Mixing Noir & Humour
Page One – The Writer’s Podcast speaks to award-winning crime writer Callum McSorley. His debut novel, 𝘚𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘺 𝘊𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯 (2023) won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. Its sequel, 𝘗𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘰𝘺, was released in 2025 & was a finalist for the same award. His latest book, 𝘙𝘢𝘵 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘦, is out now.
@bookstodon
The divine Dante
At 700, Dante’s Divine Comedy is as modern as ever – a lesson in spiritual intelligence that makes us better at being alive
by Mark Vernon
The divine comedy by Dante Alighieri at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8800
Funny and full of sex: why you should read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time
Readers strike an encouraging note for those sceptical of the joys of Proust, saying it has plenty to make it worth perservering
In Search of Lost Time & A la Recherche du Temps Perdu at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=In+Search+of+Lost+Time
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=a+la+recherche+du+temps+perdu
Every American Knows the Declaration of Independence. Almost Nobody Knows the Woman Who Printed It
As Baltimore’s postmaster and printer to the Continental Congress, Mary Katharine Goddard produced the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the signers’ names—and added her own.
by Meredith Herndon
The Declaration of Independence is our 1st ebook produced by Michael Hart and published by PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1
“Of aal the fish there iss in the sea,” said Para Handy, “nothing bates the herrin’; it’s a providence they’re plentiful and them so cheap!”
Neil Munro (1863–1930) – journalist, novelist, short-story writer, & poet – was born #OTD, 3 June. Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of Herring discusses Munro’s PARA HANDY stories, as well as giving the full text of the tale “The Herring – A Gossip”
1/5
https://www.herripedia.com/para-handy/
#Scottish #literature #humour #shortstory #herring #19thcentury #20thcentury
“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that – I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much – so very much to learn.”
Sylvia Plath, #author of The Bell Jar
#books #writers #quotes #literature #SylviaPlath #Plath #TheBellJar #bookstodon @bookstodon #bookstagram #reading #writing #booksky #readingcommunity #BookTok #book #booklovers #bookish #Bookwyrm #bookworm #booklover
Robert Tannahill (1774–1810), “the weaver poet”, was born #OTD, 3 June – “second only to Robert Burns as a poet writing chiefly in the language of the working class of Scotland”
1/5
#Scottish #literature #poetry #18thcentury #19thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #workingclass
Grant Dickie on 10 things he learned at CYMERA 2026, Scotland’s festival of science fiction, fantasy, & horror writing – not including that Sarah Mughal Rana has a dagger collection or that Marvellous Michael Anson would love someone to write a book where every character dies.
https://www.scottishfield.co.uk/culture/10-things-i-learned-from-2026s-cymera-festival/
#Scottish #literature #sciencefiction #scifi #SFF #fantasy #horror #speculativefiction #writing #writingtips
Archie Hind (1928–2008), author of THE DEAR GREEN PLACE, was born #OTD, 3 June
“The only other 20th-century novel I know that places a writer’s struggle in an equally well-imagined city is Nabokov’s THE GIFT”
—Alasdair Gray
1/4
https://www.scotswhayhae.com/post/with-hind-s-sight-a-review-of-archie-hind-s-the-dear-green-place
#Scottish #literature #novel #20thcentury #workingclass #Glasgow
Orwell once explained his mission very simply: he wrote because there was “some lie” he wanted to expose and “some fact” he wanted people to see.
Happy Birthday George Orwell!
⏰📚💙 #reading #GeorgeOrwell #books #Orwell #writers #literature #book #readingcommunity #bookstagram #BookTok #bookish #bookstodon @bookstodon
"Write the truest sentence that you know."
That simple advice guided Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) throughout his life. A reporter, soldier, traveler, Nobel Prize winner, and master storyteller, he transformed real-life adventure into timeless literature.
#Hemingway #books #writers #literature #bookstodon @bookstodon #reading #booksky #bookstagram #today #birthday #book #bookwyrm #bookstagram #readingcommunity
This Week in Literary History: Carson McCullers’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is Published - A Classic is Born
On June 4, 1940, the day her debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published, 23-year-old Carson McCullers was alone in New York City.
