in the Scottish Enlightenment began at Edinburgh University under the tutelage of George E. Davie, philosopher and author of The Democratic Intellect. She is currently completing a biography on the life and unpublished works of John Kay (1742-1826).

18

During the 18th century, Edinburgh was the intellectual hub of the Western world. Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart and Adam Ferguson delivered their diverse tomes on philosophy and political economy. Others such as James Hutton, Joseph Black, Lord Hailes, Sir John Clerk of Eldin and Robert Adam pushed ahead with new discoveries and ideas in the fields of science, medicine, law and architecture. If Edinburgh was the beating heart of this Scottish Enlightenment then its physical embodiment was the New Town and the great civic improvements in the old medieval city. In this informative and highly illustrated guide Sheila Szatkowski introduces the noteworthy buildings and people of 18th- and early 19thcentury Edinburgh.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273730 Price: £12.99 Format: 236 x 190mm pbk Rights: World All Languages August 2016 96pp Colour & b/w illus. throughout


Non-Fiction Celtic Scotland

Early Historic Scotland Ian Armit This authoritative and beautifully illustrated book is aimed at the general reader who wants to know about the mysterious people who inhabited Scotland from the Bronze Age onwards. They created wonderful works of art in gold and silver and their brochs and hillforts are scattered over the Scottish landscape. Many modern-day Scots are descended from them. IAN ARMIT is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bradford, having previously taught at Queen’s University, Belfast. Prior to that, he was an Inspector of Ancient Monuments with Historic Scotland.

Using the results of modern archaeology and historical sources, Ian Armit answers the key questions about who the Celts were, where they came from, their relationship with other Celtic tribes throughout Europe, their customs and beliefs and their daily life. It is a fascinating story told with flair and clarity by one of Britain’s leading experts on the Celts.

ISBN: 9781780272924 Price: £14.99 Format: 246 x 189mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 144pp 8pp colour plate section

The Crinan Canal Marian Pallister

MARIAN PALLISTER has worked as a features writer and commentator covering social issues in Scotland and round the world, particularly in disaster and war zones. She also founded the Mhuthanzia Lilanda Initiative, a charity which supports the education of vulnerable young people in Zambia.

Known as ‘Britain’s most beautiful shortcut’, the Crinan Canal runs from Ardrishaig on Loch Fyne nine miles across the Kintyre peninsula to the west coast of Scotland. Designed by John Rennie after initial survey work by James Watt in 1771, the canal was opened in 1801, with further improvements made by Thomas Telford in the second decade of the nineteenth century. These days the canal is a popular route for leisure craft. In the book Marian Pallister tells the story of the canal from its origins to the present day, discussing how it was built, who built it, how it changed life in the surrounding areas, and how it has been used.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273464 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 240pp 16pp b/w plate section

19


Non-Fiction The Lady of the Lake Introduction by Stuart Kelly SIR WALTER SCOTT (17711832) is universally acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest writers who was of seminal importance in the development of the historical novel. STUART KELLY is a freelance journalist and writer. He is the author of Scott-Land: The Man Who Invented a Nation (Polygon)

The Lady of the Lake marked the pinnacle of Walter Scott’s popularity as a poet, with record-breaking sales and ecstatic reviews which helped spread his fame far beyond Britain. It also inspired thousands to flock to Loch Katrine in the Trossachs to see for themselves the isle where the banished James of Douglas and his daughter Ellen take refuge, and where the mysterious knight, James Fitz James, arrives and sets in motion a chain of events which have far-reaching consequences for them all. The Lady of the Lake is a key work of the Romantic movement which swept Europe by storm in the early nineteenth century.

ISBN: 9781780273372 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: N/A April 2016 224pp

The Broken Journey A Life of Scotland 1976–99 Kenneth Roy This is the second volume of Kenneth Roy’s magisterial trilogy on the history of Scotland since the Second World War.

KENNETH ROY was born and brought up in Falkirk, Scotland. He founded the Institute of Contemporary Scotland in 2000; was editor and now columnist of online campaigning journal the Scottish Review; and is chair of the Young Scotland programme.

20

This new volume brings the story much closer to the present day and traces enthrallingly the social, political and cultural threads which lead directly to the Scotland we live in today. Along the way the author describes the oil boom in Shetland, Scotland’s doomed campaign at the World Cup in Argentina, the Orkney child sex abuse scandal, the Lockerbie bombing, the massacre of schoolchildren and a teacher at Dunblane, the cloning of Dolly the sheep, and much more.

www.birlinn.co.uk

Cover not yet available

ISBN: 9781780274256 Price: £17.99 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 320pp


Non-Fiction Best of Scotland

A Caledonian Miscellany John MacLeod

JOHN MACLEOD was born in Lochaber. After graduation from Edinburgh University, he began his career at BBC Highland in Inverness and quickly established himself as a freelance writer. He has won several awards, including Scottish Journalist of the Year in 1991, and has contributed to many publications including the Scotsman and the Herald. He currently writes a Thursday column for the Scottish Daily Mail and is the author of a number of highly acclaimed books.

In this imaginative, informative and amusing miscellany, award-winning journalist John MacLeod explores some of the well-known symbols of Scottish culture (as well some of the quirkier ones) and looks beneath the surface to shatter some long-held assumptions that will surprise even the most wellinformed Scotophile. Did you know, for example, that the kilt was actually banned in Scotland at one point, and that particular tartans were never originally identified with specific clans, let alone surnames? From bagpipes, haggis, whisky and the Forth Rail Bridge to Andy Murray, John Knox and Irn Bru, this book is a fascinating celebration of Scotland that will appeal to visitors and locals alike.

ISBN: 9781780272016 Price: £12.99 Format: 226 x 246mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 112pp Colour illus. throughout

Whisky Aeneas MacDonald with Ian Buxton AENEAS MACDONALD was the pseudonym under which noted author and journalist George Malcolm Thomson OBE wrote his one legendary book on the subject of whisky. He was also one of the founders of Porpoise Press. He died in 1996. IAN BUXTON has been working in and around the whisky industry for close to 30 years, but has been drinking professionally for a good deal longer. He began writing regularly for Whisky Magazine shortly after it launched, and now also writes in a variety of trade and consumer titles here and abroad. He has published a number of books, including the bestselling 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die.

This is – in the opinion of many whisky writers and experts – the finest whisky book ever written. It is certainly the first written from the point of view of the consumer and is thus historically significant. But more than that, poetic and polemic in style and with its emphasis on the importance of single malt whisky and its concern to protect and inform the consumer, it remains fresh and relevant to the interests of today’s whisky drinker. It is a remarkably prophetic book, and with Ian Buxton’s shrewd commentary and analysis, combined for the first time with period illustrations, it is brought bang up to date for today’s generations of whisky aficionados.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274218 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm hbk Rights: World English Language October 2016 160pp

21


Non-Fiction Faithful & Brave A Celebration of James Gillespie’s High School, Edinburgh

John MacLeod

JOHN MACLEOD was born in Lochaber. After graduation from Edinburgh University, he began his career at BBC Highland in Inverness and quickly established himself as a freelance writer. He has won several awards, including Scottish Journalist of the Year in 1991, and has contributed to many publications including the Scotsman and the Herald. He currently writes a Thursday column for the Scottish Daily Mail and is the author of a number of highly acclaimed books.

