Saraband / Contraband

In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. “The moon climbed high above the trees beyond the far side of the field, contriving a night of raw, primitive beauty out of the still-lingering wisps of mist, the pale, tumbling curves of field, the parallel inked-in blue-black curves of the hedges, the quiet and surprisingly pale shades of the distant firth. Tawny owls stabbed at the darkness with sharp, two-syllable shrieks. Then there was a hare, far down the field. It ran easily out into the moonlight from the hedge on the far side and at once it was partnered in dance by its own giant shadow.”

To swim is an act of attention: to the self, and to everything beyond it. Follow poet and nature writer Polly Atkin as she swims through the turning year in the rivers, lakes and tarns of the English Lake District, in this lyrical ode to the uplifting power of water. This is a love story between a person and a place. It is a story of acceptance, persistence and finding joy in the everyday, as eight years of outdoor swimming through every season deepen Atkin’s knowledge and understanding of both the landscape she calls home and her disabled body. Each month in the water reveals how a life lived with pain can be as rich, rewarding and full of delight as any other. Atkin swims for the sheer pleasure of it, showing how that pleasure may be found in every season, even by those who find the cold neither thrilling nor soothing. She reminds us of the quiet power of noticing the lives alongside ours — birds, plants and people. And through paying attention to herself and to the living world around her, she finds swimming becomes a transformative force, a kind of natural magic through which the extraordinary is revealed day after day, year after year.

Discover the extraordinary in every day with Nature’s Almanac, by renowned wildlife and biodiversity gardener Susie White. This beautifully compact book invites you to pause and notice one remarkable phenomenon of the natural world each day, drawing inspiration from the Japanese tradition of microseasons—seventy-two poetic intervals that celebrate nature’s subtle shifts. With her signature blend of lyrical observation, experience and insight, Susie guides readers through fleeting moments: the first snowdrop buds of spring, the song of larks on the wing, or the golden turning of leaves as the days shorten once more. Each entry is enriched by Susie’s deep expertise as a gardener and naturalist, offering practical wisdom and gentle encouragement to engage more closely with the world around us. Let this book be your companion for mindful living, helping you rediscover the joy of nature’s ever-changing beauty, one day at a time.

From the author of the prizewinning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes an evocative and highly original fictional rendering of the Isle of Lewis across the centuries. Continuing his elegiac Lewis novels, Donald S. Murray serves up a remarkable new work that sweeps across time from the eighth century to the present day. Layering interlinked stories of successive generations like blankets of peat, he allows echoes of ancient lives to surface in the present. This is a novel that mirrors the shifting rhythms of wind and tide. The struggles and joys of past lives are refracted in the heartaches and hopes of modern-day islanders. As in his award-winning previous novels, the ordinary is suffused with quiet wonder; every place and gesture carries memories and meaning. Ultimately, this is a novel about continuity. The land holds its secrets, letting the past break surface in sometimes surprising ways. Murray s compassionate gaze reminds us that time can be viewed as a circle, where the living are in constant conversation with those who came before.

A lyrical and personal account of Jim Crumley’s lifelong quest to find harmony in nature and to hold nature at the centre of his every thought and action as he celebrates our precious planet. Renowned nature writer Jim Crumley draws on more than six decades of immersion in wild landscapes to explore the profound harmony at the heart of the natural world—and why it matters now more than ever. With the lyrical clarity and passionate advocacy that have made him Scotland’s foremost nature commentator, Crumley weaves together close observation, personal encounters, and ecological insight to reveal nature as a vast, interconnected symphony. He argues that our survival depends on relearning how to listen to the land, to recognise our place within the great orchestration of life rather than apart from it. Through evocative prose built on his expertise and care, Crumley urges us to defend the beauty and balance of the living world, offering both a celebration and a clarion call. Symphonic is a vital testament from a writer whose life’s work is a passionate defence and celebration of nature’s enduring—and endangered—harmony.

