NEW TITLES 2013
Birlinn Limited was established in 1992, by Managing Director Hugh Andrew, and is comprised of a number of imprints. Birlinn publishes Scottish interest books, from biography to history, military history, sport and Scottish Gaelic. The name comes from the old Norse word ‘birlinn’, meaning a long boat or small galley used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages. 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, Alexander McCall Smith, as well as selected music and film titles. Polygon was originally set up by students of Edinburgh University in the late 1960s. Arena Sport is Birlinn’s sport imprint and is designed for the general trade. The sport books range from football and rugby, to golf and cycling. These books have an international as well as national appeal. Five or six titles per year are planned for publication. Arena’s first titles were published in June 2013. John Donald publishes academic books about Scotland.
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
Sales Director Laura Poynton laura@birlinn.co.uk Creative Director James Hutcheson jim@birlinn.co.uk Editorial Manager (Birlinn) Andrew Simmons andrew@birlinn.co.uk
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
Managing Editor (Polygon) Alison Rae alison@birlinn.co.uk Academic Editor (John Donald) Mairi Sutherland mairi@birlinn.co.uk
Managing Director Hugh Andrew hugh@birlinn.co.uk
Export Manager, Digital Development Manager, Sports Editor Peter Burns peter@birlinn.co.uk
Publishing Director Neville Moir neville@birlinn.co.uk
Production Manager Liz Short liz@birlinn.co.uk
Publicity and Marketing Director Jan Rutherford jan.ppw@janrutherford.co.uk
Sales and Marketing Liaison Vikki Reilly vikkir@birlinn.co.uk
Rights REPRESENTED BY SCRIPT AGENCY Maria White scriptagency2010@aol.co.uk Mobile: +44 7866713512
www.birlinn.co.uk www.polygonbooks.co.uk
New Titles 2013
NEW TITLES Praise for Alexander McCall Smith
‘One of the remarkable things about McCall Smith is the unwavering charm of his tone’ – Rosemary Goring, Sunday Herald ‘For me the nicest writer in Scotland is Alexander McCall Smith. The Importance of Being Seven made me feel good about life, the universe and everything, even poor wee Bertie’s mother, Irene.’ – Alex Gray, Herald
Bertie’s Guide to Life and Mothers A 44 Scotland Street Novel Alexander McCall Smith NEW ISBN 9781846972539 01 August 2013 Price £16.99 Hbk TPS 216x138mm Extent 368pp Category Fiction
‘His writing is as warm as cocoa, as cosy as thermal underwear, and just what the doctor ordered for cold winter evenings. Exceedingly good’ – The Times Once more, we catch up with the delightful goings-on in the fictitious 44 Scotland Street series. With customary charm and deftness, Alexander McCall Smith gives us another instalment in this popular series, now running in its ninth season in the Scotsman. Anything could happen to Bertie and the gang…
THE No. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY Alexander McCall Smith 9781846970610 01 November 2007 Price £50.00 Hbk 216x138mm Extent 220pp Category Fiction Rights: UK and Commonwealth excluding Canada
Precious Ramotswe, a cheerful woman of traditional build, is the founder of Botswana’s first and only ladies’ detective agency. Hers is a gentle interpretation of the detective role: solving her cases through her innate wisdom and understanding of human nature, she ‘helps people with problems in their lives’. With a tone that is as elegant as that which is unfailingly used by his protagonist, Alexander McCall Smith tenderly unfolds a picture of life in Gaborone with a mastery of comic understatement and an evident sympathy for his subjects and their milieu. In the background of all this is Botswana, a country of vast landscapes and echoing skies, so beautiful and entrancing that it breaks the heart. Mma Ramotswe has prepared the red bush tea and is waiting for you to join her. She has much to tell you.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
‘It is McCall Smith’s particular genius to be able to look on the brighter side of life, and he’s seldom done so more enjoyably’ – Scotsman ‘A joyous, charming portrait of city life and human foibles, which moves beyond its setting to deal with deep moral issues and love, desire and friendship’ – Sunday Express ‘Quirky and original . . . told with warmth, wit and intelligence, and McCall Smith’s cast of characters are beautifully observed. It’s a page-turner with many happy endings. Perfect’ – Daily Express ‘Richly illustrates McCall Smith’s absolute mastery of the art of storytelling’ – The Lady ‘Everything about [McCall Smith] is appealing. He’s just full of delight – it just bubbles out of him’ – Sunday Herald ‘A rare pleasure’ – Daily Telegraph ‘A publishing phenomenon’ – Guardian It is hard to think of a contemporary writer more genuinely engaging … [his] novels are also extremely funny: I find it impossible to think about them without smiling’ – Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday ‘A treasure of a writer whose books deserve immediate devouring’ – Marcel Berlins, Guardian ‘It delivers a benevolent commentary on the quirks of human nature and absurdities of modern life, occasionally exasperated but almost always kind. There is plenty of authorial wisdom but it’s always tongue-incheek, with a wink towards the reader’ – The Bookbag ‘Its author’s gentle humour and playful teasing out of moral dilemmas great and small are there in abundance.’ – Scotsman ‘Mr McCall Smith isn’t only incapable of writing an unfunny sentence, he is particularly wise on human weakness even in nice people. The way he gently and accurately exposes the less charitable thoughts that everyone sometimes thinks so resonates that you feel he can read your own mind’ – Kate Green, Country Life ‘There are those who fear McCall Smith will burn himself out, but I’m not one of them. It seems, rather, that as he breathes, so he writes. He is, thus, to be envied’ – Sunday Herald
new titles ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH is one of the world’s most prolific and most popular authors. For many years he was a professor of Medical Law, then, after the publication of his highly successful No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which has sold over 25 million copies, he devoted his time to the writing of fiction. His various series of books have been translated into over 46 languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the Corduroy Mansions novels.