Established by the bequest of a tobacco merchant over two centuries ago, James Gillespie’s was the very first free school in Scotland. Always of bold, liberal outlook, Gillespie’s has been variously a boys’ boarding-school, a posh Edinburgh Merchant Company concern, a soughtafter girls-only ‘Corporation Grammar’ and, since 1973, a co-educational area comprehensive, regularly turning in some of the best exam results in Scotland. Former pupil and award-winning journalist John MacLeod reveals all in a book which tells not just the historical facts, but which is liberally peppered with anecdote, including details about the clock that never worked, the ghost of the ‘Green Lady’ and the day they nearly drowned the Queen Mother…

Cover not yet available

ISBN: 9781780273822 Price: £25.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 192pp Colour illus. throughout

Abbotsford to Zion

The Story of Scottish Place-names Around the World

Elspeth Wills After graduating from St Andrews University in history in 1970, ELSPETH WILLS has spent her career as a researcher, interpreter and writer within advertising, marketing, economic development and visitor attraction environments. She has written over a dozen books on subjects as varied as natural history, new town development and Scottish innovation.

22

Over the centuries countless Scots have travelled to every conceivable corner of the globe – some to start a new life, others as entrepreneurs, explorers, missionaries, colonial administrators, soldiers or in a multitude of other contexts. This book takes the reader on a journey from the wastes of Antarctica to the South African Highlands, from Canada’s prairies to Australia’s vineyards. It visits cities and deserted villages, scales mountain peaks and calls in at far-flung islands. All these places have one thing in common – the fact that they were named by, or after, Scots. The places named and the people they honoured provide a different way of looking at the influence of Scots overseas, whether railroad engineer, pioneer farmer, displaced crofter or multi-millionaire.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274072 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 224pp


New Editions Isolation Shepherd Iain R. Thomson IAIN THOMSON was born in Inverness, but was raised and educated near Liverpool. On leaving school in the late 1940s, he returned to Scotland to work on a farm in Aberdeenshire. He is the author of three books, all of them vivid depictions of some of the wildest and most remote parts of the Highlands. He currently lives outside Inverness.

In August 1956 a young shepherd, his wife, two-year-old daughter and tenday-old son sat huddled in a small boat on Loch Monar in Ross-shire as a storm raged around them. They were bound for a tiny, remote cottage at the western end of the loch which was to be their home for the next four years. Isolation Shepherd is the moving story of those years. Set against the awesome splendour of some of Scotland’s most spectacular scenery, Iain R. Thomson’s classic book provides a sensitive, richly detailed account of the shepherd’s life through the seasons and recreates the events that shaped the family’s life in Glen Strathfarrar before the area was flooded as part of a huge hydro-electric project.

ISBN: 9781780274041 Price: £8.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 240pp b/w plates, line drawings, maps

The Man Who Gave Away His Island A Life of John Lorne Campbell of Canna Ray Perman In 1938 John Lorne Campbell bought the Hebridean isle of Canna. He wanted to prevent it becoming a rich man’s playground (like so many other islands and Highland estates), to preserve a part of traditional Gaelic culture and show that efficient farming methods could be compatible with wildlife conservation and sustainability. RAY PERMAN was a journalist for 30 years in London and Scotland. In 1977 he first visited Canna and met John Lorne Campbell, with whom he corresponded until John’s death in 1996.

This acclaimed book is an insightful and human portrait of one of the twentieth century’s most significant scholars of the Gaelic world. 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of his death.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274119 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 272pp 16pp b/w plates

23


New Editions The Grand Scuttle

The Sinking of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919

Dan Van der Vat

The Grand Scuttle became a folk legend in both Germany and Britain. However, few people are aware that Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter became the only man in history to sink his own navy because of a misleading report in a British newspaper; that the Royal Navy guessed his intention but could do nothing to thwart it; that the sinking produced the last casualties and the last prisoners of the war. DAN VAN DER VAT, born in Holland and educated in England, became a fulltime author after 25 years in journalism. He has published seven books on maritime history, including The Ship that Changed the World and The Riddle of the Titanic (with Robin Gardiner), as well as a biography of Albert Speer.

This is the remarkable story of the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. It contains previously unused German archive material, eyewitness accounts and the recollections of survivors, as well as many contemporary photos which capture the awesome spectacle of the finest ships of the time being deliberately sunk by their own crew.

ISBN: 9781843410690 Price: ÂŁ9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages April 2016 240pp 2 x 8pp b/w plates

Bannockburn

The Battle for a Nation Alistair Moffat

ALISTAIR MOFFAT was born and bred in the Scottish Borders. A former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television, he now runs the Borders Book Festival and the DNA testing company, BritainsDNA (britainsdna.com). He is also the author of numerous bestselling books.

24

In this book, best-selling author Alistair Moffat offers fresh insights into one of the most famous battles in history, yet one which is surprisingly little understood. Where exactly was it fought; and what happened at the Scottish council of war the night before the second day to persuade the Scots to attack at dawn? This book follows in detail the events of those two days that changed history, and captures all the fear, heroism, confusion and desperation as he describes the tactics and manoeuvres that led to a stunning and unexpected Scottish victory.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780272795 Price: ÂŁ7.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 224pp


New Editions A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable Ian Crofton

IAN CROFTON was born in Edinburgh and worked for Collins in Glasgow before moving to London, where he has been a freelance writer and editor for 25 years. Previous books include Brewer’s Dictionary of Curious Titles; Brewer’s Britain and Ireland (with John Ayto); Brewer’s Cabinet of Curiosities and A Dictionary of Art Quotations.

This authoritative, entertaining and eminently browsable reference book, arranged in easily accessible A–Z format, is an absorbing and imaginative feast of Scottish lore, language, history and culture, from the mythical origins of the Scots in Scythia to the contemporary Scotland of the Holyrood parliament and Trainspotting. Here Tartan Tories rub shoulders with Torry girls, the Misery from the Manse exchanges a nod with Stalin’s Granny, Thomas the Rhymer and the Wizard of Reay walk hand in hand with Bible John, and the reader is taken for a rollercoaster ride round Caledonia. The result is a breathtaking and quirky celebration of Scotland, packed with fact and anecdote.

