Sandstone Press
FICTION AND NON-FICTION
2011
SANDSTONE PRESS DINGWALL, ROSS-SHIRE HIGHLAND SCOTLAND Dear Reader, Welcome to our latest catalogue and a slightly new way of doing things. Our final customers, the readers themselves, wholesalers and retailers, buyers of all kinds, should find this document of interest and use. All necessary trade details are included, as are the covers and descriptions of the titles. Our output has now settled into non-fiction, fiction, and our pioneering readers in Gaelic. Non-fiction has a high proportion of outdoor and mountaineering titles, both as jacketed hardbacks and more conventional paperbacks, but it also includes such titles as Liz Ashworth’s delightful Orkney Spirit, The Long Bridge by Urszula Muskus, and our flagship Edwin Morgan biography Beyond the Last Dragon by James McGonigal. Entering our fiction list in 2011 are Jane Rogers with her eighth novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, Mark Douglas-Home’s new crime novel, The Sea Detective is our first hardback fiction, Robert Davidson’s Site Works, and Zoe Strachan’s Ever Fallen in Love. Robert Davidson is also co-author of John Allen’s Cairngorm John (now in paperback) and the equally distinguished Shadow behind the Sun by Remzije Sherifi. Adding to our repertoire we will be publishing high quality translations for the first time. I should have lifted you carefully over by Wencke Muhleisen has been moving people deeply in Norway as well as asking questions of them. Dregs by Jørn Lier Horst introduces the latest Scandinavian police hero, William Wisting. Spice is added to this series since Jørn Lier Horst actually is a practicing policeman working at the same job, and in the same location, as Wisting. At time of writing this title has just been short-listed for the prestigious Norwegian Riverton Prize (Golden Gun). Our fifth Gaelic title is added, San Dùthaich Ùir, by Alison Lang, confirming and extending our commitment to Europe’s oldest living language. Please do now take the time to browse through our catalogue. Our earlier books, which are mostly still in print, can be found on our web site at www.sandstonepress.com With best wishes, Robert Davidson Managing Director
The Testament of Jessie Lamb Jane Rogers
Women are dying in their millions. Some blame scientists, some see the hand of God, some see human arrogance reaping the punishment it deserves. Jessie Lamb is an ordinary girl living in extraordinary times: as her world collapses, her idealism and courage drive her towards the ultimate act of heroism. If the human race is to survive, it’s up to her. But is Jessie heroic? Or is she, as her father fears, impressionable, innocent, incapable of understanding where her actions will lead? Set just a month or two in the future, in a world irreparably altered by an act of biological terrorism, The Testament of Jessie Lamb explores a young woman’s determination to make her life count for something, as the certainties of her childhood are ripped apart.
AUTHOR
‘You’ll be blown away by this new novel of Jane Rogers’ KATY GUEST, Sunday Independent
Jane Rogers has written eight novels including Her living Image (Somerset Maugham Award), Mr Wroe’s Virgins (Guardian Fiction prize shortlisted), Promised Lands (Writers Guild Best Novel Award), Island (Orange long-listed), and The Voyage Home. She has written drama for radio and TV, including an award-winning adaptation of Mr Wroe’s Virgins, directed by Danny Boyle. www.janerogers.org
FICTION
ISBN: 978-1-905207-58-9 RRP: B format paperback £7.99 PUBLICATION DATE: 25th February 2011
Site Works
The Ness and Struie Drainage Project
Robert Davidson In the corner of the door lintel a cobweb shone like silver. Like me the spider works through instinct. It just gets up and gets on with the job without thought. Every so often it turns out something perfect. On a wind lashed coast in the far north a group of men assemble on a construction site. The Ness and Struie Drainage Project will dominate their lives for the next few months as they toil through the daylight hours and into the night, endure hardship and conflict and – mostly - survive. Within the compound and fencelines a new, temporary world will form, bounded by sea, mountains and sky. Site Works is the story of the men and their work, transients creating something permanent and greater than they know.
AUTHOR
Robert Davidson is co-author of the celebrated Shadow Behind the Sun and Cairngorm John.
Robert Davidson is a writer and editor based in Highland Scotland. He is the author, co-author, and editor of many books as well as a published poet, lyricist and librettist. Before altering his life’s course he worked in civil engineering, mainly in or around the water industry. It is this experience which informs Site Works. Books written by Robert Davidson have been short listed for the Saltire Society, Scottish Arts Council, and Boardman Tasker Awards. ISBN: 978-1-905207-63-3 RRP: B format paperback £7.99 PUBLICATION DATE: 29th April 2011.
The Sea Detective Mark Douglas-Home
‘Help me, please help me.’ It was a young woman’s voice, pleading with him. He opened the door, certain this was the biggest mistake of his life, and there she was, a feral creature in dirty clothes, with hollowed cheeks and scabs on her cracked lips. Her closest friend died three years ago, her body fished out of the sea off the Argyll coast, and she believes only Cal can help her find out what happened. This is not the only unexplained death haunting Cal McGill, a part-time PhD oceanography student with a macabre interest in floating corpses. Severed feet are washing ashore on Scotland’s beaches and McGill wants to know if they’re wearing trainers. The answer could make all the difference between accident and murder. Then there’s the tragedy of his grandfather who was lost at sea, the mystery which sparked his childhood fascination for tracking flotsam across oceans, the mystery he’s now determined to solve.
AUTHOR Mark Douglas-Home is a successful journalist turned author. He was editor of Scotland’s leading daily newspaper, The Herald, for five years and editor of The Sunday Times Scotland. He has also held senior roles with The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. When he was Scottish correspondent of The Independent he reported on both the Lockerbie and Piper Alpha disasters. His career began as a student in South Africa where he edited the newspaper at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. After the apartheid government banned a number of editions, he was deported from the country. He is married with two children and lives in Edinburgh. The Sea Detective is his first novel.
