Eggplant.place

26d

Six Must-Read Scottish Books

Author Doug Johnstone picks six books that speak to the diversity & range of Scottish fiction

@bookstodon

https://orendabooks.co.uk/news/six-must-read-scottish-books-by-doug-johnstone

#Scottish #literature #fiction #novel #novels

Against a dark, misty street scene – author Doug Johnstone stands on the left, beside the cover of his latest novel GHOST NOTES

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72d

Celebrating 250 Years of the USA

To honor the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, The History Reader has put together a list of top Revolutionary War-era books published over the last two decades.

https://www.thehistoryreader.com/us-history/celebrating-250-years-of-the-usa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=celebrating-250-years-of-the-usa

#books #literature #USHistory

An American flag at the top of a flagpole. The camera is looking up towards the flag which is blowing in the breeze. There is a blue sky around it.

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74d

Browse 5.8 million works of art at the Last Museum

by Rob Beschizza

https://boingboing.net/2026/06/29/browse-5-8-million-works-of-art-at-the-last-museum.html

Last Museum:
https://lastmuseum.com/

Books in Art at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/11

#books #literature #art #culture

"The Voyage of Life: Youth" painted by Thomas Cole in 1842.

A romantic landscape painting by Thomas Cole depicting a young man in a golden boat steering eagerly toward an ethereal, glowing palace in the distant clouds, while a guardian angel stands on the riverbank gesturing toward the heavens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_Life#/media/File:Thomas_Cole_-_The_Ages_of_Life_-_Youth_-_WGA05140.jpg

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39d

Commonwealth of Nations Poet Laureate Selina Tusitala Marsh & Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay in Conversation

Selina & Peter’s wide-ranging conversation begins with Selina reading her poem “Tusitala”, & a discussion of where her middle name comes from

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/selina-tusitala-marsh-commonwealth-poet-laureate-and-peter-mackay-scottish-makar-in-conversation/

#Scottish #literature #Aotearoa #NewZealand #poetry #podcast

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26d

Henry Raeburn’s portrait of Robert Burns had been missing for more than 200 years until it was discovered during a house clearance & sold at auction in 2025. It is on display in the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway until 1 November – free, no booking required

https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/burns-portrait-returns-to-poets-birthplace

#Scottish #literature #RobertBurns #romanticism #portrait #painting #visualart #18thcentury #19thcentury #Raeburn #HenryRaeburn

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38d

How Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” Defined Old English Literature

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales have come to define Old English literature and offer a unique window into life in medieval England.

https://www.thecollector.com/chaucer-canterbury-tales/

Chaucer at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=+The+Canterbury+Tales

#books #literature

Walter Appleton Clark created this illustration in 1904 for Percy MacKaye’s modern version of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The image shows a group of medieval pilgrims riding together on horseback. In the center, a heavy-set pilgrim wears a thick purple hooded habit with white trim and rides a large brown horse. To his right, a woman in a dark hat and a white wimple over a mauve dress rides alongside him. Next to her, a broad-faced man in dark clothes looks her way. On the left edge, someone in a bright yellow tunic and a large blue headwrap looks ahead. On the far right, a monk or friar rides with another companion.

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38d

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh…

—“Cisteachan-Laighe” (“Coffins”)
from Creachadh na Clarsaich / Plundering the Harp (Macdonald, 1982) by Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson, 1921–2012) – born #OTD, 5 Aug. A 🎂 🧵

1/7

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/cisteachan-laighe/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Cisteachan-Laighe
Ruaraidh MacThòmais

Duin’ àrd, tana
’s fiasag bheag air,
’s locair ’na làimh:
gach uair theid mi seachad
air bùth-shaoirsneachd sa’ bhaile,
’s a thig gu mo chuinnlean fàileadh na min-sàibh,
thig gu mo chuimhne cuimhne an àit ud,
le na cisteachan-laighe,
na h-ùird ’s na tairgean,
na saibh ’s na sgeilbean,
is mo sheanair crom,
is sliseag bho shliseag ga locradh
bhon bhòrd thana lom.

Mus robh fhios agam dè bh’ ann bàs;
beachd, bloigh fios, boillsgeadh
den dorchadas, fathann de’n t-sàmhchair.
’S nuair a sheas mi aig uaigh,
là fuar Earraich, cha dainig smuain
thugam air na cisteachan-laighe
a rinn esan do chàch:
’sann a bha mi ’g iarraidh dhachaigh,
far am biodh còmhradh, is tea, is blàths.