ISBN: 9781780274287 Price: £14.99 Format: 246 x 168mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 528pp

The Summer Walkers Timothy Neat

TIMOTHY NEAT is an art historian, film-maker and writer. He is the author of numerous books, including Part Seen, Part Imagined, a study of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and a twovolume biography of Hamish Henderson. His film Play Me Something was Best Film, Festival de Cinema de Barcelona, 1989.

The Summer Walkers is the name the crofters of Scotland’s North-west Highlands gave the Travelling People – the intinerant tinsmiths, horse-dealers, hawkers and pearl-fishers who made their living ‘on the road’. These people are not gypsies – they are indigenous Gaelic-speaking Highlanders who are heirs to a vital and ancient culture. This book documents their way of life and explores their customs, superstitions, unique language, stories, poetry and songs, rough photographs and remembrances. The result is a poignant and deeply moving record of a way of life now on the verges of living memory.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273969 Price: £14.99 Format: 260 x 189mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 240pp b/w illus. throughout

25


New Editions The Highland Clearances Eric Richards

ERIC RICHARDS is Emeritus Professor of History at Flinders University, Australia and previously taught at Stirling University, Scotland. His published work includes an acclaimed biography of Patrick Sellar, which was awarded the prize for Scottish History Book of the Year (1999) by the Saltire Society.

This book traces the origins of the Clearances from the eighteenth century to their culmination in the crofting legislation of the 1880s. It shows how the Clearances were one of many ‘attempted’ solutions to the problem of how to maintain a population on marginal and infertile land, and were, in fact, part of a wider European movement of rural depopulation. In drawing attention away from the mythology to the hard facts of what actually happened, The Highland Clearances offers a balanced analysis of events which created a terrible scar on the Highland and Gaelic imagination.

'An informative account devoid of the bias that has clouded the subject – Scottish Field

ISBN:9781780273846 Price: £12.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 512pp 8pp b/w plates, maps

Mingulay

An Island And Its People Ben Buxton

BEN BUXTON first explored the Hebrides in the 1970s. Later, while studying for a degree in archaeology, he investigated the archaeology and history of Mingulay. He teaches adult education classes in archaeology and is Curator at Wareham Museum.

26

Ben Buxton documents the story of a people and of this remote, barren and ruggedly beautiful island that lies at the southern end of the Outer Hebrides. Looking back through the annals of history, he uncovers the traditions of a hospitable, close community which thrived under clan rule. But set in lonely isolation in the stormy Atlantic, with no proper landing place, absentee landlords and insufficient fertile land, life for Mingulay’s inhabitants was hard, and by 1912, the ‘voluntary’ evacuation of the island was complete. This is the poignant story of Mingulay and the life of its people – now lost beyond the grasp of living memory.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273044 Price: £12.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 288pp


New Editions Set Adrift Upon the World The Sutherland Clearances James Hunter

JAMES HUNTER is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and was its first Director of the Centre for History. The author of eleven books about the Highlands and Islands, he has also been active in the public life of the area for many years.

'[Hunter’s] scholarship is breathtaking’ – Herald

They would be better dead, they said, than set adrift upon the world. But set adrift they were – thousands of them, their communities destroyed, their homes demolished and burned. Such were the Sutherland Clearances, an extraordinary episode, involving the deliberate depopulation of much of a Scottish county. In this book James Hunter tells the story of the Sutherland Clearances. His researches took him to archives in Scotland, England and Canada, to the now deserted straths of Sutherland, to the frozen shores of Hudson Bay. The result is a gripping, moving, definitive account of a people’s struggle for survival in the face of tragedy and disaster which includes experiences which have not featured in any previous such account.

ISBN:9781780273549 Price: £14.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 608pp 8pp colour plates

Whiskypedia

A Gazetteer of Scottish Whisky Charles MacLean Why does Scotch whisky taste as it does? Where do the flavours come from? How might they have changed over the years? The flavour of Scotch whisky is as much influenced by history, craft and tradition as it is by science. Whiskypedia explores these influences.

Charles MacLean has spent the past 30 years researching, writing and lecturing about Scotch whisky. He is the author of nine books on the subject, including the standard work on whisky brands, Scotch Whisky, and the authoritative Malt Whisky. He is a consultant to the whisky industry, and to Bonhams International Auctioneers, and sits on the judging panel of the International Wine & Spirits Awards

Introductory sections provide an historical overview, and an explanation of the contribution made by each stage of the production process. Each entry provides a brief account of the distillery’s history and curiosities, lists the bottlings which are currently available, details how the whisky is made, and explores the flavour and character of each make. Whiskypedia is the result of deep immersion in its subject. It will guide, entertain and inform novices and experts alike.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN:9781780274010 Price: £14.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: WAL exc. North America August 2016 400pp colour throughout

27


New Editions Tir a'Mhurain

The Outer Hebrides of Scotland Paul Strand PAUL STRAND was born in New York City in 1890. He began photographing at the age of eighteen while a student at the Ethical Culture High School. In 1945 the Museum of Modern Art devoted its first one person photography exhibition to Strand’s work. Two years later he collaborated with Nancy Newhall on a project that was published as Time in New England, the first of his many innovative photography books. In 1967 he was awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal. He died in France in 1976.

Tir a’Mhurain is a collection of photographs that reflects the impressions gathered by Paul Strand and his wife Hazel during their 3 month visit to the Hebrides in 1945. Juxtaposing people and landscape, Strand’s beautifully sequenced photographs depict the perfect complicity he saw between nature and habitation in thei wild terrain. Whether it is a view of the rocks and the sea of a grinning shepherd boy; scuddling clouds hanging over seaside house or the wrinkled face of an old lady framed by a knitted shawl, Strand’s images transcend the ephemeral. This extended portrait captures the essence and complexity of a singular place. This is a true masterpiece of photography.

ISBN: 9781780274232 Price: £25.00 Format: 295 x 250mm hbk Rights: World All Languages August 2016 128pp b/w photography throughout

Nicola Sturgeon A Political Life David Torrance

DAVID TORRANCE is a freelance journalist based in London, and author of a number of political biographies, including George Younger, David Steel and Alex Salmond.

How did a working-class girl from Ayrshire become one of Scotland and the UK’s most prominent politicians? Identified as a rising star by the SNP leadership shortly after she joined the party as a teenager, when the Nationalists formed their first Scottish Government in 2007 Nicola Sturgeon swiftly became one of its most successful ministers. By the time Alex Salmond resigned as First Minister after the No vote in the Scottish independence referendum, she was viewed as his natural successor, leading her party to its remarkable success at the 2015 general election. In this book, David Torrance traces the life and career of a remarkable woman.

28

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273457 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 256pp


New Editions The Picts

A History Tim Clarkson

TIM CLARKSON worked in academic librarianship before setting up a business with his wife. He gained an MPhil in archaeology (1995) and a PhD in medieval history (2003) from the University of Manchester. He is author of The Men of the North (2010) and The Makers of Scotland (2012).