TRAINS AND LOVERS The Heart’s Journey Alexander McCall Smith NEW ISBN 9781846972638 01 November 2013 Price £7.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 192pp Category Fiction
Also available as an eBook
ALSO AVAILABLE Imagine you’re on a train. Think about all the other people on the train with you, what their lives are or have been, and the different experiences you’ve all had. But there is one more thing that you undoubtedly all share: you have all been in love at one time or another. In this surprising and poignant story, four strangers meet on a journey from Edinburgh to London. Each has a tale of love and of railways: for Mark, a brief encounter on a railway platform leads to an impulsive and possibly dangerous decision; Kay recounts the long journey back to her childhood home in Australia and the love that was there; David remembers a teenage friendship that faded into love; and Michael makes a discovery that art and people may not be what they seem to at first glance. These are very different experiences, but throughout them all runs a deep current of love. And loving others, as one of the characters observes, is the good thing we do in our lives.
TRAINS AND LOVERS 9781846972454 Hbk £9.99
PRECIOUS and the mystery of the Missing Lion A New Case for Precious Ramotswe Alexander McCall Smith NEW ISBN 9781846972553 01 August 2013 Price £9.99 Hbk TPS 185x123mm Extent 96pp Category Children’s Fiction
Also available as an eBook
PRECIOUS AND THE MYSTERY OF MEERKAT HILL 9781846972546 pbk £6.99
Precious Ramotswe is on holiday, staying with her Aunty Bee at a safari camp deep in the Botswana countryside, and is excited when a new lion arrives. Not just any lion but an actor-lion called Teddy with his own film crew! But when the four-legged movie star goes missing, the camp is thrown into confusion. Can the young detective and her resourceful new friend Khumo solve the mystery and find out where Teddy has gone? The search plunges the two young sleuths deep into the jungle. As they dodge the hippos and crocs they will need all their bravery and cleverness to catch their prize. Find out if they succeed as Alexander McCall Smith tells us the story of Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion.
precious AND THE MONKEYS 9781846972195 pbk £6.99
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES
AFTER FLODDEN Rosemary Goring NEW ISBN 9781846972720 06 June 2013 Price £14.99 Hbk TPS 215x153mm Extent 336pp Category Historical Fiction
Also available as an eBook
‘A swashbuckling tale in the best tradition of adventure fiction . . . charged with melancholy and menace’ – Times Literary Supplement ‘The language has the kind of authoritative imagery that Cormac McCarthy brings to his novels about the American West . . . an impressive debut’ – Daily Express
ROSEMARY GORING was born in Dunbar, and took a degree in history at St Andrews University, winning a prize for Scottish History in her final year. She began a career in publishing in the role of in-house editor for Chambers Biographical Dictionary and has since edited and written for many reference books. She was Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday for several years before taking up the position of Literary Editor and columnist at The Herald and Sunday Herald. In 2007 her book Scotland the Autobiography: 2,000 Years of Scottish History by Those Who Saw It Happen was published to great acclaim by Viking. After Flodden is her first novel.
Patrick Paniter was James IV’s right-hand man, a diplomatic genius who was in charge of the guns at the disastrous battle of Flodden in September 1513 in which the English annihilated the Scots. After the death of his king he is tormented by guilt. When Louise Brenier, daughter of a rogue sea trader, asks his help to find out if her brother Benoit was killed in action, it is the least he can do to salve his conscience. Not satisfied with the news he brings, Louise sets off to find out the truth herself, and swiftly falls foul of one of the lawless clans that rule the ungovernable borderlands. After Flodden is a novel about the consequences of the battle of Flodden, as seen through the eyes of several characters who either had a hand in bringing the country to war, or were profoundly affected by the outcome. There have been very few novels about Flodden, despite its significance, and none from this perspective.
THE ART OF HEARING HEARTBEATS Jan-Philipp Sendker NEW ISBN 9781846972409 07 March 2013 Price £8.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 336pp Category Fiction
Also available as an eBook
‘A magical tale to capture your imagination’ – My Weekly ‘A truly beautiful story that will captivate and thaw the coldest of hearts’ – We Love This Book ‘Touching and affecting prose’ – Sunday Herald A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be … until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will change her life once more.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
JAN-PHILIPP SENDKER, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is his first novel. He lives in Berlin with his family.
new titles
BARRY FANTONI has had a long and illustrious career in the arts – from writing scripts for That Was The Week That Was and presenting BBC series A Whole Scene Going (for which he won TV Personality of the Year) to writing and drawing cartoons for Private Eye and The Listener, and being an art critic for The Times. He attended the Slade School of Fine Art and was a key figure in the 1960s pop art movement. Barry now lives in France where he plays jazz, writes plays and poetry, and plans to write two volumes of memoirs.
HARRY LIPKIN, P.I. The World’s Oldest Detective Barry Fantoni NEW ISBN 9781846972706 06 June 2013 Price £6.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 208pp Category Fiction
Also available as an eBook
‘Wisecracking and wise, humorous and humane – this is a great new tale with an original old twist’ – Ian Hislop ‘I love this man, Harry Lipkin. I want to eat blitzes with him and talk about macular degeneration all day. What I am trying to say is: this is a seriously funny book’ – A. J. Jacobs He might not be the fastest P. I. in Miami, but octogenarian Harry Lipkin is definitely the oldest. Harry’s specialty is taking on the cases the police just aren’t interested in – and his latest case is a doozy. Someone on the staff of wealthy widow Norma Weinberger is stealing from her. Nothing fancy, no diamond-encrusted teapots or anything, but enough to rattle her. Harry takes on the case, navigating his way – gingerly – through a twilight world of boxing, gambling and gangs to find the truth. Harry Lipkin, P.I. is a life-affirming tale of ageing and mortality as well as a laugh-out-loud whodunit. The fact that the guy keeps his gun next to his false teeth should tell you a lot. Elegantly written and beautifully illustrated by Andrew Aaron’s delightful drawings, this is an intoxicating blend of Woody Allen, Raymond Chandler and Larry David.