Ever Fallen In Love Zoë Strachan
Richard fell for Luke at university. Luke was handsome, dissolute, dangerous; together they did things that Richard has spent the last decade trying to forget. Now his career is on the brink of success, but his younger sister Stephie’s life is in pieces. Her invasion of Richard’s remote west coast sanctuary forces Richard to confront the tragedy and betrayal of his past, and face up to his own role in what happened back then. In this compelling, visceral tale of how not to fit in, Zoë Strachan takes us on a journey through hedonistic student days to the lives we didn’t expect to end up living, and the hopes and fears that never quite leave us.
AUTHOR Zoë Strachan is the author of two previous successful novels, Negative Space and Spin Cycle. She was selected as one of the twenty best young novelists in Britain by the Independent. Negative Space won a Betty Trasker award and was short listed for the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award. She has received two writer’s bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council, a Hawthornden Fellowship and was UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland. In 2008 she was awarded a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and in 2009 received a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship which took her to France to write. She lives in Glasgow where she teaches part time on the prestigious Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. ISBN: 978-1-905207-73-2 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 15th July 2011.
Nothing here feels neat or pat, and as a result this is a complex, mature novel with thoughtprovoking, well-crafted themes’ Independent on Sunday
FICTION
ISBN: 978-1-905207-65-7 RRP: £17.99 Jacketed hardback PUBLICATION DATE: 20th May 2011
This unusual and gripping novel brings us a new kind of detective – an eco warrior and oceanographer who has his own mystery to solve as well as the case of a missing girl, not to say several severed feet – a terrific debut.
Dregs
Jørn Lier Horst Translated by Anne Bruce Meet Chief Inspector William Wisting, Head of CID in Larvik, Norway, the latest unforgettable import from Scandinavian crime fiction. An experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature, he lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force, meeting them with integrity and humanity, and a fragile belief that he can play a part in creating a better world. A police report of a shoe containing a severed foot washed up on the sand introduces CI William Wisting. Soon a second is washed up, but it is another left. Has there been some kind of terrible accident at sea? Does it indicate the killing and dismembering of two victims? Is there a link with the unsolved mystery of a number of disappearances in the Larvik area in recent months? In this gripping police procedural, Wisting gradually gets to the bottom of the mystery with the help of his all too human colleagues and his journalist daughter, Line.
AUTHOR Dregs has been short-listed for Norway’s prestigious Riverton Prize (Golden Gun)
Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. He has worked as a policeman in Larvik since 1995. His debut novel in 2004, Key Witness, was based on a true murder story. The William Wisting novel series – Key Witness (2004), Goodbye, Felicia (2005), When the Sea Calms (2006), The Only One (2007), and The Night Man (2009) – has been extremely successful in his native Norway as well as Germany and the Netherlands. Dregs is his first book published in English. www.jlhorst.com
FICTION
ISBN: 978-1-905207-67-1 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 12th August 2011.
Tell Me Where You Are Moira Forsyth
The three Douglas sisters were all expected to do well. Now, as they approach middle age, Gillian has her career and Frances is successfully bringing up her sons on her own. Then comes the phone call from Alec, the husband who left her for her sister Susan, thirteen years ago. Susan was always the problem, and now she has disappeared, abandoning Alec and her daughter Kate. Who’s responsible for the surly teenaged Kate now? Not Frances, surely. As they begin to wonder what has really happened to her, Frances and Gillian find their sister is as powerful and disruptive as ever. This is a family full of secrets. Now there’s another secret, and a new crisis is looming. It’s not always the things you fear most which matter in the end.
AUTHOR
‘Moira Forsyth writes with warmth and sensitivity.’ THE TIMES
Moira Forsyth is the author of two successful novels, ‘Waiting for Lindsay’ and ‘David’s Sisters’, both published by Hodder. Brought up in Aberdeen she has lived in Hertfordshire and Northumberland but has now settled in the Highlands of Scotland where she works in Education. www.moiraforsyth.com ISBN: 978-1-905207-35-0 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback Publication: 15th May 2010.
The Fan Tan Players Julian Lees
THE FAN TAN PLAYERS opens in 1928 in Macao on a cyclone-drenched Quasimodo Sunday. Nadia Shashkova, now in her late twenties, but originally a child refugee from pre-revolutionary Russia, is contemplating her diminishing marital prospects. None of the Portuguese suitors who pay their respects appeal to her in the slightest. Independent, astute, an outsider, Nadia is haunted by secrets from her childhood, memories of violence and rupture, and one terrible secret above all others will not let her go. THE FAN TAN PLAYERS is an opulent family saga, set in Macao, Russia, the Scottish Highlands and Hong Kong in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Exotic and beautifully written, it is a story of love, history, adversity and adventure.
AUTHOR Julian Lees was born and raised in Hong Kong. After attending Cambridge University he worked for ten years as a stockbroker with UBS and Société Générale. Since then he has written two novels: A Winter Beauty and The Fan Tan Players. Both novels have been translated into German and published by Random House Germany with a third set for release in 2011. ‘The Fan Tan Players’ has also been published in Polish by Proszynski Publishers. Julian currently lives in Malaysia with his wife, Ming, his three young children, Augustus, Amber, and Aisha and his constant canine companion Boobert. ISBN: 978-1-905207-49-7 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 15th July 2010.