The Picts were an ancient nation who ruled most of northern and eastern Scotland during the Dark Ages. Despite their historical importance, they remain shrouded in myth and misconception. Absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots in the ninth century, they lost their unique identity, their language and their vibrant artistic culture. Amongst their few surviving traces are standing stones decorated with incredible skill and covered with enigmatic symbols – vivid memorials of a powerful and gifted people who bequeathed no chronicles to tell their story, no sagas to describe the deed of their kings and heroes. In this book Tim Clarkson pieces together the evidence to tell the story of this mysterious people from their emergence in Roman times to their eventual disappearance.

ISBN: 9781780274034 Price: £9.99 Format pbk: 198 x 129mm Rights: World All Languages June 2016 240pp

Hidden Scotland

Scotland’s Hidden Past Ann Lindsay ANN LINDSAY is the author of a number of bestselling books, including The Dried Flower Garden (Batsford) and Seeds Blood and Beauty: Scottish Plant Explorers (Birlinn). She has also contributed over the years to a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Herald, Sunday Post, Country Life and the Scots Magazine.

In this marvellously entertaining and informative book, Ann Lindsay introduces a huge range of quirky, intriguing and amusing details about Scotland’s past and present. Some of what she reveals is verifiable by fact, some shrouded in mystery and superstition. Packed with information on curious places, bizarre happenings and perplexing oddities, Hidden Scotland will surprise even the most erudite student of Scottish culture. It includes instructions on how to get to all the places mentioned in the book, making it an indispensable companion to those keen to explore the more alternative destinations on Scotland’s tourist trail.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274096 Price: £10.99 Format: 216 x 138mm pbk Rights: World All Languages June 2016 256pp

29


New Editions The Hunt for Rob Roy The Man and the Myths David Stevenson This is the first time that Rob Roy’s life has been written with a full range of sources. The picture that emerges is indeed striking, but not heroic. The Story of a man deeply wronged and oppressed, forced into outlawry, has to be modified by the clear evidence that he was only outlawed after undertaking a careful plan to swindle his creditors. DAVID STEVENSON is Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews and the author of numerous books, including the standard two-volume history of the Covenanters.

With this book Scotland may lose a hero of the old-fashioned and unreal sort, but it gains a Rob Roy whose life-story emerges as one that was dramatic and certainly more human. This radical revision of popular views on Rob Roy is based on much recently discovered material and is the first new biography for thirty years.

ISBN: 9781780273785 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 368pp 16pp b/w plate section

Scots Who Made America Rick Wilson

What would America have been without the Scots? Andrew Carnegie, the humble weaver’s son who went there to become the world’s richest man, thought it might have been ‘a poor show’.

RICK WILSON grew up in the same small-town street where David Buick, founder of the Buick car company, was born. As a journalist he has worked not just on daily newspapers in London’s Fleet Street but also in The Netherlands and his native Scotland as a magazine editor.

30

This book is an unapologetic celebration of what he was proudly talking about: little Scotland’s huge human contribution to the cultural identity of the Big Country. Rick Wilson profiles an intriguing selection of Scottish innovators who have projected their genius, energy and inspiration across the Atlantic. ISBN: 9781780273808 Price: £7.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 216pp 2 x 8pp b/w plate section

www.birlinn.co.uk


New Editions Lost Plymouth

Hidden Heritage of the Three Towns Felicity Goodall FELICITY GOODALL is a former foreign correspondent. She covered Norway for The Sunday Times, Business Week and other international publications. She has also worked as a producer for Radio 4, specialising in historical and literary documentaries, and in television, as an assistant producer and scriptwriter. She has written a play for Radio 4, A Change of Heart and is the author of two books, A Question of Conscience and Voices from the Home Front.

During World War II, Plymouth earned the distinction as the most bombed city outside London. But it was planners not bombers which destroyed most of the history of the city. Few traces remain of the Plymouth’s best known sons, Drake and Hawkins. By the 19th century, houses built by Elizabethan merchants had deteriorated into the worst slums in Europe, second only to Warsaw. Plymouth’s lost history includes the first man to sail round the world in both directions; the shocking image which helped end the slave trade; the first convicts bound for Botany Bay; and the man who navigated over 3,000 miles in an open boat with only the stars to guide him.

ISBN: 9781780274140 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 304pp b/w illus. throughout

Lost Devon

Devon’s Lost Heritage Felicity Goodall Devon’s colourful past may still be visible in its street names and pub signs, but in fact much of the region’s history has been obliterated – through necessity, social change and the demands of the outside world. The traditional occupations of farming, fishing, pottery, copper and tin mining, wool production and quarrying have all seen change over the past several hundred years. Many of these industries are now lost, replaced instead by everexpanding tourism. Superbly illustrated with photographs, paintings, maps and etchings from the county’s museums and art collections, Lost Devon provides a fascinating insight into Devon’s history, as Felicity Goodall explores what little remains of the past and discusses the events which have formed the county as it is today.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274157 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 224pp b/w illus. throughout

31


New Editions Lost Cornwall

Cornwall’s Lost Heritage Joanna Thomas

JOANNA THOMAS was born in Bristol. Her childhood holidays were spent in Cornwall where she gained a love for the county. Such was the pull to its coastline that she chose to return to study at University College Falmouth for a degree in Journalism and later a Masters in Professional Writing. Having worked as a broadcast and print journalist throughout the South West, she has now settled in Cornwall, with her family, where she writes and teaches.

Cornwall’s spectacular shoreline, with its brutal cliffs, desolate moors and prehistoric coastal settlements, has long held a source of fascination for those who cross the Duchy’s boundary line. Yet despite the endurance of seascapes and ancient landscapes, which remain hidden from mainstream tourist routes, there are, throughout Cornwall, stories of change. Patterns of life have adapted to a shifting world, and whole communities have been affected as traditions are gradually subsumed in the struggle for ‘progress’. However, remnants of recent history are still evident in Cornwall’s architecture, its redundant transport systems and its cultural relics. This book is an exploration of some of the region’s hidden facets and lesser known places which are testament to a way of life experienced just a couple of generations ago.

ISBN: 9781780274195 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 224pp b/w illus. throughout

Lost Bristol

Victoria Coules VICTORIA COULES was educated at Plymouth Polytechnic, Bristol University and Bristol School of Art. She has worked as an engineer and a teacher and is now a freelance writer and producer.

Bristol has a rich historical heritage dating back to the city’s beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times. For centuries, it was England’s second city and, as a thriving port, its past is steeped in its involvement in trade, whether of cloth, wine, pottery, glass – or slaves. As there is no commercial shipping now, much of Bristol’s past is hidden within the modern city, just out of sight, but waiting to be discovered. Lost Bristol is an exploration of Bristol’s hidden past, its ways of life, legends, relationship with the sea and its role in English history. The book includes some of the more famous aspects of the city’s past, as well as stories and information unknown even to most locals.

