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"It’s like ice cream, Mr Flynn," Bertie continued. "When you have ice cream, you need to eat it straight away, otherwise it melts. If there are people who haven''t got any, you should share it, if you can."When despair for the world grows, Bertie’s theory of ice cream reminds us that it’s the simple pleasures in life that we should hold onto. And everyone’s favourite seven-year-old has a lot to put up with: at home, Irene is planning lessons on Irish Culture for Bertie; at school, he is forced to join Olive and Pansy’s book group, and during a day out with his best friend Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, the boys find themselves unexpectedly invited to a wedding.Meanwhile, Bruce’s latest property venture goes horribly wrong after trying to move a flat’s front door to give it a more prestigious address. At Nine Mile Burn, Matthew and the triplets try to adopt an unwillingly-vegan dog. And Sister Maria-Fiori dei Fiore Montagna discovers the missing part of the Stone of Scone in Drummond Place Gardens.Filled with Alexander McCall Smith’s trademark warmth and humour, this latest book in the series is a must-read.

This is the terrifying story of China’s vampire economy.State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world’s most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom.Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping’s ambition of China becoming the world’s pre-eminent economic, technological and military power.One of the Financial Times'' Best New Books on Economics in 2024

Acclaimed nature writer Neil Ansell has suffered from progressive hearing loss his whole life. As his world is becoming ever more silent, he suddenly hears something quite unexpected – the haunting call of the great northern diver. It is this extraordinary experience which makes him realise that there might still be remarkable sounds in nature within his reach – if he can only find himself in the right place at the right time.This moving book charts Neil’s mission to hear rare and elusive creatures that he had not previously encountered. This journey takes him from the mountaintops and islands of the Scottish Highlands to the marshes of England and the hills of Wales. Many of these species are in grave danger of extinction, so the future Neil faces, devoid of their distinctive calls, is one we all must fight to prevent. LOCATIONS AND AND ANIMALS: Great northern diver (Nether Lochaber, Scottish Highlands), Ptarmigan (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Little Grebe (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Bittern (Morecambe Bay, Lancashire), Natterjack toad (The Wirral), Red-throated diver (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Corncrake (Coll), Snipe (Coll), Black grouse (North Wales), Greenshank (Ardgour, Scottish Highlands), Puffin (Canna and Sanday), Storm petrel (Mousa, Shetland), Whimbrel (Shetland), Red kite (Perthshire), Otter (Sunart, Scottish Highlands), Manx shearwater (Rum)

When troubled but talented young author Euan meets decorated novelist Malcolm Furnivall, he feels his luck has finally changed. Malcolm takes Euan as a protégé, vouching for him in the rarefied literary scene in the 1950s. But lately, Malcolm has not been himself. Consumed by his work, he cuts an increasingly isolated figure and has become convinced that something terrible will befall him. He summons his loved ones to his secluded island in the Hebrides and – to everyone''s surprise – entrusts Euan with the task of completing his masterpiece.Malcolm''s suspicions soon prove well-founded; he is discovered brutally murdered in his study, and his invaluable unfinished novel has vanished. Cut off from the mainland, with the killer on the loose and the island''s inhabitants circling, Euan feels both his mentor''s legacy and his only chance at greatness slipping away. He must venture deep into Malcolm''s labyrinthine mansion to find the manuscript before it falls into the wrong hands.But what he doesn''t yet know is that the closer he comes to solving the mystery, the tighter he will bind himself to a fate sealed in time . . .

Shona Sandison might be about to get her biggest scoop yet – if she can make it to the end of the investigation alive.In a darkening, post-COVID world, fearless investigative reporter Shona Sandison is seeking meaning – and her next big story. A secret contact inside the government has promised her something huge, but she has no idea of the danger she is in. Meanwhile, her old friend Hector Stricken has taken on a position in communications for a new state agency, where he stumbles across a sinister, top-secret project codenamed ‘Grendel’. And on the Scottish coast, an ageing spy chief, living in seclusion, grieves his murdered son – and contemplates revenge.Connecting them all is an insidious conspiracy within the UK’s most powerful institutions, a rot so deep that the only way to cure it may be to cut it out – or burn the whole thing down.

