literature

167d

Chalk Scribblers meet the author: Ken MacLeod
1 April, free online

Ken MacLeod’s first novel, The Star Fraction, was published in 1995 and earned him a place among the cohort of British science fiction authors who were gaining prominence at the time. He’s been nominated for every genre award worth being nominated for & he’s won more than a few of them.

Recurring themes in his work include socialist theory & marine zoology.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chalk-scribblers-meet-the-author-ken-macleod-tickets-1984677623197?aff=oddtdtcreator

#Scottish #literature #scifi #Sciencefiction

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141d

Jenni Fagan & Irvine Welsh
28 May, Hay-on-Wye. £16

Celebrate the best of Scottish writing with two giants from the country’s literary scene. Jenni Fagan & Irvine Welsh will explore their own writing, discuss creativity & reflect on modern Scottish literature.

Part of Hay Festival Global 2026

https://www.hayfestival.com/p-25319-jenni-fagan-and-irvine-welsh-talk-to-jude-rogers.aspx

#Scottish #literature #novel #novelists #contemporaryliterature #JenniFagan #IrvineWelsh #HayOnWye #HayFestival

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141d

Roderick Watson: The Silver of Old Mirrors
27 April, University of Glasgow – free
Creative Conversations with Alan Riach

A poet & academic, Roderick Watson has lectured & published widely on modern Scottish literature & is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His poetry publications include True History on the Walls (1977), Into the Blue Wavelengths (2004), & The Silver of Old Mirrors (2025).

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/roderick-watson-the-silver-of-old-mirrors-creative-conversations-tickets-1987816006185

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Glasgow

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157d

‘The Queen of the Ghetto’ Gave New York’s Immigrant Community a Voice. A Century Later, It’s Re-emerging

Anzia Yezierska wrote from experience then worked hard to make sure her work found an audience. Then a new audience found her

by Fred Nadis

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/queen-ghetto-gave-new-york-immigrant-community-voice-century-later-reemerging-180988409/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=93133550

Women immigrants at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subject/2680

#books #literature

Sketch of the author Anzia Yezierska accompanying an article in the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, March 5th, 1921.

The central illustration is a large pen-and-ink portrait drawing of Yezierska — captioned "Anzia Yezierska: Filmdom's Newest Author" — showing a young woman with abundant curly hair, alongside a smaller vignette of a figure writing at a desk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzia_Yezierska#/media/File:Yezierska_CedarRapids_5Mar1921.jpg

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86d

5 of Agatha Christie’s Works You Won’t Be Able to Put Down

Don’t miss out on this list of bestselling Agatha Christie works, which remain unrivaled in the murder mystery genre.

https://www.thecollector.com/agatha-christie-works/

Christie at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/451

#books #literature

Agatha Christie in a play at Cockington Court in 1912 - picyrl.com. She is wearing a large, elaborate fabric turban. It is heavily textured and trimmed with a strand of beads or pearls across her brow. Her dress is light-colored and long-sleeved with loose, flared cuffs. A darker, open vest is layered over the top. A beaded necklace hangs down close to her waist.

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156d

It steppit like a stallion,
Wha’s heid hauds up a horn,
And weel the men o’ Scotland kent
It was the unicorn…

—William Soutar (1898–1943), “Birthday”

Another poem for National Unicorn Day 🦄 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #NationalUnicornDay #unicorn

Birthday
William Soutar

There were three men o’ Scotland
Wha rade intill the nicht
Wi’ nae mune lifted owre their crouns
Nor onie stern for licht:

Nane but the herryin’ houlet,
The broun mouse, and the taed,
Kent whan their horses clapper’d by
And whatna road they rade.

Nae man spak to his brither,
Nor ruggit at the rein;
But drave straucht on owre burn and brae
Or half the nicht was gaen.

Nae man spak to his brither,
Nor lat his hand draw in;
But drave straucht on owre ford and fell
Or nicht was nearly düne.

There cam a flaucht o’ levin
That brocht nae thunner ca’
But left ahint a lanely lowe
That wudna gang awa.

And richt afore the horsemen,
Whaur grumly nicht had been,
Stude a’ the Grampian Mountains
Wi’ the dark howes atween.

Up craigie cleuch and corrie
They rade wi’ stany soun’,
And saftly thru the lichted mirk
The switherin’ snaw cam doun.

They gaed by birk and rowan,
They gaed by pine and fir;
Aye on they gaed or nocht but snaw
And the roch whin was there.

Nae man brac’d back the bridle
Yet ilka fit stude still
As thru the flichterin’ floichan-drift
A beast cam doun the hill.

It steppit like a stallion,
Wha’s heid hauds up a horn,
And weel the men o’ Scotland kent
It was the unicorn.

It steppit like a stallion,
Snaw-white and siller-bricht,
And on its back there was a bairn
Wha low’d in his ain licht.

And baith gaed by richt glegly
As day was at the daw;
And glisterin’ owre hicht and howe
They saftly smool’d awa.

Nae man but socht his brither
And look’t him in the e’en,
And sware that he wud gang a’ gates
To cry what he had seen.