32

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274188 Price: £12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 224pp b/w illus. throughout


New Editions Lost Perthshire

Perthshire's Lost Architectural Heritage Ann Lindsay ANN LINDSAY is the author of a number of bestselling books, including The Dried Flower Garden (Batsford) and Seeds Blood and Beauty: Scottish Plant Explorers (Birlinn). She has also contributed over the years to a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Herald, Sunday Post, Country Life and the Scots Magazine.

In Lost Perthshire, Ann Lindsay takes us on a fascinating journey through the lost architectural, geographical, industrial, and archaeological heritage of Perthshire. Perthshire has been the centre to a wide range of industries that flourished and then disappeared, including printing, book binding, boat building, salmon curing, textiles, many small whisky distilleries, and newspapers. In this fascinating yet poignant study, Ann Lindsay introduces the many varied aspects of lost Perthshire, showing how ancient and even relatively modern Perthshire landscapes have changed so dramatically, often with little thought for conservation or preservation.

ISBN: 9781780274164 Price: ÂŁ12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 256pp b/w illus. throughout

Lost Argyll

Argyll's Lost Architectural Heritage Marian Pallister

MARIAN PALLISTER has worked as a features writer and commentator covering social issues in Scotland and round the world, particularly in disaster and war zones. She also founded the Mhuthanzia Lilanda Initiative, a charity which supports the education of vulnerable young people in Zambia.

In Lost Argyll, Marian Pallister looks not only at the lost architectural heritage of Argyll but also at its lost industries, ferries, roads, bridges and archaeological monuments. Poltalloch House, for example, built in the 1840s as a monument to commerce and investment, lies ruinous, its owners having stripped it of its roof to avoid paying crippling rates; Campbeltown once bristled with distilleries until a cocktail of economic factors left it with only two whilst others have been subsumed into the modern townscape; little remains of even the jetties at Loch Awe and West Loch Tarbert, two of the busiest waterways in times past.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780274171 Price: ÂŁ12.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages July 2016 304pp b/w illus. throughout

33


John Donald ‘The Wild Black Region’ Badenoch 1750 - 1800 David Taylor

DAVID TAYLOR graduated in Scottish Historical Studies from the University of Edinburgh, and gained a PhD from the University of the Highlands and Islands. After teaching history at Douglas-Ewart High School he was Principal Teacher of History and Modern Studies at Kingussie High School (Badenoch) for thirty years. Now retired, he lives in Orkney.

This book tells the fascinating story of Badenoch, a forgotten region in accounts of Scottish history. Situated in the heart of the Highlands and with its own distinct historic and geographic identity, Badenoch was in the throes of dramatic change in the post-Culloden decades. This ground-breaking study reveals some radical differences from trends across the rest of the Highlands. Duke, tacksman and erstwhile clansman tried to forge their individual – and often irreconcilable – destinies in a rapidly changing world. In doing so, all were increasingly drawn into the wider, and often lucrative, dimensions of British state and empire.

ISBN: 9781906566982 Price: £25.00 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 336pp 16pp colour plates; 8pp b/w plates; maps

Voices of the Forest

A Social History of Scottish Forestry in the Twentieth Century

Mairi Stewart

MAIRI STEWART graduated in Geography from Glasgow University. After spending ten years working in conservation and land management, her interest in woodland history led her to undertake an MPhil at the University of St Andrews. She is currently a freelance historical researcher specialising in environmental history.

34

The creation of large new tracts of forest, together with the development of a modern wood processing sector, was the single biggest transformation to occur in the Scottish countryside during the twentieth century. While the environmental and landscape impacts of this change have been much commented upon, its impact on Scottish culture and society has attracted comparatively little attention. This book tells the fascinating story of the human side of forestry, drawing heavily on the thoughts, experiences and reflections of a wide range of individuals from all levels and all sectors of the industry as it has developed in Scotland over the last 100 years.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781906566647 Price: £20.00 Format: 245 x 240mm pbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 304pp 120 b/w; 80 colour throughout


John Donald Kinship, Church and Culture

Collected Essays and Studies by John W.M. Bannerman

Dauvit Broun & Martin MacGregor (editors) JOHN BANNERMAN studied Celtic languages at the University of Glasgow and gained a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He joined the history department at Edinburgh University in 1967 and worked there for 30 years, while also running the family farm at Balmaha, Stirlingshire. He published a number of influential works on Gaelic Scotland, including Studies in the History of Dalriada and a major contribution to Late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the West Highlands. He retired from teaching in 1997 and took up farming full-time at Balmaha. He died in 2008.

John Bannerman (1932–2008) saw the history of Scotland from a Gaelic perspective, and his outstanding scholarship made that perspective impossible to ignore. As a historian, his natural home was the era between the Romans and the twelfth century when the Scottish kingdom first began to take shape, but he also wrote extensively on the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, while his work on the Beatons, the notable Gaelic medical kindred, reached into the early eighteenth century. Across this long millennium, Bannerman ranged and wrote with authority and insight on what he termed the ‘kinbased society’, with special emphasis upon its church and culture, and its relationship with Ireland.

ISBN: 9781906566913 Price: £25.00 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages February 2016 320pp b/w throughout

Brilliant Lives

The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish Enlightenment

John Arthur JOHN ARTHUR graduated from the University of Toronto before returning to Scotland to complete a PhD in physics at the University of Edinburgh. He spent most of his career specialising in electronic and microwave technology developments for communications and radar. In addition to a recent book on electromagnetic theory, he has published many papers. He is a trustee of the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Physics, and the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and a senior member of the IEEE (USA).

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) was the greatest physicist of the nineteenth century, and although his scientific contribution is now acknowledged to be on a level with those of Newton and Einstein, he has generally not received the acclaim that he deserves. This book goes beyond the life of the man himself to explore five generations of his family and those with whom they were connected, predominantly middleranking lowland Scots who were interlinked through marriage. ISBN: 9781906566975 Price: £25.00 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World English Language April 2016 288pp 16pp colour plate section

www.birlinn.co.uk

35


John Donald The Campbells of the Ark Men of Argyll in 1745 Ronald Black VOLUMES 1 & 2

RONALD BLACK is a retired Senior Lecturer in Celtic Studies at the University of Edinburgh and Gaelic Editor of the Scotsman. He is a regular broadcaster and contributes to a wide variety of newspapers and journals. He lives in Peebles, Scotland.

In the course of his long poem An Airce, ‘The Ark’, the Jacobite poet Alexander MacDonald shows the Campbells being subjected to trial by water for the part they played in defeating Prince Charles’s army in 1745–6. Some will be drowned outright, he says, some just given a good ducking – and some will be honourably treated. He names forty individuals; Ronald Black puts their lives and deeds under the microscope to see how far they deserved their allotted fate. The result is a well-balanced portrait of the leading men of Argyll in the eighteenth century and a refreshingly new perspective on one of the most colourful episodes in Scottish history.