Kristie De Garis spent years running – from places, people and parts of herself. But chaos always followed.When she moved to rural Scotland, she hoped to find peace. Instead, in the space and silence, she was forced to confront everything she had tried to escape: racism, trauma, undiagnosed ADHD, addiction and the stark realities of motherhood.Then, in the land around her – and in the slow, stubborn craft of drystone walling – she began to see a different life. One that was quiet, deliberate, and her own.Drystone: A Life Rebuilt is unflinchingly honest and unexpectedly funny. A story about the weight of the past, resilience and the hard work of living on your own terms.Some things may never change. What matters is the life you build anyway.

In 1999, Barholm Castle in Galloway had lain ruinous and derelict for over two hundred years when Janet Brennan-Inglis and her husband John bought it as a restoration project. Together with a team of architects, surveyors and builders, overseen by Historic Scotland, they turned this sixteenth-century tower house into a domestic residence once again – this time with central heating, bathrooms and a twenty-first-century kitchen. Since the restoration, they have researched the history of Barholm Castle and the McCulloch family who owned it; the stories they uncovered and the account of the painstaking restoration of Barholm Castle are told in this book.Having restored the tower, Janet and John turned their attention to the ground around it and set about developing a very special garden landscape. The third part of the book describes the process of transforming the wild area surrounding the castle into a series of mature gardens, providing a colourful and dramatic setting for the castle.

From the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller, The Edinburgh Skating Club.In the shadowy closes of Edinburgh’s Old Town, sixteen people are murdered to feed surgeon Dr Robert Knox’s insatiable need for his anatomy classes. Burke and Hare and their wives, Lucky and Nelly, are all complicit, but only Burke swings for their crimes. Lucky, Nelly and Hare go on the run from the angry mob, reinvention their only means of survival.Years later, journalist Duncan Fletcher hears rumours of sightings of the two women. Keen to impress his editor, Duncan investigates the aftermath of the murder trial. With cobbler Joseph Campbell in tow, Duncan’s quest leads him to the backstreets of London, where the horrors of the past collide with the present.The time for retribution has come.

From the moment Mary, Queen of Scots set foot on English soil in May 1568, she was the prisoner of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Her tumultuous years in Scotland, where she had returned after the death of her husband, Francis II of France, had ended in failure and abdication.Exile tells the story of Mary’s English years – almost half her life – with reference to the latest research and the many locations where she was held captive. Unlike her years on the Scottish throne, the dramatic events during these years mainly took place beyond her sight. But while trouble was perpetually simmering beyond her prisons, within their walls Mary was anything but docile or resigned, and only towards the end did she lose hope of one day returning to her homeland as rightful ruler. No wonder she was viewed as a deadly threat by Elizabeth. Given her attitude and actions  and those of her estranged son James – was her tragic death all but inevitable? If more willing to compromise, might she have negotiated her release? Acclaimed author Rosemary Goring addresses these, and other, questions in this remarkably penetrating psychological portrait of one of history’s great queens.

The story of surfing in Scotland is defined by people who dared to dream in spite of the cold, from Neva MacDonald-Haig and the coffin-lid surfers of Machrihanish, who first took to the waves off the west coast in the 1930s with a little help from a local undertaker, to Andy Bennetts and the pioneers of the 1960s, who discovered many of the nation''s best breaks, to contemporary big wave surfer Ben Larg, a native of the tiny island of Tiree who now travels the world riding skyscraper-sized walls of water for a living.Scotland is also home to a rich and distinctive surfing culture, with its own surfboard shapers, surf instructors, surf filmmakers, surf photographers and surf fashion brands, not to mention surf-inspired artists and musicians. Professional contests held at some of Scotland''s best waves have drawn visits from surfing world champions including Tom Curren, Sunny Garcia and John John Florence, and in recent years Scotland''s own surfers have begun to make their presence felt on the competitive stage, with the Scottish surf team featuring at the World Surfing Games and at Eurosurf after finally gaining official recognition in 2014.The View From the Shoulder draws together 20 years of surf journalism from the pages of The Scotsman newspaper, together with fresh context, to create a portrait of a wave-riding community like no other.

Imagine you''re on a train. Think about all the other people on the train with you, what their lives are or have been, and the different experiences you''ve all had. But there is one more thing that you undoubtedly all share: you have all been in love at one time or another.In this surprising and poignant story, four strangers meet on a journey from Edinburgh to London. Each has a tale of love and of railways: for Mark, a brief encounter on a railway platform leads to an impulsive and possibly dangerous decision; Kay recounts the long journey back to her childhood home in Australia and the love that was there; David remembers a teenage friendship that faded into love; and Michael makes a discovery that art and people may not be what they seem to be at first glance.These are very different experiences, but throughout them all runs a deep current of love. And loving others, as one of the characters observes, is the good thing we do in our lives.