PEGGY BLAIR has practised law for more than thirty years, working as both a criminal defence lawyer and Crown prosecutor, and is a former member of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
MIDNIGHT IN HAVANA Peggy Blair NEW ISBN 9781846972348 04 July 2013 Price £8.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 352pp Category Crime Fiction
Also available as an eBook
‘Havana is as much a character as the people in Canadian author Peggy Blair’s fast-paced story’– New York Post ‘A thrilling and engrossing mystery that uses the intrigue of a communist Cuba setting to add not only an interesting backdrop but real jeopardy to the investigation’ – Bookbag ‘There is nothing like this perfect thriller. I was gripped to the very last chapter’ – Lovereading In beautiful, crumbling Old Havana, Canadian detective Mike Ellis hopes the sun and sand will help save his troubled marriage. He doesn’t yet know that it’s dead in the water – much like the little Cuban boy last seen begging the Canadian couple for a few pesos. For Inspector Ricardo Ramirez, head of the Major Crimes Unit of the Cuban National Revolutionary Police, finding his prime suspect isn’t a problem – Cuban law is. He has only 72 hours to secure an indictment and prevent a vicious killer from leaving the island. But Ramirez has his own troubles. He’s dying of the same illness that killed his grandmother, an incurable disease that makes him see the ghosts of victims of unsolved murders. As he races against time, the dead haunt his every step.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES
LONDON CALLING A Mirabelle Bevan Mystery Sara Sheridan NEW ISBN 9781846972430 07 March 2013 Price £16.99 Hbk TPS 228 x 153mm Extent 256pp Category Crime Fiction
Also available as an eBook
SARA SHERIDAN writes fiction for adults and children. Previous recent novels include The Secret Mandarin (2009) and Secret of the Sands (2011), both HarperCollins. She studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. Sara sits on the committee of the Society of Authors in Scotland and is Project Manager for the 26 Treasures Project in Scotland 2011. Sara has her own website – www.sarasheridan. co.uk – and is very active on Facebook and Twitter. She lives in Edinburgh with her family.
‘Mirabelle has a dogged tenacity to rival Poirot’ – Sunday Herald ‘Unfailingly stylish, undeniably smart’ – Daily Record ‘Plenty of colour and action . . . Highly recommended’ – Bookbag ‘A beguiling page-turner’ – Good Book Guide 1952, London. When eighteen-year-old debutante Rose Bellamy Gore goes missing in a seedy Soho jazz club the prime suspect is young sax player, Lindon Claremont. Lindon hightails it to Brighton to seek the help of his childhood friend, Vesta, who works with ex-Secret Service Mirabelle Bevan. When Lindon is taken into custody the two women dive into London’s underworld of smoky night clubs, fast cars and lethal cocktails to establish the truth.
VERITAS Rita Monaldi & Francesco Sorti NEW ISBN 9781846972577 06 June 2013 Price £16.99 Hbk TPS 216x138mm Extent 736pp Category Historical Fiction
Also available as an eBook
Brighton belle 9781846972287 pbk £7.99
London calling 9781846972652 4 July 2013 pbk £7.99
RITA MONALDI was born in 1966 and is an expert in the history of religions. Her husband Francesco Sorti was born in 1964 and has a background in musicology. Both Rita and Francesco have worked as journalists, but in recent years they have collaborated on several historical novels including Imprimatur and its sequels Secretum and Veritas. They live with their two young children in Vienna and Rome.
‘A tale of dazzling complexity involving fiendish plotting in the courts of Europe’ – Times Literary Supplement ‘Their novels are so rich in colour and context that it’s often hard to tell where the history stops and the fiction starts’ – The Lady Vienna, 1711. Eleven years after the events of Secretum, and by means of a mysterious bequest, Atto Melani arranges for his faithful helper to relocate from a Roman slum to the imperial court in Vienna. Here, Atto enlists his help in a secret mission to bring about the end of the war between France and Austria. Meanwhile, a Turkish delegation has arrived in Vienna for talks with Emperor Joseph I, despite the fact that Austria is supposed to be at peace with the Ottoman Empire. When the emperor suddenly falls ill with smallpox and students are targeted by a serial killer, fears grow that a centuries-old power struggle has been reignited. What can Atto and his helper do to prevent Europe from descending into all-out conflict? An unfinished palace known as the Place with No Name, an exotic menagerie and a fantastical Flying Ship are just some of the ingredients of this baroque spy novel which will intrigue and delight fans of Monaldi and Sorti’s series.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
imprimatur 9781846972645 pbk £9.99
Secretum 9781846971464 pbk £9.99
new titles
THE DAY WITHOUT YESTERDAY Stuart Clark NEW
STUART CLARK is a former editor of the UK’s bestselling popular astronomy magazine Astronomy Now and a visiting fellow of the University of Hertfordshire. His book The Sun Kings (Princeton University Press, 2007), established him as a popular science writer par excellence. He is Astronomy Consultant for the New Scientist. www.stuartclark.com
The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth 9781846972157 pbk £8.99
The Sky’s Dark Labyrinth 9781846971747 hbk £12.99
JAKE SIMONS is a novelist, journalist and graphic artist. His acclaimed first novel, The Exiled Times of a Tibetan Jew, was named by the Independent on Sunday as a Book of the Year. Jake writes features for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, the Telegraph, La Repubblica and other publications, and he is a contributor to BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent. Born in London in 1978, he is a fellow of The Royal Society of Arts, and Practitioner-inResidence at Bournemouth University. He lives with his family in Winchester. www.jakewallissimons.com
ISBN 9781846972478 01 February 2013 Price £12.99 Hbk TPS 216x138mm Extent 288pp Category Fiction
The Sensorium of god 9781846971877 hbk £12.99
Also available as an eBook
Europe is marching blindly into the First World War and Berlin is in a storm of nationalist marches and army recruitment. Albert Einstein anticipates the carnage to come when his university colleagues begin work on poison gas to ‘shorten the war’. He is also struggling with the collapse of his marriage in the wake of an illicit affair. Increasingly isolated, Einstein finds his academic work sidelined with few people entertaining his outlandish new way of understanding the universe. Meanwhile, in the trenches of the western front, a devoutly religious young Belgian Georges Lemaître vows to become both a physicist and a Catholic priest if he survives. When the war ends, Einstein does make his breakthrough and is thrust into the international limelight. Lemaître confronts him with a startling concept: that buried in the maths of the theory of relativity is a beginning of space and time, a moment when the universe came into existence – a day without yesterday. But can the priest be trusted? Or is he simply trying to foist a version of Biblical Genesis onto Einstein’s now world famous theory.
