Saraband: 72 books

"A truly fine debut" Rodge Glass. 1911. Avram Escovitz, a young Jew, arrives in Glasgow from Russia. He dreams of playing football until WWI intervenes and he begins work as a credit draper, peddling goods to Highlanders. A stranger in a strange land, Avram must set up a new business and...

'A very worthwhile book.' Sir John Lister-Kaye The magnificent Highlands of Scotland represent, in so many ways, ancient Britain. But much of this apparently wild environment is, in fact, far more recent in origin – it has been shaped by the Victorians. Castles in the Mist reveals how, for better...

David Howe tells the story of the Lake District, England's most dramatic landscape. Home to vistas of stunning beauty and a rich heritage, it is an area of England that fascinates, inspires – and has bewitched David for a lifetime. With passion and an endless curiosity, he reveals how half...

Compelling, life-affirming' - Helen Fitzgerald. In 1920s French-controlled Algeria, Kaci is in the frame for the brutal murder of his French boss. Kaci is faced with a stark choice: name his cousin as the killer and win his freedom, or keep quiet and face 25 years' hard labour in the infamous Devil's...

Two revelations, each coming to light 20 years apart following the deaths of his father and mother, prompt Brian Johnstone to turn a poet's eye on his 1950s childhood and explore his parents' lives before and during World War II. His double set of discoveries lead him to encounter relatives...

"A bright book and a brilliant book." - Robert Macfarlane. Peter MacAulay sits down to write his will. The process sets in motion a compulsive series of reflections: a history of his own lifetime and a subjective account of how key events in the post-war world filter through to his home,...

A novel of the Iolaire disaster. In the small hours of January 1st, 1919, the cruellest twist of fate changed at a stroke the lives of an entire community. Tormod Morrison was there that terrible night. He was on board HMY Iolaire when it smashed into rocks and sank, killing some 200...

Trixie is back! After a few months in cliquey, midge-ridden Inverfaughie, she'll do anything to escape to Glasgow. But when a Hollywood movie begins filming, she fills her B&B with stunt men - until hungry cows, polo resorts and billionaire property developers kick off a rebellion, leaving Trixie...

No Wonder I Take a Drink was voted one of the 20 best Scottish books of all time in The List magazine. “A biting laugh-out-loud satire" (Louise Welsh), and For Faughie's Sake is the long-awaited sequel. Trisha, a lonely unsentimental boozer, unexpectedly inherits a home in the Highlands. She...

A beautiful novel about one woman's obsession with the life of a silent movie star as she struggles to accept life's compromises. Finding herself to be on the wrong side of fifty for a female film star, Laura Scott's career is on the slide. She has an opportunity to reverse this downward spiral...

A beautiful historical romance from the author of The Curiosity Cabinet When antiques seller Daisy Graham inherits an ancient house on the Hebridean island of Garve, she's daunted by its size and isolation. But the building, its jumble of contents, its wilderness of a garden and the island...

Northern Britain, Iron Age. Rian, a carefree young woman and promising apprentice healer, is enslaved by a spiteful trader and forced aboard a vessel to embark on a perilous sea voyage. They are in search of the fabled hunter known as the Walrus Mutterer, to recover something once stolen. The...

""At last, a funny novelist with guts." - Henry Sutton, Mirror. Everyone's on antidepressants, suffering Post Romantic Stress Disorder, especially Daphne, who's just been severely chucked by lily-livered Donnie. Being unhappy is embarrassing, therefore intolerable, and so everyone's...

"Monstrously good." - Louise Welsh. London, 1823. Mary Shelley's real-life friend Isabella Baxter Booth is 'disturbed in her reason' - seeing ghosts and dependent on narcoti to escape a hellish life with an increasingly violent, deranged husband. Fearful of her own murderous impulses towards...