There are two sides to everything, and fear isn’t any different – sometimes you have to push through to the other side . . .Someone has big plans for Stoirm, and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.Investigative journalist Rebecca Connolly returns to the Scottish island to find out who is terrorising the locals who favour a community buyout of the estate over plans by a faceless consortium to turn it into an upmarket playground for the rich and shameless.But before she even sets off, she is threatened by two men, men who are no strangers to inflicting pain. Rebecca being Rebecca, this only serves to heighten her curiosity, and she heads for the island, leaving behind romantic troubles and, she thinks, a young woman set on making her name in journalism.It isn’t long before threats become murder and Rebecca finds herself in mortal danger from an old adversary among the breaking waves of Thunder Bay.

With the widest catchment area of any river in Britain, the Tay drains much of the lower Highlands of Scotland. A vast network of lochs and smaller bodies of water feed the rivers Isla, Garry, Tummel, Almond and Earn, which all in turn flow into this mighty river as it cuts its way through the landscape.Robin Crawford has a very personal connection to this river, and as he walks along its banks, from its source on Ben Lui until it spills into the North Sea at Dundee, we find paralells between his own experience and the broader history of the Tay.Reaching back to a prehistoric fish found near Balruddery in Perthshire, we follow its story through time to the present day, with detours to seek gold, clans, battles, forts, disasters, witches and whisky en route.In amongst this broader sweep of history is Robin’s own story. As he walks, he reminisces and reflects on the small moments of a life on which events turn.

In the early 1820s, Thomas Harvie, a newly rich, arrogant Glasgow distiller, bought Westthorn estate on the eastern edge of the city close to the north bank of the River Clyde. To establish the bounds of his property and keep out intruders, he erected two walls, the larger of which (‘Harvie’s Dyke’) was massive, fortified and blocked a long-established pathway alongside the river. Colliers and other workers from nearby villages (many of whom regularly used the walkway) were outraged. A large crowd gathered on midsummer’s evening in 1823 and set about demolishing the wall. After a cavalry charge put an end to the disturbance, dozens of the rioters were arrested and some imprisoned.But Harvie rebuilt his walls, and a six-year struggle with the people of Glasgow ensued, which resulted in a House of Lords ruling in 1828 in favour of those who had campaigned for ‘the liberties of the banks of the Clyde’. The episode gripped the city and was heralded in poems, song and newspapers for many decades. It also inspired later protests against landowners who attempted to obstruct public rights of way. This book is testimony to a triumphant victory for ordinary Glaswegians over an uncompromising estate proprietor.

It''s a hot Edinburgh summer, and Roisin’s life is stagnating. She spends her days cancelling plans, skipping work and drinking lukewarm wine in the bathtub with her best friend Eve.When their wealthy mutual friend Claire offers Roisin a significant amount of money under the guise of ‘freelance work,’ Roisin thinks her luck might finally be changing. But Claire’s proposal is not all it seems, and soon Roisin finds herself trapped. Paralysed by both her intense infatuation with Eve and her secret arrangement with Claire, Roisin must walk a delicate line to avoid losing what matters to her most.''A spry tale of friendship and desire, best inhaled in a single sitting. Summer Hours is astute, funny, and fizzing with life'' – Malachy Tallack

Since 1945 the world has changed at breakneck speed, and life in post-war Scotland is now entirely different from what it was like when Alistair Moffat grew up in the quiet Border town of Kelso in the 1950s. At that time the rhythms and practicalities of daily life which had remained constant for many generations were about to change in the most unimaginable ways.This is a book about these changes – many of which have been dizzying and disorientating – and how they have affected each and every one of us in all parts of the country. The main themes, such as housing, healthcare, sport, the media, the arts and entertainment, urban and country life, our relationship with the environment, politics, religion and education, are all viewed through the lens of personal experience. Alistair’s own recollections of big events and small, together with other eyewitness accounts, bring these decades alive in a way that no ordinary history can with a directness and poignancy that underlines how much has been gained – and how much lost.