This darkly romantic has enthralled everyone who has picked it up
FICTION
Yin Yang Tattoo Ron McMillan
Alec Brodie kicked around South Korea for years, making his name as a photojournalist but blowing his money the moment he got his hands on it. A decade later, in London, things are no better but just as the creditors are closing in a fat commercial assignment arrives from the K-N Group in Korea. In Seoul he bumps into his old lover, Jung-hwa, now married to one of K-N’s senior executives. Brodie finds the Seoul low life as congenial as ever, not least the beautiful hooker, Miss Hong. About the time he discovers he is part of an enormous corporate scam he receives a ghoulish package. Miss Hong has been murdered, Brodie is the prime suspect, and in Korea the maximum penalty for murder is death. With the police on his tail and his face in the news his only hope is to go after K-N’s senior management. There’s no easy way out of this, and still his relationship with Jung-hwa to be resolved. Brodie is on the run, alone in a strange land – but perhaps not completely alone.
AUTHOR Ron McMillan is a former photojournalist and commercial photographer, and now a full-time writer based in Bangkok, Thailand. His first book, BETWEEN WEATHERS: Travels in 21st Century Shetland, published by Sandstone Press in 2008, was nominated for the 2008 Saltire Society Literary Awards. Yin Yang Tattoo is the first in a series featuring Alec Brodie, with subsequent titles to be set in various Asian locations known to McMillan from the years he spent on assignment for leading publications in Europe, Asia and North America. www.ronmcmillan.com ISBN: 978-1-905207-31-2 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 15th June 2010
Every expatriate in Asia has a story to tell. Some write their stories down but,generally, we’d prefer that they didn’t. There are, however, notable exceptions, and Ron McMillan’s debut novel Yin Yang Tattoo joins that small but happy rank. David Simmons ASIA TIMES
Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones Bobbie Darbyshire
An innocent meeting of a reading group sparks a series of bizarre events. Three troubled people, driven by loneliness, vanity and revenge, hurl themselves on Inverness public library to find that nothing is as they expect. Henry, Peter and Elena. Each agitated. Each seeking release. We’ve all done it—gone haring off after one thing and found entirely another—but never as surprisingly as these three. It’s Friday evening, 18th February 2000, and we’re in for an unsettling weekend among the book stacks of the library, on the blizzard-bound streets, in the recesses of the Loch Craggan Hotel and on the treacherous mountain above.
AUTHOR Bobbie Darbyshire is the author of Truth Games (2009), a satirical novel of sexual manners in 70s London. She won the 2008 fiction prize at the National Academy of Writing and was published in their anthology Finding a Voice. Bobbie has worked as barmaid, mushroom picker, film extra, maths coach, cabinet minister’s private secretary, and as a care assistant, as well as in social research and policy. She hosts a writers’ group and is a volunteer adult-literacy teacher. She lives in Clapham, London.
‘. . . what can happen when a truth you held close to your heart turns out to be less true than you supposed. A fast, fun read, but not a superficial one.’
ISBN: 978-1-905207-37-4 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 15th February 2010
FICTION
David Hebblethwaite on Follow the Thread
Blue Hen A new comedy
Des Dillon Des Dillon’s dark comedy Blue Hen is a gritty moving drama about two men who are out of work and out of patience in the roughest scheme in Coatbridge. But they’ve one thing going for them - the power of their own imaginations. Paddy and John are two ordinary working class guys who are out of work and out of luck when they hit on a scheme to keep them occupied and keep their bellies full. They’re going to rear chickens in their back green and sell the eggs for profit. But it’s not easy being the only honest men in Coatbridge’s roughest scheme and their venture doesn’t exactly go to plan. As their dreams of self-sufficiency crumble, a powerful story of friendship against the odds unfolds.
AUTHOR
Des Dillon should be made available on the National Health, such is his unstoppable ebullience. The Scotsman
Des Dillon is an internationally acclaimed award winning writer, born in Coatbridge. Studied English Literature. Taught English. Writer-inResidence at Castlemilk 1998-2000. Stand up Comic, poet, short story writer, novelist, dramatist. TV scriptwriter and screen writer for stage and radio. Published in USA, India, Russia, Sweden, in Catalan, French and Spanish. His novel Me and Ma Gal was included on the list of The 100 Greatest Ever Scottish Books. www.desdillon.com ISBN: 978-1-905207-36-7 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 3rd May 2010
My Name is E
Frederick Lightfoot In the last year of the Second World War three deaf girls are born in the same north of England village. Miracle, coincidence, tragedy or omen? As children they discover each other on the shore and call each other sisters. One of them, Judith Salt, returns to the village aged sixty to tell the story of that first meeting, and her later return, aged twentyfive, pregnant, and determined that someone was going to die. Payback for the fate of her sister, Abigail Sempie, grade III deaf, who, with only a syllable at her disposal, called herself E and somehow impressed her identity on the world. Their story is about deafness, the senses, the struggle for language and recognition, but family feuds, lies and secrets lie at its heart.
AUTHOR Frederick Lightfoot has published four previous novels, Migrants (2005), Immigrants (2007) and Cry / Swans (under a single cover, 2008), a collection of short stories Fetish and other stories (2009) and a novella Estuaries. In 2005 he won the Skrev Press short story competition. ISBN: 978-1-905207-74-9 RRP: ÂŁ8.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 30th September 2011
This fine and sensitive novel will hold you from first page to last Robert Davidson, editor
FICTION
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To Ride The Mountain Winds
A history of aerial mountaineering and rescue
Leslie Symons To Ride the Mountain Winds, possibly the first history of aerial mountaineering to span the whole period from the 18th century to the present day, is written for everyone interested in the history of mountaineering and also those interested in the history of aviation and the limits to which pilots have pushed their machines and their skills. This should include not only climbers and flyers but also those airline passengers who, while sipping a gin and tonic in the luxury of a modern airliner, far above the shining snows, have paused to wonder what might happen if their jet-propelled magic carpet were forced suddenly to descend among them. Few will have pondered the connections between the histories of mountaineers and aviators but their interaction is almost as old as either.