There were three men o’ Scotland
A’ frazit and forforn;
But on the Grampian Mountains
They saw the unicorn.

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139d

Does reading do us any good?

Stripped of easy moralising, literature makes us relish the search for truth in an age when many believe truth to be dead

by Flora Champy

https://aeon.co/essays/the-role-of-literature-as-the-key-to-personal-freedom

Classics of Literature at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/649

#books #literature

Photo de Marcel Proust par Otto Wegener (1849-1924).

A sepia studio photograph of Marcel Proust with dark-haired and a moustache, seated pensively with his chin resting on his hand.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcel_Proust_vers_1895.jpg#/media/File:Otto_Wegener_Proust_vers_1895_bis.jpg

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139d

Groundbreaking Novel Ranked Among ‘Best Books of All Time’ Turns 307 Years Old

https://parade.com/news/groundbreaking-novel-ranked-among-best-books-of-all-time-turns-307-years-old

Robinson Crusoe at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70841

#books #literature

“For a mile, or thereabouts, my raft went very well—”

From: Robinson Crusoe

Author: Daniel Defoe

Illustrator: N. C. Wyeth

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70841/pg70841-images.html

A colour illustration of a bearded, bare-chested man standing on a makeshift raft at sea, shielding his eyes to scan the horizon, surrounded by salvaged trunks, a barrel, and supplies, with seabirds and billowing orange and white clouds above.

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166d

George Buchanan’s Afterlives: Borrowings of Buchanan’s Works in Scottish Libraries, c.1750–1840
14 May, Stirling – free (suggested donation £5)

Prof Katie Halsey traces how George Buchanan’s works were borrowed & read in Scotland across the 18th & early 19th centuries, & what this suggest about literate culture more broadly

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/evening-talk-inside-the-eighteenthcentury-reading-room-tickets-1982190395833

#Scottish #literature #libraries #18thcentury #19thcentury #culturalstudies

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140d

The many literary lives of Mary Wollstonecraft – author of novels, travel writing and children’s books

Wollstonecraft’s literary career was dedicated to questioning power, society and the roles assigned to women.

by Aditi Upmanyu

https://theconversation.com/the-many-literary-lives-of-mary-wollstonecraft-author-of-novels-travel-writing-and-childrens-books-279885?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekender%20-%203747638388&utm_content=The%20Weekender%20-%203747638388+CID_a5f7e1691899811906f2c3a5b8213e91&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=The%20many%20literary%20lives%20of%20Mary%20Wollstonecraft%20%20author%20of%20novels%20travel%20writing%20and%20childrens%20books

Mary Wollstonecraft at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/84

#books #literature #womeninart

Wollstonecraft in 1790–1791, by John Opie

An oil portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft with powdered curly hair and a white headband, wearing a dark teal dress with a white fichu, holding an open book beside a quill and inkwell .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wollstonecraft#/media/File:MaryWollstonecraft.jpg

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140d

The 100 greatest British novels

BBC Culture polled book critics outside the UK, to give an outsider’s perspective on the best in British literature. (from the archives)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels

Some of the are available in our catalog:
https://www.gutenberg.org/

#books #literature

A black-and-white engraved ornament showing an open book with text-filled pages, resting against a stack of closed books, with a rolled scroll lying in front. A classic decorative vignette typical of 19th-century printing.

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156d

Robert Frost at Midlife

In his poems for The Yale Review, the poet reckoned with mortality, imperfection, and the limits of form

by Kamran Javadizadeh

https://yalereview.org/article/kamran-javadizadeh-robert-frost?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=campaign&utm_id=01KNPFNHND5AN53W9YE3E0G0Z2&_kx=3MZUehzXM-41qlWAMPUiuNZadX2p0SByuNf_t0eMLB0.U5D8ER

Robert Frost at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1091

#books #literature #poetry

"The Road Not Taken", as featured in Mountain Interval (1916).

The title page and opening poem of Mountain Interval by Robert Frost, published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, copyright and first published November 1916.

The left page shows the title page with a small decorative woodcut device — an owl motif in a square border — and identifies Frost as "Author of 'North of Boston'", his celebrated 1914 collection.

The right page presents "The Road Not Taken" in full — the poem that opens the collection and became one of the most quoted and widely misread poems in the English language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost#/media/File:The_Road_Not_Taken_-_Robert_Frost.png

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139d

Poet, the flowers are open
even when we are dead…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Funeral of Robert Garioch”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

Robert Garioch (1909–81), one of the greatest figures in 20th-century Scottish poetry, died #OTD, 26 April

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #elegy

Iain Crichton Smith
At the Funeral of Robert Garioch

Something about the April day
touched me
as they slid your coffin onto the trolley
in the Crematorium.

More and more often it troubles me
this wind my sails have missed
which is still around me
fluttering the bluebells.

‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ we sang.
It was time for the burning.
The minister blessed it
dressed in his white gown,

his voice fat and voluptuous,
his enunciation pure.
You slid down into fire
in your yellow coffin.

In half-way April
the breeze was vulnerable
straying among the warble
of the first birds.