THE PURE Jake Simons NEW ISBN 9781846972737 04 July 2013 Price £7.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 336pp Category Fiction/Thriller
Also available as an eBook
‘Authentic & gripping’ – British SAS officer ‘If you are a thriller addict then this is definitely for you’ – Birmingham Recorder ‘Brilliant piece of work . . . a well-written and gripping narrative makes for an entertaining, thought-provoking piece of work’ – We Love This Book Disaffected ex-Mossad agent, Uzi, works as a security guard and low-level drug dealer in London. Uzi gets the chance to expose the ruthlessness of his former employers by giving the details of a top-secret assassination operation to WikiLeaks – a story so damaging to the Israeli government that an opposition party is prepared to pay to ensure WikiLeaks gets the scoop. But once it’s out there, Uzi will be a marked man …
The English German Girl 9781846972089 Pbk £8.99
A blistering new thriller for fans of Ludlum and Baldacci.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES
THE SECRET A Dr Steven Dunbar Thriller Ken McClure NEW ISBN 9781846972614 05 September 2013 Price £16.99 Hbk TPS 234x156mm Extent 252pp Category Thriller/Suspense
KEN MCCLURE is an internationally bestselling author whose books have been translated into over 20 languages and who has earned a reputation for meticulous research and the chilling accuracy of his predictions. McClure’s work is informed by his background as an award-winning research scientist with the UK’s Medical Research Council.
Also available as an eBook
‘His medical thrillers out-chill both Michael Crichton and Robin Cook’ – Daily Telegraph ‘McClure’s intelligence and familiarity with microbiology enable him to make accurate predictions. Using his knowledge, he is deciding what could happen, then showing how it might happen . . . It is McClure’s creative interpretation of the material that makes his books so interesting’ – Guardian ‘Well wrought, plausible and unnerving’ – The Times When an old friend, Dr Simone Ricard of Medecins sans Frontières, dies in an accident in Prague, Steven Dunbar is immediately suspicious. Simone and her team have been struggling to eradicate polio in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan and suspect their failure may be the result of fake CIA aid teams who are actually hunting for Osama bin Laden.
Lost causes 9781846972133 pbk £7.99
Donor 9781846971624 pbk £7.99
Wildcard 9781846971631 pbk £7.99
HYPOCRITES’ ISLE 9781846972676 pbk £8.99
white death 9781846971488 pbk £7.99
dust to dust 9781846971815 pbk £7.99
A memory card posted to Steven by Simone contains vital information – information which a rogue officer from the Pakistani Intelligence Service is desperate to get hold of.
THE ROAD TO HELL An Alice Rice Mystery Gillian Galbraith NEW ISBN 9781846972522 05 September 2013 Price £7.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 224pp Category Crime Fiction
Also available as an eBook
Gillian Galbraith grew up near Haddington. For seventeen years she was an advocate specialising in medical negligence and agricultural law cases. Before qualifying in law she worked for a time as an agony aunt in magazines for teenagers. Since then she has been the legal correspondent for the Scottish Farmer and has written law reports for The Times. She lives near Kinross with her husband and daughter, plus assorted cats, dogs, hens and bees.
‘Highly readable’ – Alexander McCall Smith ‘An author to watch’ – Publishing News ‘[Galbraith] offers a much needed female perspective on the city and the genre’ – Scottish Field When the body of a half-clothed woman is discovered in an Edinburgh park, a murder investigation is launched. The victim has not been reported missing and there are few clues to her identity. Soon after, the naked corpse of a prominent clergyman is found, also in a park. DS Alice Rice wonders if the same killer is at work, and if so, what is the connection between the apparently motiveless attacks? The Road to Hell, the fifth in the series, takes the policewoman to new personal depths and along a trail that leads to some of Edinburgh’s darkest and scariest corners. WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
Blood in the Water 9781841831121 pbk £7.99
No Sorrow to Die 9781846971754 pbk £7.99
Where the Shadow Falls 9781846971068 pbk £7.99
Dying of the Light 9781846971433 pbk £7.99
new titles
David Ashton was born in Greenock in 1941. He studied at Central Drama School, London, from 1964 to 1967, and most recently appeared in The Last King of Scotland. David started writing in 1984 and he has seen many of his plays and TV adaptations broadcast – he wrote early episodes of EastEnders and Casualty, and six McLevy series for BBC Radio 4.