ISBN: Volume 1 – 9781906566890 ISBN: Volume 2 – 9781910900062 Price: £25.00 per volume Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages August 2016 512pp per volume 16pp colour plates; maps

Immortal Memory

Burns and the Scottish People Christopher A. Whatley CHRISTOPHER WHATLEY is Professor of Scottish History at Dundee University. He has published widely, and his books include The Scots and the Union (EUP).

Robert Burns was by far and away the most iconic figure in nineteenth-century Scotland. Multiple editions of his works poured incessantly from the presses. Unprecedentedly large crowds gathered to commemorate him at huge festivals and at the unveiling of memorials. His work was at the heart of the palpable rise of Scottishness that swept Scotland from the 1840s through to the First World War, including demands for Home Rule. In this major new book, Christopher Whatley describes the several contests there were to ‘own’ – and mould – Burns, from Tories through Radicals to middle-class urban improvers. The result is a fascinating picture of the role Burns played after his death in shaping multiple facets of Scottish society.

36

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781910900086 Price: £14.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 288pp 8pp b/w plates


John Donald Scotland’s Merlin

A Medieval Legend and its Dark Age Origins Tim Clarkson

TIM CLARKSON worked in academic librarianship before setting up a business with his wife. He gained an MPhil in archaeology (1995) and a PhD in medieval history (2003) from the University of Manchester. He is author of The Men of the North (2010) and The Makers of Scotland (2012).

Who was Merlin? Is the famous wizard of Arthurian legend based on a real person? In this book, Merlin’s origins are traced back to the story of Lailoken, a mysterious ‘wild man’ who is said to have lived in the Scottish Lowlands in the sixth century AD. The book considers the question of whether Lailoken belongs to myth or reality. Lailoken’s reappearance in medieval Welsh literature as the fabled prophet Myrddin is also examined. Myrddin himself was eventually transformed into Merlin the wizard, King Arthur’s friend and mentor. This is the Merlin we recognise today, not only in art and literature but also on screen. His earlier forms are less familiar, more remote, but can still be found among the lore and legend of the Dark Ages.

ISBN: 9781906566999 Price: £14.99 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages April 2016 272pp 8pp b/w plates

Scottish Arctic Whaling Chelsey W. Sanger

CHESLEY SANGER grew up in Newfoundland. He gained a PhD in the Origins of the Scottish Northern Whale Fishery from the University of Dundee. He has published a number of books, including Twentieth-Century Shore-Station Whaling in Newfoundland and Labrador, 2006 (with A.B. Dickinson), which received the Canadian Nautical Research Society Award for Best Book. He also received the New Bedford Whaling Museum Waterman Award for ‘contribution to the history of whaling’ (2008). He is an Emeritus Professor at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

Scottish Arctic Whaling brings to light a previously little-known but important Scottish industry. The author’s extensive use of original sources such as log-books and diaries shows that hundreds of whaling vessels, sailing variously from sixteen east-coast Scottish ports, harvested more than 20,000 bowhead whales at East Greenland, Davis Strait and Baffin Bay during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And they did so under almost unimaginably demanding and hazardous conditions. More than 110 ships were lost, while others were often detained within the pack-ice, causing the whale men to suffer starvation, disease, scurvy, frostbite and death.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781906566777 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 272pp 8pp b/w plates

37


John Donald Outlaws of Medieval Scotland

Challenges to the Canmore Kings 1058-1266 R. Andrew MacDonald R. ANDREW MCDONALD is Professor of History at Brock University, Canada, where he was the founding director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He is the author of many books, book chapters, and articles on medieval Scottish, Hebridean, and Manx history, including The Kingdom of the Isles: Scotland’s Western Seaboard, c.1100–c.1336, co-editor of The Viking Age: A Reader and co-editor of Alba: Celtic Scotland in the Middle Ages.

9781904607793 £20.00 pbk

The history of the so-called Canmore kings in Scotland, from the reign of Malcolm lll (1058–1093) down to that of Alexander lll (1249–1286), is marked by an array of insurrections led by discontented dynasts and native warlords with grievances against these kings. Although none of the challenges ultimately proved successful, they nevertheless form a much-neglected theme across a formative era of Scottish history, which they in part define. This book demonstrates that the Canmore kings maintained their grip on power in large measure through crushing rivals and quashing numerous insurrections; their claim to be the founders of the medieval kingdom is valid, but the roles of violence and military confrontations in the consolidation of their power and the formation of the medieval kingdom are given new emphasis here. From well-known events like the invasion of Somerled of Argyll in 1164 to lesser-known challenges like that from Donald MacWillliam in the 1180s, the book offers a systematic exploration of the leaders of insurrection, their aims and motivations, their military capabilities, and the reasons behind their failure as well as the overall impact of insurrection upon the Scottish kingdom.

9781906566579 £20.00 pbk

38

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781910900000 Price: £20.00 Format: 234 x 156mm pbk Rights: World All Languages April 2016 202pp


John Donald Hadrian's Wall

Paintings by the Richardson Family David J. Breeze

DAVID BREEZE is the author of books on Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall, Roman frontiers and the Roman army. He is an Honorary Professor at the Universities of Durham, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Stirling, and has an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow

Brothers Henry, Charles and Thomas Richardson painted nearly 80 views of Hadrian’s Wall between 1838 and the 1880s. Most were created by Henry Burdon Richardson, who accompanied author John Collingwood Bruce on his tour of Hadrian’s Wall in 1848. Only 17 were reproduced as engravings in Bruce’s books; very few have ever been published as paintings. They form a valuable record of the Roman frontier as it was during an important stage in its history, before the advent of the modern world. The production of the Richardson paintings, Bruce’s contribution to Wall studies and the achievement of John Clayton in conserving the Wall, are all explored in this book, providing a fascinating background story.

ISBN: 9781910900055 Price: £25.00 Format: 210 x 280mm hbk Rights: World All Languages October 2016 144pp Colour illustrated throughout

Sikunder Burns

Master of the Great Game Craig Murray

CRAIG MURRAY Is an author (Murder in Samarkand), broadcaster and human rights activist. He was a member of the British Diplomatic Service for 20 years, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan 2002–2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee 2007– 2010.

