The canonical voices of Scottish Literature are already familiar to you: no need for me to trot out the names of men so favoured by history that we have erected 200ft monuments to them on the capital’s busiest thoroughfare, or whose birthdays are celebrated with near-cultish ceremony every January. I’d rather talk about Alison […]
The funny thing about the Man Booker Prize is that it’s more often judged on the merits of its exclusions than its inclusions. Never diverse enough, “too readable” last year and “decidedly unstarry” this year, coverage is almost always skewed towards the negative, because “Six brilliant books nominated for prestigious prize” probably isn’t going to set […]
In software testing, we often speak about a Happy Path – where ‘good’ input yields an expected result (or, in other words, when a program behaves itself). In life, we apply the same logic to our careers: we input hard work and passion, and we expect to yield a successful career in our chosen field. […]
I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room and give ear to every sound of menace… From the haunting ballads of the borderlands to the urban gothic of Victorian fiction, Scottish literature has long demonstrated a […]
We need necessary books, books we can read the day after a funeral, when we have no tears left from all our crying, when we can hardly stand for the pain; books that will be there like loved ones… books for those nights when no matter how exhausted we are we cannot sleep, and all […]
A Novel Bookblog 