NON-FICTION
AUTHOR Leslie Symons is an Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, who has been fascinated throughout his life by both mountains and aviation. His Ph.D, taken earlier at Queen’s University, Belfast, is on mountain land use. His interest in mountain rescue has led him to travel widely and to discussions with the rescue services of a number of countries. He has written many books and articles based on his travels and researches.
‘It is a measure of Leslie Symons’ achievement that he has not only discovered that the interactions of aviators and mountaineers are a single subject, but that he has demonstrated it with such a readable book.’
ISBN: 978-1-905207-60-2 RRP: £21.99 Jacketed hardback PUBLICATION: 22ndApril 2011.
ROBERT DAVIDSON Sandstone Press
Cairngorm John A life in mountain rescue
John Allen Introduced by Sir Chris Bonington SHORT LISTED: The Boardman Tasker Award 2009 The Cairngorms in Scotland are a mountain range, a hard reality, a unique and sensitive environment, a playground, a sanctuary, an idea. They are also a magnet for climbers and walkers who occasionally come to grief. The Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team operates across a vast, landlocked area that includes not only two of the three great plateaux but also Ben Alder to the south and the Dava Moorlands to the north. John Allen was a member between 1972 and 2007 and Team Leader from 1989 until his retirement. Throughout that period his call name when speaking to RAF and Navy rescue helicopters was CAIRNGORM JOHN. CAIRNGORM JOHN is introduced by Sir Chris Bonington who describes it as, ‘. . . by turns exciting, funny, informative and wise, an indispensible addition to the literature of the mountains.’
AUTHOR Cairngorm John is a thoughtful book, not macho at all. It’s as much about love of the mountains as their dangers. LIBBY PURVES, BBC Radio 4 Midweek
John Allen was an active Member of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team from 1972 and Team Leader from 1989 until his retirement in 2007. In his career he participated in well over 1000 rescues. He gave testimony to the House of Commons Select Committee on Mountain Rescue and was an assessor for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. In addition to his great experience as a mountaineer in Scotland he has climbed many of the Alps’ 4000 metre peaks. www.cmrt.org.uk ISBN: 978-1-905207-57-2 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 24th September 2010.
Hamish’s Mountain Walk
The first traverse of all the Scottish Munros in one journey
Hamish Brown Hamish Brown was the first walker and climber to complete the Munros in a single round. By his own rules he did it self-powered except where ferries were required, and with the aid of his trusty fold away bike. The year was 1974, and the roads of Scotland carried only a fraction of the traffic they do today, wind farms were unheard of, crofting more vibrant, and a strong Scottish mountaineering tradition was already established. Four years later Hamish’s Mountain Walk appeared and was an immediate success, inspiring not only climbers but also readers fascinated by the history, geology, plant life and lore of one of Europe’s most unspoiled regions. Many have followed in Hamish’s boot prints, but no following author could bring the same freshness and few could touch the depth of his knowledge and experience. This is an inspirational classic of the outdoors.
AUTHOR Hamish Brown is a mountaineer, lecturer, photographer and poet who has written or edited a score of books. Hamish’s Mountain Walk and Hamish’s Groats End Walk have inspired generations of hillwalkers and climbers. The third in his trip of early classics Climbing the Corbetts is being republished in 2012. ISBN: 978-1-905207-33-6 RRP: £14.99 Royal paperback PUBLICATION: 15th April 2010
The classic Scottish outdoor book
NON-FICTION
Hamish’s Groats End Walk One man and his dog on a hill route across Britain and Ireland
Hamish Brown The second of Hamish Brown’s classic trio of outdoor books, Hamish’s Groats End Walk appears with a new introduction, appendices and two sections of colour pictures. First published thirty years ago this wonderful period piece tells the story of what happened after Hamish’s Mountain Walk when Hamish took to the outdoors and writing full time. With his faithful companion, the Shetland collie Storm, he wandered from John O’Groats to Land’s End over 175 days in 1979, taking in the first ever walk between the highest summits of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland besides completing a sixth round of the Munros, canoe-running the River Forth, and traversing many of the best hills in the four countries. Hamish’s Groats End Walk has been carefully revised but remains the same vivid journal, with day-to-day snapshots of people and places, of history and legend to which has now been added an historical perspective.
AUTHOR Hamish Brown is a mountaineer, lecturer, photographer and poet who has written or edited a score of books. Hamish’s Mountain Walk and Hamish’s Groats End Walk have inspired generations of hillwalkers and climbers. The third in his trip of early classics Climbing the Corbetts is being republished in 2012. ISBN: 978-1-905207-59-6 RRP: £14.99 Royal paperback PUBLICATION: 17th March 2011.
Hamish’s dog, Storm, is one of the great characters in all mountain literature
The Munros In Winter 277 summits in 83 days
Martin Moran In 1985 mountain guide Martin Moran achieved the first completion of all 277 Munros* in a single winter with the support and companionship of his wife Joy. Their success was a feat of dedicated mountaineering and effective teamwork through the storms, snows and avalanches of an epic winter season in the Scottish Highlands. Martin’s account of the winter journey became a classic mountain narrative, combining his passionate enthusiasm for the mountains with humorous insights into a marriage put to the test through three months of living in a camper van. It was described as ‘the best guidebook to the Munros’ by mountain writer Jim Perrin. The book inspired many other climbers and runners to pick up the gauntlet in pursuit of new feats of endurance on Scotland’s hills, and is now reissued with full colour photographs plus an introductory update by the author on how the Munros in Winter changed his life.
AUTHOR Martin Moran is a professional mountaineer and guide who has climbed in most of the world’s great mountain ranges.
NON-FICTION
A beautiful presentation of Martin Moran’s first, classic, book.
www.moran-mountain.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-905207-69-5 RRP: £14.99 Royal paperback PUBLICATION: 15th July 2011.