NOR WILL HE SLEEP An Inspector McLevy Mystery David Ashton NEW ISBN 9781846972515 05 September 2013 Price £7.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 288pp Category Historical Fiction
Also available as an eBook
‘McLevy is one of the great psychological creations and Ashton is the direct heir to Robert Louis Stevenson’ – Brian Cox, star of the BBC radio 4 McLevy play ‘David Ashton’s writing is excellent, his characters thoroughly convincing, and his narrative grabs you . . . and doesn’t let you go’ – The Sherlock Holmes Society of London Shadow of the Serpent 9781846971938 Pbk £8.99
Fall From Grace 9781846970504 Pbk £6.99
A Trick of the Light 9781846972027 Pbk £8.99
‘An intriguing Victorian detective story . . . elegant and convincing’ – The Times 1887. The streets of Edinburgh seethe with anarchy as two gangs of students rival each other in wild exploits. After a pitched battle between them, an old woman is found savagely battered to death in Leith Harbour. Enter the Thieftaker – Inspector James McLevy. With Constable Mulholland at his side, he scours the low dives of the waterfront and then sees the tendrils of the case spread to more respectable nooks and crannies.
IAIN CRICHTON SMITH, born in Glasgow, brought up on Lewis, and attended university in Aberdeen. After working as a teacher in Clydebank and Dumbarton, he taught at the High School in Oban until he took early retirement in 1977. He was the recipient of many literary awards and received an OBE in 1980. His widow, Donalda, still lives in Taynuilt, where the couple moved after their marriage in 1977.
AFTER THE DANCE Selected Stories of Iain Crichton Smith Edited by Alan Warner NEW ISBN 9781846972966 03 October 2013 Price £8.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 256pp Category Fiction
‘One whose imaginative and creative fertility and energy were to become the wonder of literary Scotland’ – Sorley Maclean ‘The range and variety of his work, and the naturalness of his best pieces, will always attract and please’ – Edwin Morgan Iain Crichton Smith was one of Scotland’s most prolific writers – from short stories, novels, radio and stage plays to critical essays and volumes of poetry. A reticent man who was addicted to detective fiction and crosswords, he was raised speaking Gaelic on the island of Lewis. At school he learned English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture was divided. After the Dance proves that big themes – love, history, power, submission, death – can be addressed without the foil of irony and acquire resonance when given a local habitation and a voice that risks pure, humane, impassioned speech.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES
MAN ON THE RUN Paul McCartney in the 1970s Tom Doyle NEW ISBN 9781846972393 05 September 2013 Price £17.99 Hbk TPS 234x156mm Extent 304pp Illustrations 16pp b/w Category Music/Biography
Also available as an eBook
‘The go-to guy if you want to coax confessions from a superstar, Doyle writes without agenda’ – Mojo
TOM DOYLE is an acclaimed music journalist, author and long-standing contributing editor to Q, whose work has also appeared in Mojo, the Guardian, Marie Claire, Elle, The Times and Sound on Sound. Over the years he has been responsible for key magazinecover profiles of Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Kate Bush, Elton John, R.E.M. and U2, amongst many others. He is the author of The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life of Billy Mackenzie (Bloomsbury 1998, Polygon 2011) which has attained the status of a classic rock biography since its original publication.
The most famous living rock musician on the planet, Paul McCartney is now regarded as a slightly cosy figure, an (inter)national treasure. Back in the 1970s, however, McCartney cut a very different figure. He was, literally, a man on the run. Desperately trying to escape the shadow of the Beatles, he became an outlaw hippy millionaire, hiding out on his Scottish farmhouse in Kintyre before travelling the world with makeshift bands and barefoot children. It was a time of numerous drug busts and brilliant, banned and occasionally baffling records. Tom Doyle paints an illuminating picture: from McCartney’s personal crisis following the Beatles’ split through his apparent victimisation by the authorities to the rude awakening of his imprisonment for marijuana possession in Japan in 1980 and the shocking wake-up call of John Lennon’s murder. Ultimately, it poses the question: if you were one quarter of the Beatles, could you really outrun your past?
SONGS IN THE KEY OF FIFE The Intertwining Stories the Fence Collective Vic Galloway NEW ISBN 9781846972355 22 August 2013 Price £14.99 Pbk TPS 234x156mm Extent 288pp Illustrations 16pp colour plates Category Music/Biography
Also available as an eBook
‘A book which capably mixes history, intimacy and a rich sense of place, and one which appeals beyond these artists’ existing fanbases.’ – The Scotsman The East Neuk of Fife may seem like an unusual place for a musical revolution. However, in amongst the sleepy fishing villages and rolling fields, a small outsider community of critically acclaimed musicians has quietly crept up on the world. From psychedelic troubadours The Beta Band to the multi-million-selling KT Tunstall, singer-songwriter James Yorkston and the reigning monarch and lynchpin of the Fence Collective, King Creosote, Songs in the Key of Fife plots the unique, intertwining tales of these Fifers from their schooldays to the present day. Written by BBC Radio broadcaster and TV presenter Vic Galloway, this fascinating story is not only an in-depth exploration of this heartfelt music and the individuals who make it, but also a psychogeographical quest to find out why this craggy, sun-kissed rural outpost on the east coast of Scotland has provided us with so many talented people.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
The Glamour Chase 9781846972096 pbk £12.99
Vic Galloway is a BBC Radio broadcaster and TV presenter whose radio programmes have been broadcast for more than a decade on Radio 1, Radio Scotland and 6 Music. His music journalism has appeared in a number of publications, including The Times and the Herald. Vic is also a musician and member of the Fence Collective.
new titles
What Presence! The Rock Photography of Harry Papadopoulos Foreword by Peter Capaldi Introduction by Ken McCluskey
Harry Papadopoulos was born in Garelochhead in 1954. He studied electrical and electronic engineering at Paisley College of Technology and later became a teacher of maths and physics. A self-taught photographer who began his career taking photographs at gigs in the late 1970s and 1980s, following a long stint at music weekly Sounds he became editor of Marvel Comics publications such as Star Trek and The Flintstones. In August 2002 Harry suffered a brain aneurysm and returned home to Glasgow in 2006 where he now lives.