Is anns an sgoil eile cuideachd,
san robh saoir na h-inntinn a’ locradh,
cha tug mi ’n aire do na cisteachan-laighe,
ged a bha iad ’nan suidhe mun cuairt orm;
cha do dh’ aithnich mi ’m brèid Beurla,
an liomh Gallda bha dol air an fhiodh,
cha do leugh mi na facail air a’ phràis,
cha do thuig mi gu robh mo chinneadh a’ dol bàs.
Gus an dainig gaoth fhuar an Earraich-sa
a locradh a’ chridhe;
gus na dh’ fhairich mi na tairgean a’ dol tromham,
’s cha shlànaich tea no còmhradh an cràdh.

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Coffins
Derick Thomson

A tall thin man
with a short beard,
and a plane in his hand:
whenever I pass
a joiner’s shop in the city,
and the scent of sawdust comes to my nostrils,
memories return of that place,
with the coffins,
the hammers and nails,
saws and chisels,
and my grandfather, bent,
planing shavings
from a thin, bare plank.

Before I knew what death was;
or had any notion, a glimmering
of the darkness, a whisper of the stillness.
And when I stood at his grave,
on a cold Spring day, not a thought
came to me of the coffins
he made for others:
I merely wanted home
where there would be talk, and tea, and warmth.

And in the other school also,
where the joiners of the mind were planing,
I never noticed the coffins,
though they were sitting all round me;
I did not recognise the English braid,
the Lowland varnish being applied to the wood,
I did not read the words on the brass,
I did not understand that my race was dying.
Until the cold wind of this Spring came
to plane the heart;
until I felt the nails piercing me,
and neither tea nor talk will heal the pain.

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38d

Each night she fills, from the fabled
well of disappointment, a kettle
for her hottie…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Mrs McKellar, Her Martyrdom”
from The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 2005)

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-book-of-twentieth-century-scottish-poetry.html

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #marriage #humour

Mrs McKellar, Her Martyrdom
Kathleen Jamie

Each night she fills, from the fabled
well of disappointment, a kettle
for her hottie. Lying
in his apportioned bed:
Mr McKellar – annulled
beside his trouser press.

Who mentions, who defers to whom
on matters concerning
redecorating the living room,
milk delivery, the damp
stain spreading on the ceiling

when a word is a kind of touch?
Speaking of which, and they don't,
the garden needs attention
and the bedroom window frames,
exquisitely, the darkening hills,
a sky teased with mauve.

But he won't notice, or smell her burning
fix it! fix it!
won't look up the number
of Roofer and Son about that
slightly bewildering stain,

and she'll keep schtum.
Medieval in a dressing gown,
she'd rather display
toward an indifferent world
the means of her agony:
a broken toilet seat,

or die, lips sealed, regarding
the rotting window sills, that
wobbling shelf, which she could
as it happens, repair herself,
but won't, on principle.

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24d

Submerged memory: C.S. Lewis and the art of forgetting

by Henry Oliver

https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/submerged-memory-cs-lewis-and-the

More information about C.S. Lewis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis

#books #literature

The undergraduates of University College, Trinity term 1917.

A black-and-white studio portrait photograph of a young man, likely a university student, wearing a suit jacket, white collared shirt, and dark tie. He has neatly combed dark hair and a serious expression.

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24d

On That Disgraceful, Disreputable, (Wonderful) Form of Punctuation: The Parenthesis

Florence Hazrat on the Contentious History of a (Perfect) Literary Tool

https://lithub.com/on-that-disgraceful-disreputable-wonderful-form-of-punctuation-the-parenthesis/?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01M0AJ42D5Y1TM6VKY2T1HMKM4&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Books about Punctuation at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/5744

#books #literature

Title: Punctuation personified or, pointing made easy

Author: Mr. Stops

This is a children's book illustration, showing a fantastical figure whose body is constructed entirely from punctuation marks (commas, parentheses, exclamation points, question marks, brackets, quotation marks, an ampersand-like symbol, and asterisks) with a human head, floating hand holding a small book, positioned before two children seated on a decorative sofa within an ornate curtained stage setting.

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24d

“When we try to reduce people, we often try and reduce them to this or that, but we’re all multiple… I think the reason that TRUMPET is still a popular book all these years later is because it deals with some of these questions of multiple identity.”