Isles At The Edge Of The Sea Jonny Muir
Rising off the western seaboard of mainland Scotland are hundreds of islands, hidden worlds. Beginning on Arran, Jonny Muir sets out to explore these places with a single ambition: to reach the faraway St Kilda archipelago, the islands at the edge of the world. On the way he attempts to finds his inner peace on Holy Island, takes part in a punishing foot race across the misty mountains of Jura, confronts the Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye and walks along the white-sand beach on Berneray that became the face of a Thailand tourism campaign. Island life is not without its challenges. ‘Man-eating’ midges live up to their reputation on Rum and a furious Atlantic storm threatens to rip his tent to shreds on Barra – with him inside. An intensely personal account of a journey through some of Britain’s most extraordinary landscapes, Isles at the Edge of the Sea is a celebration of Scotland’s west coast islands, from the people who inhabit these fragile places to the ever-changing vistas created by the collision of land, sea and sky.
AUTHOR
Jonny Muir explores not just these remote places, but also what it means to travel alone. An immensely enjoyable read – witty too. Moira Forsyth, editor
Jonny Muir is an adventurer, runner, writer and proponent of UKinspired travel. Born in Birmingham in 1981, he grew up and was educated in north Worcestershire, before studying history at the University of Exeter. Jonny visited the UK’s 91 historic county tops in a continuous 5000-mile cycling and walking adventure over a threemonth period in 2006. His first book, Heights of Madness, published in 2009, is an account of that unique journey. ISBN: 978-1-905207-61-9 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback with 16 pages of colour plates PUBLICATION: 12th May 2011.
Up The Creek Without A Mullet A hair brained journey across the globe
Simon Varwell After acquiring a fascination with the dubious 1980s haircut while travelling around Eastern Europe, Simon Varwell discovered a village in Albania called Mullet, and a mission was born. Up The Creek without A Mullet charts the first three legs of the mission, in Albania, Ireland and Australia. Over the years, Simon has met clowns, farmers, journalists and politicians across the globe as he visits remote villages, dried up streams, and obscure corners of the English-speaking world simply because they have the word ‘mullet’ in their name. Creating media storms in both hemispheres, the list of Mullets has grown like a tragic haircut, the quest threatening his career and finances, eventually taking over his life.
AUTHOR Simon Varwell is a compulsive traveller, a keen amateur photographer, and spends too much time having ‘what if . . .’ moments. He was born in 1978 and grew up in Benbecula in the Western Isles. He is married and lives in Inverness. www.simonvarwell.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-905207-34-3 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 1st February 2010
Simon Varwell’s unique quest makes for one of the most amusing travel books around
NON-FICTION
I Should Have Lifted You Carefully Over Recordings
Wencke Mühleisen Translated by Anne Bruce From the doctor’s records, 2006: She attended an out-patient appointment today with her daughter. She lives at home in her own flat, with daily care from the community nurse when none of her family is staying. She says that she has reduced appetite, feels nauseous almost every day, and can feel a slight swelling under her right costal arch from time to time. She has no need to talk to a clergyman, but wishes to see the sea from Jæren beach once more before she dies. I Should Have Lifted You Carefully Over is Wencke Mühleisen’s account of her mother’s death, and about the distance and intimacy between two women who have come to very different terms with life.
AUTHOR Born 1953 to a Norwegian mother and Slovenian-Austrian father, Wencke Mühleisen is a writer and researcher in media and gender at the University of Stavanger. From 1978-1989, she was active as a performance artist dealing with issues such as gender, sexuality, feminism and politics and she lived in a radical artists’ collective in Austria from 1976-1985.
‘What a beautiful title. Even at this point we are right at the heart of what it means to be human.’
I Should Have Lifted You Carefully Over is her first novel, published to critical acclaim in Norway.
SIRI M KVAMME, Bergens Tidende, Norway
ISBN: 978-1-905207-64-0 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 17th June 2011.
The Long Bridge Out of the gulags
Introduced by Peter Muskus Preface by Kate Allen, Director Amnesty International UK Urszula Muskus (1903-72) Urszula Muskus (1903-1972) spent sixteen years as a prisoner of Stalinist Russia. After her husband’s arrest she was torn from her industrious, middle class life in Poland, packed into a rail wagon with her children and sent eastwards into Kazakhstan and Siberia. Cast into an alien world of political prisoners and depraved criminals she had to survive to the best of her abilities. Rich in stories of love and parting, long train journeys and forced marches on foot, other women prisoners, violent guards and bandit molls, her book comes from a strong spirit who looked on her world with a positive but unwavering eye, writing dispassionately of her own privations, but the sufferings of others with compassion.
NON-FICTION
AUTHOR
The Long Bridge is the story of a woman of great courage and determination, in an exceptionally eloquent account of extreme hardship and hope. It speaks to the profound and ongoing relevance of human rights.’
‘This book is about the events, most of them quite unpredictable, and my observations and memories from the day of the unforgettable autumn in 1939, the day Poland was invaded by Germany, till my arrival in London in the winter of 1957. These include two years deportation to Kazakhstan as forced labour, ten years as a political prisoner in the Soviet labour camps, and four years eternal exile in Siberia.’ Urszula Muskus www.hiddenglen.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-905207-55-8 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback with maps PUBLICATION: 29th October 2010.
KATE ALLEN Director, Amnesty International UK
Beyond The Last Dragon A life of Edwin Morgan
James McGonigal Edwin Morgan’s restless imagination moved easily between multiple worlds, voices and identities. His own life story, told here for the first time, also reveals a range of identities – as academic, cultural activist, radical writer, international traveller, gay man and national poet. These identities were sometimes in conflict, or kept hidden and apart. Beyond the Last Dragon, written with his full support, explores hitherto unknown archive resources and creative work. It recounts an amazing and sometimes troubled career, using the poet’s own letters, poems and plays from the 1930s to the present day to uncover the often local origins of his still remarkable – at 90 years –inventiveness and flair.