An evocative journey through geology and landscape, seen through the eyes of one of Scotland’s most beloved poets and storytellers. Blending lyrical prose with personal reflection, Kenneth Steven explores mountains, glens and shores in search of gemstones and crystals. He recounts his delight at discoveries of gold glinting in Highland burns, freshwater pearls embedded in mussel shells, and aquamarines, garnets, amber and agates hidden in the wild places where others rarely roam. Beguiled by their forms, colours, and sometimes glittering bril- liance, he finds the thrill of unearthing riches more precious even than the gems themselves. Stone by stone, he considers the origins and allure of these natural treasures, revealing not only their geo- logical stories but their place in history and imagination. Steven’s deep connection to the land shines through as he interprets the meaning and magic, inviting readers to see both the landscape and its hidden gems with fresh wonder.

Discover the wonder of marine life seen up close in these joyous and sparkling essays.In 2022, Christina Riley became an ‘underwater artist in residence’ at the Argyll Coast Hope Spot – a place of incredible natural beauty in Scotland also crucial for the health of the world’s oceans. She spent days submerged alongside marine life, before resurfacing to reflect, recreate and recount what she had seen – and the feelings of love, hope and responsibility her experience had evoked in her.The resulting essays, collected in this stunning volume, swim through the kaleidoscope of marine life she found there, from starfish to seagrass to the water itself. What shines through all of them is a sense of wonder that is also a call to action. Looking Down at the Stars asks: how can we harness our feelings of awe at the natural world in order to take better care of it?Christina Riley’s lyrical prose is the perfect guide to this unfamiliar underwater world, brimming with surprises, sunlight and sea stars.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s propulsive, Booker-shortlisted contemporary classic – reissued to mark its tenth anniversary.The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish Highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but it falls to the country’s finest legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to commit such merciless acts of violence.Was he mad? Only the persuasive powers of his advocate stand between Macrae and the gallows. Graeme Macrae Burnet tells an irresistible and original story about the provisional nature of truth, even when the facts seem clear.His Bloody Project is a mesmerising literary thriller set in an unforgiving landscape where the exercise of power is arbitrary.

A lively, sharp and thought-provoking exploration of the enduring stereotype of the dangerous single woman in popular culture.From the obsessive ''bunny boiler'' of Fatal Attraction to the tabloid frenzy over Taylor Swift’s relationship status, Caroline Young explores how single women have so often been portrayed as unstable, dangerous, or incomplete. Blending cultural criticism with her own personal experience, Young examines how these stereotypes have been shaped by broader social trends, including the antifeminist backlash of the 1980s and the current renaissance of the ‘trad-wife’. Through her analysis of books, movies, and TV shows, she reveals how these narratives reflect deeper anxieties about women’s independence. Engaging, witty, fun and feminist, Single and Psycho is a timely critique of how society views single women – and a celebration of their complexity and resilience.

A memoir of place, memory and motion, of seafarers, and the author’s connections to them and to the sea.Linda Cracknell’s quest to learn more about her seafaring family history brings her to a blustery harbour. As she throws a line to pull in a boat, she is struck by the parallel with her mission to reel the past closer to the present, to find her place in a family tree full of mariners whose lives were defined by the ebb and flow of tides.Exploring coastlines from Scotland to Cornwall by boat and foot, she retraces the footsteps and paths of her ancestors across marshes, clifftops and waves. She travels in a 121-year-old sailboat and helps to build a community rowing boat. Gradually, she understands that the women in this story were the linchpins of the coastal communities they lived in – and the undertow of her own identity. All the while, she is untangling her complex relationship with her mother.What begins as a quest for legacy takes Linda well beyond, as she discovers something more elemental and unconscious in her pull to the sea, imagining her blood as salt-saturated, sea-marked.