NEW ISBN 9781846972560 Price £20.00 Pbk TPS 254x254mm Extent 146pp Illustrations b/w throughout Category Photography
Also available as an eBook
‘It’s wild seeing this stuff … reminds me of being a kid who loved and lived for nothing except for music/bands. I hope you enjoy the photos in this book as much as I have’ – Bobby Gillespie, Primal Scream ‘In the midst of Scotland’s punk explosion, a Glasgow maths teacher hung up his mortar board and picked up a camera. His name was Harry Papadopoulos and his photos would come to define and inform Scottish popular culture in the 1980s’ – Herald ‘In a swift shutter’s click, he captured an era when the sound of Scotland echoed across Britain and the world’ – Scotsman Relive the inky-fingered days of the 1980s music press with this fascinating look at the work of guerrilla lensman Harry Papadopoulos.
LUST FOR LIFE! Irvine Welsh and the Trainspotting Phenomenon John Neil Munro NEW
john neil munro was born in Campbeltown and raised in Stornoway. He studied modern and economic history at Glasgow University then completed a postgraduate journalism course in Cardiff during the late 1980s. His previous publications include The Sensational Alex Harvey (Firefly Publishing, 2002, reprinted by Polygon, 2008), Some People are Crazy (2010) and When George Came to Edinburgh (2010).
ISBN 9781846972423 06 August 2013 Price £12.99 Pbk TPS 234x156mm Extent 220pp Illustrations 16pp b/w Category Popular Culture
Also available as an eBook
In the early 1980s Irvine Welsh’s life was going nowhere fast. His teenage dreams of being a footballer or a rock star were over, and he was stuck in a series of white-collar jobs he loathed. With the last throw of the dice, he started writing, and in 1993 his debut novel, Trainspotting, was published. Only 3,000 copies were printed, and the word was that Irvine might become a cult author, a Scottish Bukowski. The sensational alex harvey 9781846970887 pbk £9.99
some people are crazy 9781846971655 pbk £8.99
when george came to edinburgh 9781841588896 pbk £9.99
But rave reviews followed, and the book – memorably decribed as ‘the voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent’ – rapidly achieved global success (selling over one million copies in the UK alone). It was followed, in 1996, by Danny Boyle’s much acclaimed, raw, highenergy film, which kickstarted the careers of several young Scots such as Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner and Kelly Macdonald. So how did Irvine Welsh write the most talked-about book of a generation? Here, to mark the novel’s twentieth anniversary, is the inside story of the Trainspotting phenomenon.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES
Rowing After the White Whale A Crossing of the Indian Ocean by Hand James Adair NEW ISBN 9781846972508 22 April 2013 Price £12.99 Pbk TPS 205 x 153mm Extent 224pp Category True Life/Adventure
JAMES ADAIR read Modern History at the University of St Andrews. To finance his dream of rowing an ocean he took a job as a shipbroker with HSBC in London. In the aftermath of his and Ben’s incredible journey, he has returned to shipbrokerage and is currently based in Barcelona.
Also available as an eBook
‘ Neither James Adair nor Ben Stenning had rowed a boat before they drunkenly agreed to row the Indian Ocean. And these amazing pictures show just how committed the two 32-year-olds were to live up to Ernest Hemingway’s famous words: Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk.’ – Daily Mail ‘This is an outstanding book brilliantly written’ – Shipping Today and Yesterday Over a boozy Sunday lunch, flatmates James Adair and Ben Stenning made a promise to row across the ocean. At first they considered the Pacific, then the Atlantic, but once James Cracknell and Ben Fogle completed the high-profile Atlantic Rowing Race, their thoughts turned to the Indian Ocean, longer and tougher than the Atlantic and having seen fewer people row across its waters than have walked on the Moon. After years of planning and fund raising, they were ready to launch in spring 2011. Neither James nor Ben had any rowing or sailing experience. To add to this, James had contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome at the age of 14, which had locked his body into total paralysis for three months (while his mind had remained completely active) and which had left him with paralysed feet. This was a challenge that neither man should have ever considered …
The Lure of the Honey Bird The Storytellers of Ethiopia Elizabeth Laird NEW ISBN 9781846972461 08 August 2013 Price £12.99 Pbk TPS 216x138mm Extent 304pp Category Travel and adventure
Also available as an eBook
‘Laird’s knowledge of Ethiopia is astounding and accurate . . . she writes with an emapthy many writers lack’ – The List ‘Laird’s expedition has resulted in a travelogue of genuine cultural interest’ – Herald In 1967, at the age of 23, Elizabeth Laird set off for Addis Ababa to take up her first teaching post. She was introduced to Haile Selassie, made a pilgrimage across the mountains on foot to the ancient city of Lalibela, hitched a ride on an oil tanker across the Danakil Desert, and was arrested for a murder she had not committed. Back in Britain, Laird established herself as a major author of fiction for children and young adults, but she always wanted to return to Ethiopia. Her chance came in the late 1990s, when the British Council in Addis Ababa invited her to collect folk stories from every region of the country. Encountering ex-guerrilla fighters, camel traders, Coptic nuns and tribespeople en route, Laird has written a remarkable account of her journey interwoven with a treasure trove of stories featuring princes and maidens, snakes and lions, zombies and hyena-women.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
ELIZABETH LAIRD was born in New Zealand in 1943, the fourth of five children. In 1945, Laird and her family returned to Britain and she grew up in South London, where she was educated at Croydon High School, university in Bristol and the University of Edinburgh.