AUTHOR
McGonigal’s love for his subject is on display throughout, sometimes touchingly. Patrick Crotty, Times Literary Supplement
James McGonigal is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Glasgow, and has known Edwin Morgan for forty years. His career has combined professional work in schools and teacher education with publications in literary modernism and Scots and Irish culture. He has co-edited various anthologies of Scottish writing, and his own poetry has won prizes in Scotland and Ireland. ISBN: 978-1-905207-23-7 RRP: £23.99 with two sections of black and white plates PUBLICATION: 24th September 2010
Boswell’s Bus Pass Stuart Campbell Illustrations by Colin milne ‘Nestling just behind the fake Ladro ornaments and several sets of false teeth I caught sight of a pile of old 45s. The handwriting was distinctly 18th century. The stall holder accepted £4 for the small heap, and started to crumple up the damp paper before I grabbed his hand, in a gesture that he initially misunderstood, and asked him to include them with the records that he was cramming into a plastic bag.’ The letters Stuart Campbell so nefariously acquired were written by James Boswell’s manservant, Joseph Ritter, who accompanied Boswell and his friend, Samuel Johnson, on their famous tour around Scotland. They were addressed to Boswell’s wife Margaret, and read as if serial adulterer Boswell may have been a biter who was himself unknowingly bitten. The letters accompanied Campbell on his own tour of Scotland, exactly following the route of the two men but powered by the author’s newly acquired bus pass.
AUTHOR Stuart Campbell has worked as an English teacher, Advisor, Communications Lecturer, Education Manager, and Consultant in the Lothians for longer than he cares to remember. He is now gainfully employed as a mental health trainer for Health in Mind, an Edinburgh based charity. He has previously co-written A Dead Man’s Chest, an educational resource published by the BBC as part of the Stevenson centennial celebrations. He has also written for the Guardian and The Scottish Book Collector and is the author of the acclaimed RLS in Love.
The Red Cockatoo
James Kelman and the art of commitment
Johnny Rodger & Mitch Miller The Red Cockatoo is the first full length study of the work of James Kelman to take full cognisance of the author’s political commitments and activism throughout his career. This book is published in partnership with The Drouth Magazine and traces the history and details of Kelman’s political writing and activism. Besides numerous novels Kelman has published two volumes of literary, social, historical and political criticism. He has also been unceasingly involved in political and human rights campaigns, manifestoes and demonstrations throughout his life. But what exactly are Kelman’s politics: why are some readers still baffled and shocked by his standpoint? His stance on social and political issues has been widely criticised not only by ordinary readers, but by the Establishment in the form of Booker Prize judges, and others.
AUTHORS Authors Mitchell and Rodger are currently co-operating on a project to make a documentary film from 13 hours footage shot at Kelman’s 1990 conference ‘Self determination and Power’, where Noam Chomsky was the main speaker. This book was written with the help of exclusive access the authors had to that footage, and it attempts to create a map of the difficult territory of Kelman’s career as an engaged artist. ISBN: 978-1-905207-68-8 RRP: £15.99 Royal paperback with 16 pages of colour plates PUBLICATION: 19th August 2011.
NON-FICTION
ISBN: 978-1-905207-62-6 RRP: £17.99 Jacketed Royal hardback with 40 hand drawn illustrations PUBLICATION: 30th June 2011.
Stuart Campbell’s adventures on Bozzy’s trail are hilarious, and delightfully complemented by Stuart Milne’s drawings
Orkney Spirit Liz Ashworth
Illustrations by Selena Kuzman In Orkney Spirit Liz Ashworth shares her experiences of the magical islands of Orkney as well as many of the food dishes that are associated with the islands. In this sumptuous volume Liz’s stories and recipes are presented with the startlingly beautiful images of Slovenian born artist Selena S. Kuzman. The result is an unique book that every lover of Orkney and of food will want to have on their shelves, not only in the kitchen but also in the lounge.
AUTHOR Liz Ashworth is one of Scotland’s leading food writers. She has developed new products for various Scottish companies, a number of which have won awards, and is active in promoting Scotland’s food heritage.
NON-FICTION
www.lizashworth.co.uk
‘This is a groundbreaking book like no other you have seen. Liz’s recipes are sometimes traditional, but often modern and a product of the work she has been doing in food development and with other food specialists on the islands, and with the Orkney International Science Festival.’
Selena Kuzman left the forests and mountains of her native Slovenia to come to Scotland to take an honours degree at Moray School of Art. In 2010 her work is being displayed in Edinburgh amongst the Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries and as an invited graduate artist by the Society of Scottish Artists. ISBN: 978-1-905207-32-9 RRP: £15.99 PUBLICATION: 15th March 2010.
Scots Magazine
18 Bookshops Anne Scott
Anne Scott has never housed her books in order of theme or author yet she knows where each of them is and the kind of life it has led. Some have been gifts but most have been chosen in bookshops unique in their style and possibilities. Gradually some of the shops become partners with her as her life changes and so do they. They have been observers of discovery, decisions, and marvels with her, following the line of her time and place. Some are everyday shops with a shelf of books in a corner, some are beginning again after long lives as churches, printing presses, medieval houses, a petrol-station. There are a few the author is too late to see: early print-houses and booksellers. They are here too in this book, searched for and described, side by side with all the bookshops open now and busy with readers. This book is about them. Not one is like another. In one way, the book is a sequence about writing. But first it is a map of books and a life.
