Scotland and the Scottish Diaspora
"It's part of me, Scotland. I'm still immersed in it even though I am not there." -- Irvine Welsh (1958 - ), Scots novelist, short story writer, playwright, author of Trainspotting among many other works).
All my life I have been interested in the history of Scotland and the profound consequences of the Scottish diaspora throughout the world. Scotland and the Scots are appealing in so many ways -- the beauty of the land- and seascapes, the food and drink, the extraordinarily resourceful and creative people, the dramatic history from antiquity to the present, the great literature and history and philosophy and religion. The subjects are themselves enough to inspire writing, but there is great satisfaction in the fact that the Scots have lived up to the subjects on their own writ.
Over many years I have researched the history of Cumberland Valley, and I have often talked about the Scots, the Scots-Irish, and the settlement of this part of the New World by these willing and not-so-willing exiles. In recognition of the history and significance of the Scots to our area, I fly the Saltire and carry these books and cds. I am always on the lookout for more.
P.S. Due to listing limitations, I have moved Ian Rankin and Denise Mina, two fine writers of the Scots Noir movement, over to our International Mystery page.
The Living Mountain
The Living Mountain
‘The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain’ Guardian
In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape.
Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the ‘essential nature’ of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.
“The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain”
Guardian
“Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit. Nan Shepherd’s aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different”
ROBERT MACFARLANE
“Reading [The Living Mountain] seems to me to explain why reading is so important. And odd. And necessary. And not like anything else. There is no substitute for reading”
Jeanette Winterson
“If you read it, you too will feel changed. This is sublime, in the 18th-century sense, when landscapes like these were terrifying. And she achieves it in language that is almost incantatory, like a spell”
NICHOLAS LEZARD
Guardian
“A masterpiece … Amongst the greatest works of nature writing to come out of Britain”
CHITRA RAMASWAMY
The Scotsman
NAN SHEPHERD
Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield - to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa – but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside.