Five Favourite Books: Scotland
In this ever–connected world, the escapism of a good book is a pleasure that shouldn’t be cast aside. So immerse yourself in this hand–picked selection and your trip will be deeper and more rewarding.
Between Mountain and Sea: Poems From Assynt
Norman MacCaig
A collection of poems from Norman MacCaig, one of Scotland’s best loved poets. MacCaig wrote marvellously spare and ambivalent poetry about place– and no other place shaped his poetry more than Assynt in Sutherland.
Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter
Kat Hill
A bothy is a remote hut in the wilderness that you can’t reserve, with no electricity, mod-cons or running water. The doors are always unlocked, you just need to step inside. From the rugged cliffs at the northern tip of Scotland to the fairy-tale valleys of Wales, historian Kat Hill tours us across the UK exploring the history of these wild shelters and her fellow wanderers – past and present.
The Outrun
Amy Liptrot
At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney's wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.
Shakespeare & Company bookshop link
The Way of the Hermit: My 40 years in the Scottish Wilderness
Ken Smith
Ken Smith has spent four decades in the Scottish Highlands, living alone in a cabin near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch'. The Way of the Hermit tells his story: from his working-class origins in Derbyshire, to the formative years he spent travelling in the Yukon and finally how he came to be the Hermit of Loch Treig. The book is well worth a read as Ken reflects upon the reasons he turned his back on society, the vulnerability of old age and the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature.
The Hidden Ways: Scotland's Forgotten Roads
In The Hidden Ways, Alistair Moffat traverses the lost paths of Scotland - its Roman roads tramped by armies, its byways and pilgrim routes, drove roads and railways, turnpikes and sea roads - in a bid to understand how our history has left its mark upon our landscape. As he retraces the forgotten paths that shaped and were shaped by the lives of the now forgotten people who trod them, Moffat charts a powerful, surprising and moving history of Scotland. "Our ancestors walked everywhere, unless they lived by a river or loch and travelled by boat, or were rich enough to keep a horse or pony. So Moffat will walk. He will walk over much of Scotland, following, sometimes struggling to follow, old roads that are now sometimes hard to find. This book is the story of a dozen such walks. This is a splendidly rich book - a treasure-house of information, memories and speculation" --