new titles
Michael Pedersen is a poet, playwright and animateur with an electric reputation on the performance circuit and a prolific precedent of collaborations, having teamed up with some of the UK’s top musicians, filmmakers and artists. He is co-founder and circus master at Neu! Reekie! – now one of the country’s most formidable literary nights and DIY record labels – and a key creative within Dream Tower Productions. He’s also the lyricist for cult band Jesus, Baby! and has written short plays for various troupes including the National Theatre of Scotland.
PLAY WITH ME Michael Pedersen NEW ISBN 9781846972607 Price £9.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 72pp Category Poetry
Also available as an eBook
‘Michael’s poems are so physical you can almost touch the images in them. Fabulously sensual and alive. I adore poetry like this’ – Stephen Fry ‘Michael Pedersen’s first collection, playful indeed from its provocative and inviting title onwards, is a breath of fresh air’ – Liz Lochhead ‘Plenty of gems in this wordpile’ – John Hegley ‘If you like poetry that is cool, smart, hilarious and quirky and can just suddenly rip your heart out, Michael Pedersen is your man’ – Irvine Welsh From NHS overdose clinics to overrun gardens, talking Cambodian treehouses to the teenage perversion of a young Scot on a French Exchange, Pedersen’s poetry is a rich and fantastical feast of flavours, landscape and language. On the menu is everything from iced oysters and chateaubriand to pickled onions and Buckfast-soaked bread sticks. Like the man himself, these poems will tingle toes and raise eyebrows in equal measures.
Meg Bateman was born in Edinburgh in 1959. Her poetry is included in numerous anthologies such as The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse and The Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland since 1945. Her two collections, Aotromachd / Lightness and Soirbheas / Fair Wind, both published by Polygon, were shortlisted for the Scottish Book of the Year award in 1997 and 2007.
TRANSPARENCIES Meg Bateman NEW ISBN 9781846972591 Price £9.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 108pp Category Poetry
Also available as an eBook
‘The content of her work is often extremely personal, yet her voice is neither individualistic nor off-puttingly subjective. There is a humanity and humility here that means readers find themselves listening to songs that are timeless and universal.’ – James Reid Baxter ‘Transparencies is a strong collection showing a highly skilled poet on top of her craft . . . a very individual voice’ – Brian McCabe For some, the title Transparencies will bring to mind family photos of the 1960s and 1970s, and many of the poems in this collection are indeed nostalgic. But the book is mostly about the transparency of existence, as veils of meaning dissolve and reform, both in the physical world and in those areas of language, memory and love that most define us.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
NEW TITLES FOUND AT SEA Andrew Greig NEW ISBN 9781846972690 Price £8.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 72pp Category Poetry
Andrew Greig‘s first book was the poetry collection White Boats and his novel, In Another Light, won the Saltire Society prize in 2004. He has also had success with mountaineering titles, including Summit Fever and the mountain poetry collections Men on Ice and Surviving Passages. In 1996 The Return of John Macnab was shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Award.
Also available as an eBook
‘A lyric poet of rare gusto’ – Observer ‘A bold attempt at imbuing epic scope and adventure into a book-length sequence’ – The Guardian Andrew Greig recounts in poetic sequence the tale of his open dinghy voyage from Stromness in Scapa Flow and an overnight stay on Cava (an island formerly inhabited for over twenty years by two unusual women) in poetic sequence. In sailing small boats in scary open waters Andrew Greig found a new activity and a new metaphor for life. Written in six weeks, Found at Sea is a ‘very wee epic’ about sailing, male friendship and a voyage. Bon voyage!
FRISSURE
FRISSURE Prose Poems and Artworks Kathleen Jamie & Brigid Collins Special Limited Edition ISBN 9781846972751 Price £15 limited edition TPS 200x260mm Hbk Extent 40pp
Also available as an eBook
‘To be healed is not to be saved from mortality but rather, released back into it: we are returned to the wild, into possibilities for ageing and change.’ – Kathleen Jamie Frissure is a unique collaboration betwen two of Scotland’s leading artists, one a prize-winning poet, the other a celebrated painter and illustrator. This is an exquisite collection of prose-poems and illustrative work exploring healing, mortality, intimacy, memory and the natural world. It is about the intimate process of looking and seeing as it passes from one person – a cancer patient – looking at herself, from being ‘examined’ by a surgeon, to being looked at by an artist. In each situation a transformation occurs. The gaze of the patient on her own body and its post-operative scarring is objectified by that of the surgeon assessing the success of his work. But then the creative eye of the artist takes over and what was regarded as a mark of disease and of violation takes on an extraordinary flowering, and becomes a thing of beauty.