Poet, the flowers are open
even when we are dead
even when the power has gone
from our right arms.

The flowers open in flame.
The coffin slides home.
Fugitive April becomes
a tremendous summer.

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139d

2025 Nobel Prize winner, Laszlo Krasznahorkai writes about collapse, fear, absurdity, and the strange comedy of human behavior when the world feels close to breaking apart.
His novels are famous for their long hypnotic sentences.

A perfect place to start is Satantango or The Melancholy of Resistance.

#books #writers #reading #Krasznahorkai #nobelprize #literature #book #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #BookTok #booklovers #bookish #absurdity #novel #satantango #melancholy

Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Melancholy of Resistance

Satan Tango

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140d

Short Works: A Timeshare in the Heart
Currently available on BBC Sounds

A tale of wonder, heartbreak and tenderness during one boy's trip to the Scottish seaside. Original short story by Michael Pedersen. Read by Russell Tovey.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet & author. He is the current Edinburgh Makar & a former Writer in Residence at he University of Edinburgh.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002vc53

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #shortfiction

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139d

Environmental Scotland IV: Garry MacKenzie & Coinneach Maclean

A recording of the latest Environmental Scotland seminar on “Ben Dorain: A Conversation with a Mountain” (Garry MacKenzie) and “The Tourist Gaze on Gaelic Scotland” (Coinneach Maclean).
Facilitated by Monika Szuba (University of Gdańsk) and Petra Johana Poncarová (University of Glasgow / Charles University, Prague)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xXbocNE60

#Scottish #literature #environment #environmentalism #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poetry

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157d

The latest Scots Whay Hae! podcast talks to Donald S. Murray about his new novel The Loch of the Bees. Donald discusses his inspirations & the importance of place, as well as Highland history, Gaelic culture & language (& the attempts to suppress both), & the author’s personal connections to this novel.

https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/the-sting-is-in-the-tale-the-scots-whay-hae-podcast-talks-to-donald-s-murray

#Scottish #literature #novel #podcast #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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140d

Gintinn is giùlan / Bearing and Begetting

A story in Gaelic & English written by Mairi Kidd & illustrated by Tom Morgan-Jones. Inspired by a poem in the National Library of Scotland’s collections attributed to Iseabail Ní Mheic Cailéin & preserved in the sixteenth‑century Book of the Dean of Lismore.

https://www.nls.uk/collections/stories/literature-and-poetry/bearing-and-begetting/

#Scottish #literature #shortstory #shortfiction #Gaidhlig #Gaelic

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157d

Today is (the very first) National Black Bookstore day!

Celebrate with a treat from a Black-owned indie bookstore.

Brittany Allen

https://lithub.com/today-is-the-very-first-national-black-bookstore-day/

#books #literature #blacklivesmatter #NationalBlackBookstoreDay

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139d

An Evening with Graeme Armstrong
5 June, Waterstones Sauchiehall St, Glasgow – £5

Graeme Armstrong delivers a cult classic in the making in RAVEHEART, a whip-smart satirical look at where Britain might be going.

Graeme will talk about the joy of rave, the power of rebellion, & the importance of writing about young people.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-graeme-armstrong/glasgow-sauchiehall-street

#Scottish #literature #novel

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166d

Call for papers
Politics, Place & Print Culture: The 14th International Walter Scott Conference
28–30 June 2027, University of Edinburgh

The conference invites papers on any & all aspects of Walter Scott’s relationship to questions of politics, place & print culture

Deadline for proposals: 1 Oct 2026

@litstudies

https://www.bars.ac.uk/blog/?p=6395

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #SirWalterScott #WalterScott #callforpapers #printculture

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165d

Today is the birthday of John Fowles, and it feels like a good moment to return to a writer who made novels feel intimate, troubling, and alive.

His books do not leave the reader untouched. They linger. They raise questions about love, freedom, illusion, loneliness, and the stories people tell themselves just to keep going.

If you have read him, which book stays with you most?

#books #reading #literature #writers
#bookstodon
@bookstodon

John Fowles

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165d

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was born #OTD, 31 March. An extraordinarily prolific anthropologist, writer & literary critic, he is best remembered today for collecting & editing fairy stories from around the world

A 🎂 🧵

1/6

https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2016/05/20/the-man-of-letters-in-fairyland-andrew-lang/

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #kidlit #childrensliterature #fairytale #AndrewLang

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129d

#Reading can support mental health too.

A systematic review of randomized clinical trials found that #bibliotherapy (structured reading used in treatment) can reduce depressive symptoms and may have lasting benefits.

#Books are not a replacement for care when someone needs help, but they can be a real part of healing.

#mentalhealth #literature #readingcommunity #book #booksky #BookTok #booklovers #bookstagram #bookstodon @bookstodon

Bibliotherapy

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164d

Boswell Book Festival 2026
8–10 May, Dumfries House

Tickets are on sale for the 2026 Boswell Book Festival, the world’s only festival of biography & memoir. The festival is a programme of stories taken from the lives of people past & present.

https://www.boswellbookfestival.co.uk

#Scottish #literature #bookfestival #biography #memoir

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