This is an astonishing true tale of espionage, journeys in disguise, secret messages, double agents, assassinations and sexual intrigue. Alexander Burnes was one of the most accomplished spies Britain ever produced and the main antagonist of the Great Game as Britain strove with Russia for control of Central Asia and the routes to the Raj. The story of Burnes’ life has a cast of extraordinary figures. Among the unexpected discoveries are that Alexander and his brother James invented the myths about the Knights Templars and Scottish Freemasons which are the foundation of the Da Vinci Code; and that the most famous nineteenth-century scholar of Afghanistan was a double agent for Russia.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781910900079 Price: £30.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 432pp 8pp b/w plates, 8pp col. plates

39


John Donald Cremation in Modern Scotland History, Architecture and the Law

Peter C. Jupp, Douglas Davies, Hilary Grainger, Gordon Raeburn and Stephen White PETER JUPP is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh DOUGLAS DAVIES is a Professor of Theology and Religion at Durham University HILARY GRAINGER is a Dean and Professor of Architectural History at the University of the Arts, London, and Chair of the Victorian Society GORDON RAEBURN is a lecturer in Historical and Philosophical Studies at Melbourne University STEPHEN WHITE is a retired Senior Lecturer from Cardiff Law School.

Changes in funeral practice provide a lens through which to inspect changes in wider social identity, values and religious beliefs. This book reveals how, in Scotland, as in other societies, death ways and funeral arrangements are closely related to other aspects of life, from religious beliefs to political convictions, from family relationships to class structure, from poverty to prosperity. The book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, analysing particularly the part played by Scottish law and architecture. Until recently, Scotland’s 28 crematoria have been the ‘invisible buildings’ of the twentieth century, absent from architectural histories. The book analyses the challenge this new building type provided for architects: a building with no architectural precedent, at once secular and religious, functional and symbolic. From archives previously unstudied and from primary and secondary legal materials, it traces the development of Scottish law on burial and cremation. It will be an invaluable aid to those wishing to know the historical background to the Burial and Cremation Bill currently going through the Scottish Parliament. In just forty years the people of Scotland made a striking change to their age-old custom of burying their dead. In 1939, 97 per cent of Scots funerals ended with burial; by 1977 over 50 per cent ended with cremation. This book tells the story of this change. It interprets the crises in burial practice in nineteenth-century urban Scotland and constructs the very first account of how Scottish cremationists pioneered a radical alternative to burial.

40

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781906566791 Price: £30.00 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2016 356pp b/w throughout, 32pp col plates


Non-Fiction Hebridean Calendar 2017 Hebridean Pocket Diary 2017 Hebridean Desk Diary 2017 Mairi Hedderwick

This beautiful stationery collection features distinctive full-colour paintings by one of Scotland’s best-loved authors and artists, Mairi Hedderwick, in a wonderful celebration of the extraordinary natural beauty of the Hebrides throughout the seasons. MAIRI HEDDERWICK was born in Gourock, Scotland. As a student she took a job as a mother’s help on the Isle of Coll in the Hebrides, beginning a life-long love affair with islands and their small communities. Her children were brought up there and now some of her grandchildren. Mairi’s island world is delightfully reflected in the imaginary island of Struay where her perennially popular Katie Morag stories are set. As well as creating children’s books Mairi writes and illustrates travel books for adults. She also illustrated the acclaimed Janet Reachfar books, which are published by Birlinn. She continues to live on Coll.

The paintings have been collected over the past forty years and show the changing faces of the landscapes. Mairi’s sketches range across many of the isles from Arran to Tiree, expertly capturing the essence of these beautiful and diverse islands, from wind-swept machair and dramatic cliffs to rolling hills and secluded woods.

ISBN: 9781780273396 Price: £9.99 Format: 300 x 300mm calendar Rights: World All Languages May 2016 24pp

Following the warm reception of the previous diaries and calendars, this new 2017 collection is set to enjoy continued success.

ISBN 9781780273419 Price: £7.99 Format: 156 x 110mm hbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 128pp

ISBN 9781780273402 Price: £12.99 Format: 230 x 170mm hbk Rights: World All Languages May 2016 128pp

www.birlinn.co.uk

41


Non-Fiction Scottish Maps Calendar 2017 In association with the National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland has the most comprehensive range of Scottish maps in existence, from medieval times to the present day. This stunning calendar features 12 of the most beautiful and historically significant maps from the library’s collection, covering all parts of the country and spanning a period of half a millennium. This is a wonderful companion to Birlinn’s bestselling Scotland: Mapping the Nation; Edinburgh: Mapping the City and Glasgow: Mapping the City and a brilliant addition to their successful stationery range which includes works featuring Mairi Hedderwick and the Great Tapestry of Scotland.

ISBN: 9781780273280 Price: £9.99 Format: 300 x 300mm calendar Rights: World All Languages May 2016 24pp

The Puffer Calendar 2017 David Hawson

DAVID HAWSON is a retired GP from Monymusk in rural Aberdeenshire, an accomplished photographer and a painter who has exhibited with the Royal Scottish Watercolour Society. He has sailed extensively throughout the west coast waters of Scotland and sketches and paints wherever he goes. His Puffer Cookbook, co-authored with Mandy Hamilton, was first published in 2013.

42

This beautiful calendar celebrates Vic 32, the last surviving Clyde Puffer, which was found derelict in Whitby harbour and lovingly restored by Nick and Rachel Walker. It is now a familiar sight along the west coast of Scotland as it steams up the Clyde estuary and round the islands of the Hebrides. The wonderful photographs in this calendar show it under its plume of smoke as it sails through some of the loveliest scenery on earth, and David Hawson’s vibrant paintings and line drawings adorn each month. Sales of the calendar support the Puffer Preservation Trust, the registered charity set up to maintain the Puffer and save this iconic vessel for future generations to enjoy.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273426 Price: £9.99 Format: 300 x 300mm calendar Rights: World All Languages May 2016 24pp


Non-Fiction KEY TITLES FROM 2015 The Rivals

Montrose and Argyll and the struggle for Scotland Murdo Fraser

The Railway Atlas of Scotland

Two Hundred Years of History in Maps David Spaven

ISBN: 9781780272382 Price: £30.00 Format: 305 x 270mm hbk Rights: World English Language September 2015 224pp colour & b/w throughout

ISBN: 9781780273068 Price: £9.99 Format: 198 x 129mm pbk Rights: World All Languages October 2015 224pp 8pp b/w plates

In this book Murdo Fraser examines two remarkable men, underlining their different personalities: Montrose, the brilliant military tactician – bold and brave but rash, and Campbell – altogether a more opaque figure, cautious, considered and difficult to read. The result is a vivid insight into two individuals who played a huge part in writing Scotland’s history, and a fascinating portrait of a time of intense political upheaval.

The rich diversity of Scotland’s railway network has never before been the subject of a specialist atlas. This book showcases 181 topographical and railway maps, telling the story of the country’s railways from the early nineteenth century to the present day, researched and written by David Spaven

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Mapping the City John Moore

Mapping the City Chris Fleet & Daniel McCannell

ISBN: 9781780272450 Price: £30.00 Format: 250 x 256mm hbk Rights: World All Languages October 2014 272pp b/w maps/diagrams throughout

Maps can tell much about the story of a place that traditional histories fail to communicate. This is particularly true of Edinburgh, one of the most visually stunning cities in Europe and a place rich in historical and cultural associations. This lavishly illustrated book features 80 maps of Edinburgh which have been selected for the particular stories they reveal.

www.birlinn.co.uk

ISBN: 9781780273198 Price: £30.00 Format: 250 x 256mm hbk Rights: World All Languages November 2015 400pp b/w maps/diagrams throughout

Maps can tell much about a place that traditional histories fail to communicate. This lavishly illustrated book features 80 maps which have been selected for the particular stories they reveal about different political, commercial and social aspects of Scotland’s largest city.