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
getting higher 9781846971921 Pbk £12.99
Kathleen Jamie’s poetry collections to date include The Overhaul which won the 2012 Costa Poetry Prize and The Tree House, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award. Her non-fiction includes the highly regarded volumes Findings and Sightlines. She is Professor of Poetry at Stirling University, and lives with her family in Fife. Brigid Collins is an artist, illustrator and lecturer. She runs creative workshops for all ages and also lectures at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, in Dundee.
new titles
Everyone wanted to know who the artist was and why she had made the sculptures. Still wishing to keep her anonymity, she agreed to cooperate in the making of this book, revealing her inspiration as her love of literature, especially the work of Ian Rankin and his portrayal of Edinburgh, and her desire to pay tribute to those places that open up the world of the imagination. In her own words, the enterprise was ‘In support of libraries, books, words and ideas’. This book is a celebration of her gift.
GIFTED The Tale of 10 Mysterious Book Sculptures Gifted to the City of Words and Ideas Anonymous Introduction by artist NEW ISBN 9781846972768 Price £9.99 Hbk TPS 190x148mm Extent 96pp Category Art/Sculptures Illustrations 60 colour illustrations throughout
Also available as an eBook
‘As symbols of love for libraries go, cutting up books wouldn’t be most readers’ first thought. But the delicate paper sculptures that have been left anonymously in recent months around Edinburgh’s cultural institutions have been enchanting’ – Guardian ‘It is an extraordinary thing that someone has done these beautiful things for absolutely nothing other than pleasure and interest and enthusiasm and love for places and books’ – Lilias Fraser, Scottish Poetry Library One day in March 2011 staff at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh noticed a wonderful paper sculpture left on a table. Carved from paper and mounted on a book, it bore a tag expressing support for the library’s work. From then until November 2011 nine more mysterious paper sculptures appeared in arts venues throughout Edinburgh, including the National Library of Scotland, the Filmhouse Cinema, the National Museum of Scotland and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Left anonymously, they appear to be the work of one highly talented and generous artist. In a farewell note, the artist identified herself as a woman and an artist/artisan, and she announced that the project had ended.
Timothy neat is a writer, photographer, filmmaker, art historian, folklorist and artist. He has worked closely with a number of creative personalities and his work puts up a mirror to both traditional life and modern art in Scotland. His published books include: Part Seen Part Imagined (1994),The Summer Walkers (1996), and the two volume biography of Hamish Henderson (2007, 2009); films include Play Me Something (winner of the 1989 Europa Prize) and Hallaig: The Poetry and Landscape of Sorley MacLean (1984).
THESE FACES Photographs and Drawings Timothy Neat Foreword by John Berger NEW ISBN 9781846972775 27 September 2013 Price £20.00 Pbk TPS 275x225mm Extent 192pp Illustrations b/w throughout Category Photography
‘These photos offer a far greater sense of continuity than most photos do, and these drawings have the air of being far more spontaneous than most drawings. Let me put this another way: in this anthology of faces we come very close, again and again, to perceiving and sharing a human destiny’ – John Berger These Faces is a book of encounters. The background to these encounters is Neat’s lifetime work as a filmmaker, writer, researcher and storyteller in which he has followed the lives of individuals and communities often qualified as marginal: small-time fishermen, shepherds, bards, costermongers; travelling people from the Highlands and the Scottish islands; workers in Yorkshire; and villagers in Andalucia. The book contains more than 150 monochrome photographs reproduced from the highest quality prints by master-printer Robin Bell. The book is introduced by John Berger, with whom Neat has worked since 1978, most recently in Avignon, July 2012. Neat captions and contextualises the photographs, and a number of short poems give ‘space and measure’ to the images. WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
REPRINTS
A Scots Quair Lewis Grassic Gibbon ISBN 9781904598824 Price £9.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 736pp Category Fiction
The Translator Leila Aboulela Introduction by Anne Donovan ISBN 9781846970801 Price £7.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 240pp
Magnus George MacKay Brown
The Killer Angels Michael Shaara
ISBN 9781846970627 Price £6.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 192pp Category Fiction
ISBN 9781846972669 Price £8.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 384pp Category Historical Fiction
Boyracers Alan Bissett
The Many Days Selected Poems of Norman MacCaig
ISBN 9781846971785 Price £7.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 256pp Category Fiction
Edited by Roderick Watson ISBN 9781846971716 Price £9.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 128pp Category Poetry
WWW.polygonBOOKS.CO.UK
A TIME TO KEEP George Mackay Brown ISBN 9781904598657 Price £7.99 Pbk TPS 198x129mm Extent 192pp Category Fiction
Inside the Wicker Man How Not to Make a Cult Classic Allan Brown Foreword by Edward Woodward ISBN 9781846971440 Price £12.99 Pbk (Also available as an eBook) TPS 198x129mm Extent 272pp Illustrations 12pp b/w plates Category Film
Reprints
SCOTLAND Seol Ltd West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS Tel: +44 (0) 131 668 1456 Fax: +44 (0) 131 668 4466 West Carol Crawford Email: carolc@seol.co.uk Tel: 07810 484001 East Vikki Reilly Email: vikkir@birlinn.co.uk Tel: 07920 018136 Argyll Hugh Andrew Email: hugh@seol.co.uk Highlands and Islands Carole Hamilton Email: caroleh@seol.co.uk Tel: 07780 606493 England and Wales Compass DSA Limited Swan Centre Fishers Lane Chiswick W4 1RX Tel: +44 (0) 1628 559500 Fax: +44 (0) 1628 663876 Sales Administration Pat Vance Email: pat@compass-dsa.co.uk
Southern Africa (Polygon Only) Penguin South Africa 24 Sturdee Avenue Rosebank Johannesburg 2196 Tel: (+27) 11 327 3550 Fax: (+27) 11 327 3660/6574 Email: info@za.penguingroup.com 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 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 ÂŁ30 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
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
www.polygonbooks.co.uk
www.birlinn.co.uk