BooksfromScotland.com
@booksfromscotland.bsky.social
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A website from @publishingscotland.bsky.social dedicated to championing the best new writing in Scotland. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://booksfromscotland.com/subscribe/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/BooksfromScotland
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booksfromscotland.bsky.social
Our monthly column in @scotsman.com is now live on their website. Here are our Insider's Choices for October!

The column will also appear in the Scotland on Sunday this weekend if you want to #buyapaper

www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...
Insider's Choice: New Scottish Books to look out for in October
Vikki Reilly of Publishing Scotland highlights some notable new releases for the month ahead
www.scotsman.com
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profsarahmcg.bsky.social
Delighted to share the Future of Books and Reading paper, which combines research insights, professional expertise, and readers' voices to highlight the enjoyable, engaging, empowering and enriching effects of reading across the lifespan. Access here: blogs.ed.ac.uk/literacylab/
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graemethomson.bsky.social
December 1981. Melbourne. The famous 'man bag' performance. Hit and run. Some context provided in my book, Themes For Great Cities
An extract from Themes For Great Cities: A New History of Simple Minds: 

It was their ! rst shot at playing pop stars, a dry run for Top of
the Pops. Though the show was taped in Melbourne, the day began
in Sydney. The band were collected that morning in two Jeeps
and taken to the airport. Ninety minutes in the air, then on to the
television studio by limousine. Line check, camera check, hair and
make-up. Wait. Because they weren’t playing live, they used hired
equipment.
‘We needed to catch a plane back because we were playing in
Sydney that night,’ says Derek Forbes. ‘They said, “You need to be
quick. As soon as you ! nish just come off the stage and come right
through the audience and through the door as quickly as you can.”
That’s why Jim was there with a bag around his neck.
‘Two big limos were waiting for us. We got in and went right
the way over to a bit of spare ground. Two helicopters come out
of the sky and land. We get in. The two helicopters take off and
land right by the plane. We don’t need to go through the airport
or anything. We " y back, a wee sleep on the plane, and we’re
picked up by two Jeeps again, taking us over to Manly Vale where
we were playing. We still had make-up on from being on the
television show. We got there and went straight on stage and did
a two-hour show and the roadies were coming on with buckets of
water, pouring them over us, because it was absolutely roasting.
That was proper rock and roll, that day.’ The promoters told them
that if they based themselves in Australia for a year they would
leave rich men.
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asls.org.uk
“It’s half giraffe, half anteater, half horse, half deer and half some more giraffe”

👇 This Tolstoy quote inspired Kevin MacNeil’s story “Fall in Love and Buy a Horse”, which we published in NEW WRITING SCOTLAND 41 – read it via @booksfromscotland.bsky.social
booksfromscotland.com/2023/10/noth...
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asls.org.uk
HEATWAVE
The latest issue of @booksfromscotland.bsky.social recommends the hottest Scottish books, including the best in new fiction, memoir, history, nature writing & children's books, along with celebrating some literary legends
💙📚
booksfromscotland.com/issue/heatwa...
Heatwave - Books from Scotland
booksfromscotland.com
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lyndseycroal.bsky.social
Tomorrow at 1pm in St Andrews, I'm doing a signing at Waterstones - if you're in the area please pop by! ✨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 www.waterstones.com/events/lynds...
Cover of Dark Crescent with Lyndsey Croal Author Signing, Friday 29th August 2025 13:00-13:20 at Waterstones, St Andrews
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saraband-books.bsky.social
This year marks ten years since the publication of the propulsive, Booker-shortlisted contemporary classic His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

To celebrate, a special tenth anniversary edition will be available on the 2 October 2025

More here:

saraband.net/sb-title/his...

#Booksky
📚💙
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asls.org.uk
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows…

—Carol Ann Duffy, “War Photographer”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Picador, 2019)
#poem #poetry
www.panmacmillan.com/authors/caro...
War Photographer
by Carol Ann Duffy

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.
booksfromscotland.bsky.social
Food writer and broadcaster Ghillie Basan knows how to live the good life, and her latest book Food, Whisky, Life is a gorgeous celebration of living and eating well. Head over to BfS for her mouthwatering Whisky Baklava recipe!

booksfromscotland.com/2025/08/food...
Food, Whisky, Life by Ghillie BaŞan - Books from Scotland
'Pastries filled with ground nuts, baked fruit or creamy, semolina mixtures, and bathed in honey or syrup are made for a dram.'
booksfromscotland.com
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asls.org.uk
“[I]f you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat.”

—Nancy Hawkins, the majestic narrator of Muriel Spark’s A FAR CRY FROM KENSINGTON, on why a writer should own a cat
#InternationalCatDay 🐈‍⬛
💙📚
1/3
So I passed him some very good advice, that if you want to concentrate deeply on some problem, and especially some piece of writing or paper-work, you should acquire a cat. Alone with the cat in the room where you work, I explained, the cat will invariably get up on your desk and settle placidly under the desk-lamp. The light from a lamp, I explained, gives a cat great satisfaction. The cat will settle down and be serene, with a serenity that passes all understanding. And the tranquillity of the cat will gradually come to affect you, sitting there at your desk, so that all the excitable qualities that impede your concentration compose themselves and give your mind back the self-command it has lost. You need not watch the cat all the time. Its presence alone is enough. The effect of a cat on your concentration is remarkable, very mysterious.
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elspethwrites.bsky.social
Very happy to have an interview in this issue from @booksfromscotland.bsky.social about my debut, These Mortal Bodies, writing about intense friendships, the interaction between poetry and prose, what drew me to dark academia and balancing writing admin with the actual writing itself! #BookSky
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leerandall.bsky.social
David is appearing at Wigtown this autumn, for anyone coming along!
quantick.bsky.social
It is publication day for my short story collection AND OTHER STORIES.

Thank you @dymphnaflynn.bsky.social for this lovely review on Instagram.
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quantick.bsky.social
Tonight!

For one night only!

The launch party for AND OTHER STORIES.

Hosted by Chris Shaw and me!
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laurafjones.bsky.social
Help me for a thing, please: Who are your favourite UK-based trade publishers that started up since 2017 and are still going today? Small and indie, preferably (imprints don't count).