43


Non-Fiction KEY TITLES FROM 2015 101 Gins

Scotland

To Try Before You Die Ian Buxton

A History From Earliest Times Alistair Moffat

ISBN: 9781780272801 Price: £25 Format: 234 x 156mm hbk Rights: World All Languages September 2015 576pp 8pp 4x4

ISBN: 9781780272993 Price: £12.99 Format: 178 x 114mm hbk Rights: World English Language August 2015 224pp colour throughout

From the Ice Age to the recent Scottish Referendum, historian and author Alistair Moffat explores the history of the Scottish nation. From prehistoric timber halls to inventions and literature, Moffat’s tale explores the drama of battle, change, loss and invention interspersed with the lives of ordinary Scottish folk, the men and women who defined a nation.

We’re in the middle of a new Gin Craze. Scarcely a day goes by without an established brand offering a fresh take on their styles or, more likely, a new boutique distillery opening its doors – where gin is de rigueur. From Adnams to Zuidam; Beefeater to Bombay and London to Plymouth (and beyond), this new book from a best-selling drinks writer is the authoritative guide to the world of gin.

Also Available: The Great Tapestry of Scotland

9781780271606 £30.00 hbk

9781780271330 £9.99 pbk

The brainchild of bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat, and artist Andrew Crummy, the Great Tapestry of Scotland is an outstanding celebration of Scottish history and achievement from the end of the last Ice Age to the 21st century. More than 1,000 volunteer stitchers, led by stitch coordinator Dorie Wilkie, worked for 55,000 hours using 300 miles of wool to create the 160 panels of this extraordinary work of art.

‘The most ambitious attempt to capture the past in needle and thread since the Bayeux Tapestry . . . The result is not just visually stunning but intensely moving and occasionally very funny’ The Times

44

www.birlinn.co.uk


www.birlinn.co.uk


BIRLINN LTD West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS Tel: +44 (0) 131 668 4371 Fax: +44 (0) 131 668 4466 info@birlinn.co.uk

RIGHTS REPRESENTED BY Maria White maria@booklink.co.uk Mobile: +44 7866713512

CUSTOMER AND TRADE ORDERS Booksource 50 Cambuslang Road Cambuslang Investment Park Glasgow G32 8NB Tel: 0845 370 0067 Fax: 0845 370 0064 Intl: +44 (0) 141 643 3961

CREATIVE DIRECTOR James Hutcheson jim@birlinn.co.uk

MANAGING DIRECTOR Hugh Andrew hugh@birlinn.co.uk PUBLICITY AND MARKETING DIRECTOR / DEPUTY MD Jan Rutherford jan.ppw@janrutherford.co.uk PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Neville Moir neville@birlinn.co.uk FINANCE DIRECTOR Joanne Macleod joanne@birlinn.co.uk

SALES DIRECTOR Laura Poynton laura@birlinn.co.uk

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR (BIRLINN & BC BOOKS) Andrew Simmons andrew@birlinn.co.uk MANAGING EDITOR (POLYGON) Alison Rae alison@birlinn.co.uk ACADEMIC EDITOR (JOHN DONALD) Mairi Sutherland mairi@birlinn.co.uk EXPORT Carol Crawford carolc@birlinn.co.uk PRODUCTION MANAGER Liz Short liz@birlinn.co.uk SALES LIAISON MANAGER Vikki Reilly vikkir@birlinn.co.uk

www.birlinn.co.uk

www.birlinn.co.uk


SALES CONTACTS SCOTLAND Seol Ltd West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS Tel: +44 (0) 131 668 1456 Fax: +44 (0) 131 668 4466 Borders & Central Carol Crawford Email: carolc@seol.co.uk Tel: 07810 484001 Edinburgh, Lothians & Fife Vikki Reilly Email: vikkir@birlinn.co.uk Tel: 0131 655 1519 Argyll Hugh Andrew Email: hugh@seol.co.uk Highlands, Islands & the North Carole Hamilton Email: caroleh@seol.co.uk Tel: 07780 606493 ENGLAND AND WALES Compass IPSL GW Business Centre Great West House Great West Road Brentford Middlesex TW8 9DF Tel: +44 (0) 208 326 5696 Sales Administration Pat Vance Email: pat@compass-ips.london

AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND New South Books c/o TL Distribution 15-23 Hailes Avenue Moorebank NSW 2170 Australia Tel: (02) 8778 9999 Fax: (02) 8778 9944 Email: orders@tldistribution.com.au Website: www.newsouthbooks.com.au USA, CANADA & CHINA Independent Publishers Group (IPG) 814 North Franklin St Chicago, Illinois 60610 USA Tel: (312) 337 0747 Fax: (312) 337 5985 Email: frontdesk@ipgbook.com Military Titles Only Casemate 2114 Darby Road Havertown, PA 19083 USA Tel: (+1) 610 853 9131 Fax: (+1) 610 853 9146 Email: casemate@casematepublishing.com NORTHERN EUROPE Bill Bailey Publishers’ Representatives 16 Devon Square Newton Abbot Devon TQ12 2HR Tel: +44 1626 331079 Fax: +44 1626 331080 Email: info@billbaileypubreps.co.uk SOUTHERN EUROPE Ted Dougherty Export Sales Agency 72 Hadley Street London NW1 8TA Tel: 020 7482 2439 Fax: 020 7267 9310 Mob: 07802 500 448 Email: ted.dougherty@blueyonder.co.uk

TRADE TERMS All orders are subject to a 35% discount, unless otherwise arranged. The standard discount will be applied to all subscriptions and cash with order. Single copy orders are subject to a 20% discount. Orders with a net invoice value under £30 may be subject to a reduced discount of 25%. Returns Policy All books must be in mint condition and suitable for resale. All returns requests must be authorised in advance by Birlinn Ltd or an authorised representative. No out-of-print titles may be returned unless permission is sought from the publisher. Books may not be returned within three months or after twelve months from receipt by the customer. Single copy returns will not normally be accepted unless by special arrangement. Faulty books must be returned complete. Title page is not acceptable. Returns must be sent to the Booksource warehouse within one month of written authorisation being received, otherwise they may not be accepted. Returns should NOT be sent to the publisher’s office. All returns must have an authorised returns label and should be addressed to: Booksource 50 Cambuslang Road Glasgow G32 8NB

www.birlinn.co.uk

www.birlinn.co.uk



Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.