—Jackie Kay discusses her 1998 novel TRUMPET with Lavender Menace volunteer Maeve Sheridan.

https://lavendermenace.org.uk/jackie-kay-on-trumpet

#Scottish #literature #JackieKay #novel #LGBTQ #LGBTQfiction #Queer #QueerLiterature #Trans

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24d

…fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white…

—Liz Lochhead, “Some Old Photographs”

Today, 19 August, is World Photography Day

https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/resources/images/8209217/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #photography #WorldPhotographyDay

Some Old Photographs
Liz Lochhead

Weather evocative as scent

the romance of dark stormclouds
in big skies over the low wide river
of long shadows and longer shafts of light

of smoke
fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white

your young, still-lovely mother laughs, the
hem of her sundress whipped up
by a wind on a beach
somewhere doon the watter
before you were even born

all the dads in hats
are making for Central at five past five
in the snow, in the rain, in the sudden what-a-scorcher,
in the smog, their
belted dark overcoats white-spattered by the starlings

starlings swarming
in that perfect and permanent cloud
above what was
never really this photograph
but always all the passing now
and noise and stink and smoky breath of George Square
wee boays, a duchess, bunting, there’s a
big launch on the Clyde
and that boat is yet to sail

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Central Station, Glasgow 1960. © Newsquest (H&T) Glasgow Herald and Times. A black-and-white photo of the stairs leading to the concourse in Glasgow’s Central Station, 1960. Figures of men and women are silhouetted against the horizontal bars of the staircase. At the top, a crowd of people wait for trains. Advert hoardings for Capstan Cigarettes and Johnnie Walker whisky hang in the steamy, smoky air above the crowd.

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24d

Edwin Morgan died #OnThisDay, 19 August, 2010. “Riddle”, the final poem of Morgan’s final collection, 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 (Mariscat, 2010), is a translation of one of the 10th-century Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book riddles, itself a translation of a Latin original by the poet Aldhelm (c639–709 CE)

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #translation #riddle #AngloSaxon #medieval

Riddle
by Edwin Morgan

Up beyond the universe and back
Down to the tiniest chigger in the finger –
I outstrip the moon in brightness,
I outrun midsummer suns.
I embrace the seas and other waters,
I am fresh and green as the fields I form.
I walk under hell, I flow over the heavens.
I am the land, I am the ocean.
I claim this honour, I claim its worth.
I am what I claim. What is my name?

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23d

Starting 31 Aug, BBC Radio 4: A WORKING MOTHER, by Agnes Owens (1926–2014)

Ten years after WW2, our unreliable narrator Betty – arch, witty, clever – is married with children & feels trapped. While her husband, Adam, drinks and complains, Betty flirts with their best friend Brendan, tries to avoid the roving hands of her new employer, & plots her escape…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030x97

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #AgnesOwens #workingclass #workingclasswriters #audiobooks

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22d

The Errant Translator: Field Notes

Artist and translator Sawako Nakayasu considers a multiplicity of approaches to translations.

https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2024-01/the-errant-translator-field-notes-sawako-nakayasu/?utm_campaign=thursday&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=highlightlink3&mc_cid=74bf4bb7f8&mc_eid=25acfb51d2

Books about French fiction -- Translations into English at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/5605

#books #literature #translation

Stein in her Paris studio, with a portrait of her by Pablo Picasso, and other modern art paintings hanging on the wall (before 1910).

Gertrude Stein sits on a sofa in her Paris studio, wearing a dark robe, with a book open on her lap. The walls around her are covered with Cubist paintings, and directly above her hangs Picasso's iconic portrait of her. A small table with drawers and decorative objects stands to her right.

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21d

Tom Leonard
“Jist ti Let Yi No”
(from the American of Carlos Williams)

ahv drank
thi speshlz
that wurrin
thi frij

n thit
yiwurr probbli
hodn back
furthi pahrti

awright
they wur great
thaht stroang
thaht cawld

Audio on Penn Sound:

https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Leonard/Tom-Leonard_Jist-ti-Let-Yi-No.mp3

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard #WilliamCarlosWilliams

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21d

efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing
a sayzti the bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy…

—Tom Leonard, “liason coordinator”
from GHOSTIE MEN (Galloping Dog Press, 1980)

Tom Leonard (1944–2018) was born #OTD, 22 August

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose/liasoncoordinator.html

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

efturryd geenuz iz speel
iboot whut wuz right
nwhut wuz rang
boot this nthat
nthi nix thing

a sayzti the bloke
nwhut izzit yi caw
yir joab jimmy

am a liason co-ordinator
hi sayz oh good ah sayz
a liason co-ordinator

jist whut this erria needs
whut way aw thi unimploymint
inaw thi bevvyin
nthi boayz runnin amock
nthi hoossyz fawnty bits
nthi wummin n tranquilisers
it last thiv sent uz
a liason co-ordinator

sumdy wia digree
in fuck knows whut
get peyd fur no known
whut thi fuck ti day way it