AUTHOR
One to treasure; the perfect gift for lovers of books and bookshops
Anne Scott lectures in literature and has also been a BBC Scotland broadcaster and occasional writer for The Scotsman and The Herald in the 1990s. She studied at Edinburgh and married there, and her son, Mike, is a successful song-writer and musician. When she was nine a bookseller folded a bookmark with a red cord into her newlypurchased book and that was the beginning of her love affair with books and bookshops. Working visits to Ann Arbor and Kansas in the 1980s, and later to New York City, Dublin and Galway, helped define her professional work as an extended study of Irish and American writing. There were so many writers in Ireland and America, so many bookshops in the world, together they turned her into a searcher. She lives in the West of Scotland. ISBN: 978-1- 905207-71-9 RRP: £11.99 B format jacketed hardback PUBLICATION: 30th September 2011.
RLS In Love
The love poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson
Stuart Campbell R.L.S. in Love makes a powerful argument for recognising Stevenson as a love poet. This unique anthology reveals a restless man constantly struggling with love and lust, invariably attracted to unobtainable or unsuitable partners, including distant relatives, older married women, servants, and prostitutes. The poems are organised to reflect the three main stages in Stevenson’s emotional life: his late adolescence and early manhood characterised by a succession of trysts in the woods and dells of the Pentland hills, and encounters with working women in the Old Town brothels; his passionate but doomed relationship with Fanny Sitwell; and finally the troubled, infuriating but often ecstatic emotional journey with his wife.
AUTHOR Stuart Campbell has worked as an English teacher, Advisor, Communications Lecturer, Education Manager, and Consultant in the Lothians for longer than he cares to remember. He is now gainfully employed as a mental health trainer for Health in Mind, an Edinburgh based charity. He has also written for the Guardian and The Scottish Book Collector ISBN: 978-1-905207 RRP: £14.99 B format hardback
A new look at the private life of RLS
NON-FICTION
A Bend In The Nile My life in Nubia and other places
Chris McIvor ‘You’ll never come to any good,’ Chris McIvor is told by his headmaster as he is expelled yet again. Some years later he takes a temporary teaching job in Sudan. Unfamiliar with their language and customs he struggles to control his first class of 55 bright girls. In this absorbing account Chris McIvor discovers Africa, finds love – and loses it – travels through the desert, along the Nile, and finally visits the war-locked region of Chad, and takes the first steps towards his life’s work in overseas aid.
AUTHOR Chris McIvor OBE has worked for nearly thirty years in emergency response and development in countries as diverse as Sudan, Morocco, Algeria, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. He is currently Advocacy and Programme Development Director for the charity Save the Children in Mozambique. ISBN: 978-1-905207-25-1 RRP: £11.99 Royal paperback PUBLISHED: 2008
The first of Chris McIvor’s books about his experiences in development work in Africa
Between Weathers Travels in 21st Century Shetland
Ron McMillan For more than two thousand years the Shetland Islands have been a way station to Vikings, explorers, hardy traders and even hardier oilmen. Yet they somehow remain ‘off the map’ of British consciousness. Endlessly curious and wryly perceptive, this account of his travels brims with insights into the islands’ wildlife, archaeology and geology. Most of all, it casts a warm and engaging light on Shetlanders themselves. This is a narrative for lovers of enquiring, lyrical travel writing laced with humour.
AUTHOR Ron McMillan is a former photojournalist and commercial photographer, and now a full-time writer based in Bangkok, Thailand. BETWEEN WEATHERS: Travels in 21st Century Shetland, published by Sandstone Press in 2008, was nominated for the 2008 Saltire Society Literary Awards. www.ronmcmillan.com
NON-FICTION
Ron McMillan’s classic travelogue of Shetland
ISBN: 978-1-905207-20-6 RRP: £11.00 Royal paperback PUBLISHED: 2008
The Kerracher Man Eric MacLeod
Eric Macleod looks across the loch at the forlorn wreck of his family’s croft. ‘How would you like to live there?’ he asks his wife Ruth, half joking. After all, they have to think of something to do with the place. But he doesn’t expect her instant reply – ‘I would love to.’ A few short months later Eric has given up a promising career in London and moved to the remote shores of Loch Cairnbawn in the West Highlands. But it’s a long leap from management accountant to house builder and crofter - as he and Ruth soon find out.
AUTHOR Eric MacLeod was born in Dingwall in the Highlands. His early post graduate career was in Accountancy in London, but he made a life change at the age of thirty to become a crofter and self-employed in a variety of ways. Since leaving the croft he has worked as a Business Adviser across the Highlands. ISBN: 978-1-905207 RRP: £8.99 B format paperback PUBLISHED: 2008
Possibly the most loved book to come out of the Highlands this century.
Cogadh Ruaraidh Iain MacLean
Iain Maclean’s Cogadh Ruairidh (Ruairidh’s War) is an account of the first day of the Battle of the Somme through the eyes and the experience of a Highland soldier, Ruairidh, and his two friends. MacLean first describes the waiting period, when the soldiers’ emotions swing between tedium and high tension, fear and naïve overconfidence, and then, clearly and dispassionately, what the three men encounter as they go over the top and advance towards the enemy trenches – and the waiting machine guns. The novel follows Ruairidh through his convalescence in France and his journey home, where he struggles to come to terms with what has happened on that awful day. Cogadh Ruairidh is a powerful evocation of one of the grimmest days in the history of modern warfare. As an indictment of the brutality and futility of war, it is all the more effective for the fact that MacLean lets the events speak for themselves.
AUTHOR Iain MacLean was born and brought up in Tarbert, Harris. He has always had an interest in writing, in Gaelic and English. He now lives in Inverness where he works for the BBC as a presenter and journalist. Iain is married with a daughter who is already developing an interest in stories.