From the author of The Zen of Climbing and The Craft of Bouldering, a manifesto for a new approach to connecting meaningfully with the wildness around and within us.As we live increasingly urbanised lives, we seek out wilderness and green space in times of hardship and turmoil, or simply during our leisure time. In the process of exploring and understanding more about the benefits of being in nature, many of us have taken up swimming, forest bathing, cycling, hiking and running in the open air. But when we spend this time in the wild, are we really connected to it?Francis Sanzaro argues that we often obscure opportunities for real connection through our attachment to screens, our anxieties about our "everyday" lives, or simply through our egos. When we observe nature, we rarely do so without subconsciously filtering out the parts that don''t fit into the perfect snapshot we crave.To foster a genuine connection with the natural world, and to better protect it, we must embrace its contradictions as well as the surface beauty. Through deeper engagement with our environment, we can discover the wild within ourselves, too.

It was obvious to Catherine Simpson from the beginning that there was something different about her first child, Nina.Motherhood had always felt like Catherine’s destiny, and she’d grown up nurturing joyful visions of the family she’d create. But her dreams crashed headfirst into the reality of parenthood. It seemed that the world was not Nina-shaped, and no matter how hard they both tried, they had to fight almost everything – especially once Nina started school.Aged ten, Nina’s autism was diagnosed and a door opened. It became clear why she didn’t think or behave the way other children did, but faced with school bullies, dismissive doctors and insensitive peers, her difficulties were far from over. She and Catherine still felt as though it was them against a world that demanded Nina change as a child and Catherine as a mother.While Nina remained resolutely herself, Catherine adapted. Mothering an autistic child lit a fierce determination within her and underlined the power of her unconditional love.This is an unforgettable story that shows what a gift it is to see someone not as the world tells them they should be, but as they are.

From the author of Lady’s Rock, The Unreliable Death of Lady Grange and The Green Lady, a tale of the sisterhood, heartbreak and resilience of the Scottish women on the World War II home frontClova, Scotland, 1942. The midst of the Second World War. Sisters Nell and Effie Anderson live together in the Old Schoolhouse. Effie is a teacher, while Nell works as a postwoman, delivering news – often of the worst – from the frontline to her neighbours. Though they love and care for one another, there are unspoken tensions and mysteries that put distance between them.Then, a plane carrying Canadian and British soldiers crashes over their village, and the only surviving soldier stumbles up to their front door. In his pocket is a photo that will set in motion a chain of events threatening to uncover their families’ generations-old secrets.Told across a dual timeline of Effie and Nell’s adult years through World War II and their adolescence during World War I, Whispers in the Glen is a novel about secrets, lies – and the dangers of keeping them hidden.

''A Case of Matricide demonstrates literary talent of the highest order … few writers can rival Burnet.’ The SpectatorChief Inspector Gorski returns … In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s hostelries, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons. Graeme Macrae Burnet once again pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this, the concluding part of his trilogy of Gorski novels. He injects a wry humour into the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds, but above all provides an entertaining, profound and moving read. 

Never underestimate a librarian.Fifty-something librarian Shona McMonagle is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls with a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name.After a visit from Miss Blaine herself, involving a bad-tempered exchange about Robinson Crusoe and improper book shelving, Shona is sent spinning through time and space for another mission. She finds herself on an island, with little in the way of clues to help her decipher the purpose of her trip. Despite initially wondering if this might be a rare treat from Miss Blaine, she soon realises this is no holiday. Her island is not tropical; it’s in the Baltic Sea – and it’s the fifteenth century.Luckily she’s kitted out for all eventualities and finds her local languages are not too rusty, which is useful when she encounters pirates, Krakens and other monsters. As always, she’s nothing if not resourceful – after all, she is a librarian.

She smelled like jasmine. No, not exactly. She smelled like the earth beneath a jasmine plant on a hot day.   Most of us are poets, she said. It’s just a question of how it comes out.  When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague – the poet – it is not long before it begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn’t; she has everything he wants. While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows. While he tends to his budding career, she writes from her big, white house in the woods. As he slips between his old life and this new one, his fixation grows into something more powerful. The poet, his Kingfisher, is his sole focus. He is hypnotised.But when simultaneous illnesses threaten to destroy the precarious reality he clings to, he’s forced to question what he can and cannot take from someone. This is a novel about grief, power and desire – and the tangles in between that make up a life.