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21d

this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn…

—Tom Leonard, “The Six O’Clock News”

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

The Six O’Clock News
Tom Leonard

this is thi
six a clock
news thi
man said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanna yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist wanna yoo
scruff tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
to tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way a
spellin. this
is ma trooth.
yooz doant no
thi trooth
yirsellz cawz
yi canny talk
right. this is
the six a clock
nyooz. belt up.

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21d

And their judges spoke with one dialect,
but the condemned spoke with many voices.

And the prisons were full of many voices,
but never the dialect of the judges.

And the judges said:
“No-one is above the Law.”

—Tom Leonard, “And the judges said”
from Situations Theoretical & Contemporary (1986)

#Scottish #literature #language #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

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21d

I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)…

—Tom Leonard, “in hospital”
published in access to the silence: poems and posters 1984–2000 (etruscan, 2004)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/hospital/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

in hospital
Tom Leonard

I like seeing nurse frieda knitting
as I like watching my wife knitting
as I liked watching my mother knitting
though she was more of a dabber
(plain and purl, plain and purl)

it’s not
“women being in their place”
or knitting the chains that keep them down

just

the future, knitting the future
the present peaceful, quiet
as if

the same woman knitting
for a thousand years

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21d

yi mist yirsell so yi did
we aw skiptwirr ferz njumptaffit thi lights
YIZIR AW PINE THEY FERZ THIMORRA
o it wizza scream
thaht big shite wiz dayniz nut…

—Tom Leonard, “A Scream”
from Six Glasgow Poems (1967)

https://www.tomleonard.co.uk/online-poetry-and-prose.html

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

A Scream
Tom Leonard

yi mist yirsell so yi did
we aw skiptwirr ferz njumptaffit thi lights
YIZIR AW PINE THEY FERZ THIMORRA
o it wizza scream
thaht big shite wiz dayniz nut

tellnyi jean
we wirraw shoutn backit im
rrose shoutit shi widny puhllit furra penshin
o yi shooda seeniz face
hi didny no wherrty look

thing iz tay
thirz nay skool thimorra
thi daft kunt wullny even getiz bluddy ferz

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21d

right inuff
ma language is disgraceful
ma maw tellt mi
ma teacher tellt mi
thi doactir tellt mi
thi priest tellt mi…

—Tom Leonard, “right inuff”
published in GHOSTIE MEN (Galloping Dog Press, 1980)

#Scottish #literature #language #Glasgow #Glaswegian #poem #poetry #TomLeonard

“right enuff”
by Tom Leonard

right inuff
ma language is disgraceful
ma maw tellt mi
ma teacher tellt mi
thi doactir tellt mi
thi priest tellt mi

ma boss tellt mi
ma landlady in carrington street tellt mi
thi lassie ah tried tay get aff way in 1969 tellt mi
sum wee smout thit thoat ah hudny read chomsky tellt mi
a calvinist communist thit thoat ah wuz revisionist tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi past tellt mi
po-faced literati grimly kerryin thi burden a thi future tellt mi
ma wife tellt mi jist-tay-get-inty-this-poem tellt mi
ma wainz came hame fray school an tellt mi
jist aboot ivry book ah oapnd tellt mi
even thi introduction tay thi Scottish National Dictionary tellt mi

ach well
all livin language is sacred
fuck the lohta thim.

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20d

The Best Psychological Horror Books
recommended by Tabitha Potts

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/the-best-psychological-horror-books-tabitha-potts/

At PG:

"The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner"

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2276

"Carmilla"

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007

#books #literature

The black-and-white cover of "Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu shows two girls in the woods, both wearing Victorian clothing. The girl on the right stands with long light hair, while the girl on the left, who has dark hair, might be sitting.

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20d

“Unsympathetic as Robert is as a character, some of the experiences he goes through at Gil-Martin’s hands (or possibly, because of his own guilt personified as Gil-Martin) are absolutely terrifying… The book as a whole is very convincing as a portrait of mental collapse”

Tabitha Potts chooses James Hogg’s 1824 classic PRIVATE MEMOIRS & CONFESSIONS OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER as one of her top 5 works of psychological horror

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/the-best-psychological-horror-books-tabitha-potts/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #gothic #horror