An intense and moving war novel
ISBN: 978-1-905207-30-5 RRP: £7.99 PUBLICATION: 15th October 2009
GAELIC
Cleasan A Bhaile Mhoir Catriona Lexy Campbell
Jessie is an aspiring actress who has moved to London to try to make a breakthrough into the big time but is finding the going tough. She has to work in a hotel to make ends meet and is about give up when she stumbles, with the help of her friend Curtis, on a novel way of using her acting talents for gain. Jessie’s series of imaginative ‘scenarios’, designed to help her clients through sticky patches in their lives, are brought alive vividly in this entrancing tale. In Cleasan a’ Bhaile Mhòir, Catriona Lexy Campbell has created a wide range of interesting characters and their relationships, which she describes with humour and not a little insight. There are also exciting incidents which help carry the story along at a gripping pace. And underlying it all is a tender, understated love story.
AUTHOR Catriona Lexy Campbell is from Ness in Lewis. She has worked as a writer and actor since she was young. Apart from this book she has written Balach Beag a Mhàthar (Mummy’s Little Boy), Sgeulachdan Eagalach Feagalach (Terribly Terrifying Stories) and Samhraidhean Dìomhair (Secret Summers). She lives in Inverness. ISBN: 978-1-905207-29-9 RRP: £7.99 PUBLICATION: 15th October 2009.
A chick-lit special in Gaelic
The Sandstone Press Gaelic series is presented in with English-language introductions to each chapter and a glossary of useful translations at the end of each chapter.
San Dùthaich Ùir Alison Lang
Anna recalls how her father told her stories about the family’s long journey from the old country to the safety of the new country. She has already noticed how hard her mother has to work, while her father seems to do nothing but sit at home reading. Anna is fascinated by Aunt Marguerite’s jewellery box, and tales of her former career as an opera singer. At the age of five, Anna is sent to school in a second-hand uniform. Her brother Frederick is supposed to take care of her but leaves her to fend for herself. With both children at school, their mother gets a job in a factory and works long hours as the household’s sole breadwinner. Anna’s father and Marguerite do little to help, and Anna begins to take on domestic duties at home Frederick, now ten years old, gets in trouble with the law. Anna eavesdrops on her parents’ conversation with the policeman who has brought Frederick home. So engrossed is Anna in the conversation that she fails to notice Marguerite’s jewellery box lying unlocked, and she misses her chance to look inside. More than fifty years later, Anna discovers Marguerite’s jewellery box and prepares to open it.
AUTHOR The story of a family’s exile and loss
Alison Lang is the author of a collection of Gaelic language short stories, Cainnt na Caileige Caillte. The Sandstone Press Gaelic series is presented in with English-language introductions to each chapter and a glossary of useful translations at the end of each chapter.
GAELIC
ISBN: 978-1-905207-75-6 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback PUBLICATION: 15th October 2011.
Also In Our Gaelic Series Litir à Ameirragaidh Floraidh MacDonald ISBN: 978-1-905207-11-4 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback
Sgeulachdan an Dà Shaoghail Michael Newton ISBN: 978-1-905207-12-1 RRP: £7.99 B format paperback
The Sandstone Press Gaelic series is presented in with English-language introductions to each chapter and a glossary of useful translations at the end of each chapter.
Order Form for Sandstone Press TITLE
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The Testament of Jessie Lamb
Jane Rogers
978-1-905207-58-9
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Site Works
Robert Davidson
978-1-905207-63-3
£7.99
The Sea Detective
Mark Douglas-Home
978-1-905207-65-7
£17.99
Ever Fallen in Love
Zoe Strachan
978-1-905207-73-2
£8.99
Dregs
Jørn Lier Horst
978-1-905207-67-1
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Tell Me Where You Are
Moira Forsyth
978-1-905207-35-0
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The Fan Tan Players
Julian Lees
978-1-905207-49-7
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Yin Yang Tattoo
Ron McMillan
978-1-905207-31-2
£7.99
Love, Revenge & Buttered Scones
Bobbie Darbyshire
978-1-905207-37-4
£7.99
Blue Hen
Des Dillon
978-1-905207-36-7
£7.99
My Name is E
Frederick Lightfoot
978-1-905207-74-9
£8.99
To Ride the Mountain Winds
Leslie Symons
978-1-905207-60-2
£21.99
Cairngorm John
John Allen
978-1-905207-57-2
£8.99
Hamish’s Groats End Walk
Hamish Brown
978-1-905207-59-6
£14.99
Hamish’s Mountain Walk
Hamish Brown
978-1-905207-33-6
£14.99
The Munros in Winter
Martin Moran
978-1-905207-69-5
£14.99
Isles at the Edge of the Sea
Jonny Muir
978-1-905207-61-9
£8.99
Up the Creek without a Mullet
Simon Varwell
978-1-905207-34-3
£7.99
I should have lifted you carefully over
Wencke Muhleisen
978-1-905207-64-0
£7.99
The Long Bridge
Urszula Muskus
978-1-905207-55-8
£8.99
Beyond the Last Dragon
James McGonigal
978-1-905207-23-7
£23.99
Boswell’s Bus Pass
Stuart Campbell
978-1-905207-62-6
£17.99
Orkney Spirit
Liz Ashworth
978-1-905207-32-9
£15.99
18 Bookshops
Anne Scott
978-1- 905207-71-9
£11.99
RLS in Love
Stuart Campbell
978-1-905207-28-2
£14.99
A Bend in the Nile
Chris McIvor
978-1-905207-25-1
£11.99
Between Weathers
Ron McMillan
978-1-905207-20-6
£11.99
The Kerracher Man
Eric MacLeod
978-1-905207-15-2
£8.99
Cleasan a Bhaile Mhòir
Catriona Lexy Campbell
978-1-905207-29-9
£7.99
Cogadh Ruaridh
Iain MacLean
978-1-905207-30-5
£7.99
San Dùthaich Ùir
Alison Lang
978-1-905207-75-6
£7.99
Litir à Ameirragaidh
Floraidh MacDonald
978-1-905207-11-4
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Sgeulachdan an Dà Shaoghail
Michael Newton
978-1-905207-12-1
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