Zena Hitz: Gulliver's Travels and the Failures of Human Understanding
by Henry Oliver
https://www.commonreader.co.uk/p/zena-hitz-gullivers-travels-and-the
Gulliver's Travels at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Gulliver%27s+Travels
CFP: NTS at 20 – Culture, Democracy, & the Stateless Nation: an Unconference
23 Oct 2026, Edinburgh
This one-day Unconference invites participants from across academia, theatre, literature, politics, activism, & cultural & community organisations to explore the role of theatre, literature, & cultural institutions in shaping democratic life in Scotland as a stateless nation
#Scottish #Scotland #literature #theatre #culture #culturalstudies #theatrestudies
Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), mathematician, physicist & translator
By Marie Lebert
Books by Émilie du Châtelet at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/56975
Marco Fazzini & Alan Riach: For the Poetry of Norman MacCaig
8 June, University of Glasgow. Free.
Marco Fazzini in conversation with Alan Riach about a new bilingual selected edition of Norman MacCaig.
#Scottish #literature #translation #Italian #NormanMacCaig #poetry #poetryintranslation
“Our Three-Voiced Country”: 20th-century cross-currents in Gaelic & other Scottish writing
26–28 June, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye
This conference will examine the shared influences & interconnections between Gaelic & other Scottish writing, from the Celtic Revival & the Scottish Renaissance to the beginnings of the new millennium
@litstudies
https://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/co-labhairt-bhliadhnail-asl-2026/?lang=en
#Scottish #literature #conference #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #20thcentury #CelticStudies
Gur duilich leam mar tha mi
’S mo chridhe ’n sàs aig bròn
Bhon an uair a dh’fhàg mi
Beanntan ard a’ cheò
Gleanntannan a’ mhànrain
Nan loch, nam bàgh ‘s nan sròm
’S an eala bhàn tha tàmh orra
Gach là air ’m bheil mi ’n tòir…
—Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, “An Eala Ban”
The First Battle of the Somme began #OTD, 1 July, 1916. Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna / Donald MacDonald composed “An Eala Bhan” (“The White Swan”) during the battle.
#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #warpoetry #Somme #WW1
How a Childhood Bookmobile Sparked My Love of Reading
Brenda C. Wilson Remembers the Start of Her Reading Journey
https://lithub.com/how-a-childhood-bookmobile-sparked-my-love-of-reading/
Books in Banned Books List from the American Library Association at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/422
From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides…
—“Canadian Boat-Song” (Anon.)
published in Noctes Ambrosianæ, Blackwood’s Magazine Sept 1829
Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🏴
1/7
5 literary classics that grapple with the void of nihilism
From mysterious villages to absurdism at the gallows, these books explore the origins, consequences, and possible responses to nihilism.
by Scotty Hendricks
https://bigthink.com/books/literary-classics-that-grappled-with-nihilism/
Some of these classics are available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1998
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/600
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75011
Adding Wimsey to My Life
How I fell in love with a fictional detective
https://theamericanscholar.org/adding-wimsey-to-my-life/
Books by Dorothy L. Sayers at PG:
I keep the heid. I’m cool.
If asked – but you never ask –
I’d answer in tongues
hinting of linns, of Leven,
Nethan, Kelvin, Cart –
but neutral, balancing
both banks equally as I flow…
—Kathleen Jamie, “What the Clyde said, after COP26”
Today, 5 June, is World Environment Day
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldEnvironmentDay #environment #climatechange #globalwarming #globalheating #climatecrisis
It’s not the crack you expect.
It’s more a soft whump,
then an elegant leaving, like
a grand piano dropped
from a silent-movie window…
—Karen Ashe, “The Sound of an Iceberg Calving”
published in SOUND OF AN ICEBERG: New Writing Scotland 37 (2019)
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws37/
#Scottish #literature #WorldEnvironmentDay #poem #poetry #climatechange #environment #climatecrisis #globalwarming #globalheating
Colin Bramwell’s FOWER PESSOAS has won the 2025 Duas Leabhair na Gàidhealtacht / Highland Book Prize
“FOWER PESSOAS is a bold reimagining of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry… Colin Bramwell puts all four of [Fernando] Pessoa’s heteronyms into a present-day Scots-language vernacular, & so creates a parochial Pessoa for our own times”
https://www.highlandbookprize.org.uk/winner/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #FernandoPessoa #Scots #Scotslanguage
