The List: 100 Best Scottish Books, 2005

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The List: 100 Best Scottish Books, 2005

1deargreenplace
Redigerat: mar 1, 2007, 6:13 am

It's an old list, I know, but maybe interesting to look at again. How many have we read? Is anything missing from the list?

Adam Blair (1822) John Gibson Lockhart

Annals of the Parish (1821) John Galt

An Oidhche Mus Do She򬠓inn (2003) Aonghas Pलaig Caimbeul

Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995) Kate Atkinson

Black and blue (1997) Ian Rankin

Born Free (1999) Laura Hird

The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism (1977) Tom Nairn

Brond (1984) Frederic Lindsay

The Bull Calves (1947) Naomi Mitchison

Buddha Da (2003) Anne Donovan

But n Ben A-Go-Go (2000) Matthew Fitt

Children of the Dead End (1914) Patrick MacGill

The Citadel (1937) AJ Cronin

A Concussed History of Scotland (1990) Frank Kuppner

The Cone-Gatherers (1955) Robin Jenkins

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822) Thomas De Quincey

Consider the Lilies (1968) Iain Crichton Smith

The Coral Island (1858) R. M. Ballantyne

The Cutting Room (2002) Louise Welsh

A Day at the Office (1991) Robert Alan Jamieson

The Dear Green Place (1966) Archie Hind

A Disaffection (1989) James Kelman

The Divided Self (1960) RD Laing

Docherty (1975) William McIlvanney

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) David Hume

Electric Brae (1997) Andrew Greig

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) Tobias Smollett

Flemington (1911) Violet Jacob

For the Love of Willie (1998) Agnes Owens

From Russia, With Love (1957) Ian Fleming

The Game of Kings (1961) Dorothy Dunnett

Garnethill (1998) Denise Mina

The Golden Bough (1890) James Frazer

The Gowk Storm (1933) Nancy Brysson Morrison

Grace Notes (1997) Bernard MacLaverty

Greenvoe (1972) George Mackay Brown

The Guns of Navarone (1957) Alistair MacLean

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) J.K. Rowling

Heart of Darkness (1902) Joseph Conrad

The Highland Clearances (1969) John Prebble

Hotel World (2001) Ali Smith

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) Arthur Conan Doyle

The House with the Green Shutters (1901) George Douglas Brown

Imagined Corners (1931) Willa Muir

Jelly Roll (1998) Luke Sutherland

Jericho Sleep Alone (1964) Chaim Bermant

Joseph Knight (2003) James Robertson

King James Bible: Authorised Version (1611) Various

Lanark (1981) Alasdair Gray

The Lantern Bearers (1999) Ronald Frame

The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) James Boswell

The Lighthouse Stevensons (1999) Bella Bathurst

Lilith (1895) George MacDonald

Living Nowhere (2003) John Burnside

Madame Doubtfire (1987) Anne Fine

The Magic Flute (1990) Alan Spence

Me and Ma Gal (1995) Des Dillon

Miss Marjoribanks (1866) Margaret Oliphant

Morvern Callar (1995) Alan Warner

Mr Alfred, M.A. (1972) George Frie

The New Road (1914) Neil Munro

The New Testament in Scots (1983) trans. William Laughton Lorimer

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) George Orwell

No Mean City: A Story of the Glasgow Slums (1935) Alexander McArthur and H. Kingsley Long

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998) Alexander McCall Smith

One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (1999) Christopher Brookmyre

Open the Door! (1920) Catherine Carswell

Our Fathers (1999) Andrew O'Hagan

Paradise (2004) AL Kennedy

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) Muriel Spark

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) James Hogg

Psychoraag (2004) Suhayl Saadi

The Quarry Wood (1928) Nan Shepherd

Rob Roy (1818) Walter Scott

Sartor Resartus (1836) Thomas Carlyle

Scar Culture (1999) Toni Davidson

The Sea Road (2000) Margaret Elphinstone

A Sense of Freedom (1977) Jimmy Boyle

The Shipbuilders (1935) George Blake

The Siege of Trencher's Farm (1969) Gordon Williams

The Silver Darlings (1941) Neil M Gunn

The Sound of My Voice (1987) Ron Butlin

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Robert Louis Stevenson

Swing Hammer Swing! (1992) Jeff Torrington

Sunset Song (1932) Lewis Grassic Gibbon

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) John Buchan

To the Lighthouse (1927) Virginia Woolf

Trainspotting (1993) Irvine Welsh

The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989) Janice Galloway

Trumpet (1998) Jackie Kay

A Twelvemonth and a Day (1985) Christopher Rush

Tunes of Glory (1956) James Kennaway

Under the Skin (2000) Michel Faber

A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) David Lindsay

The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain Banks

The Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith

Whisky Galore (1947) Compton Mackenzie

The White Bird Passes (1958) Jessie Kesson

The Wind in the Willows (1908) Kenneth Grahame

Young Adam (1954) Alexander Trocchi

** edited to attempt to correct touchstones





2KromesTomes
Redigerat: feb 28, 2007, 10:40 am

How late it was, how late by James Kelman should be on there ...

(edited because I can't read ... thanks, Jargoneer.)

3Jargoneer
feb 28, 2007, 10:21 am

Hate to point this out but both Smith and Hume are there.

The list does have faults though, including works by Woolf, Orwell & Conrad, for example, is stretching the point about Scottish books. There are quite a few 'mediocre' modern books on it as well but the problem is that Scotland does not have the great literary tradition of England - the schools of Scotland produced engineers, doctors and bankers, not writers.

There are still books that are missing though - James Hogg The Three Perils of Man, arguably a better book than Confessions of a Justified Sinnet. Margaret Oliphant deserved more of presence. If you include Lilith, then you should include Phantastes. Why are Kidnapped & Treasure Island not there?

4damn_camera Första inlägget
feb 28, 2007, 3:32 pm

Well, i've read 15. Not bad for a Johnny Foreigner, eh? The Glaswegian only claims 17, so i think i've done pretty well!

5deargreenplace
mar 1, 2007, 5:58 am

I haven't read too many of them:

Buddha Da by Anne Donovan

The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

The Guns of Navarone by Alistair Maclean (assigned as school reading in Primary 7 for reasons still unknown)

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Only 10! On my to-be-read list are:

Our Fathers by Andrew O'Hagan and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, and I'm currently reading Docherty by William McIlvanney.

6deargreenplace
mar 1, 2007, 6:06 am

Dang touchstones :( It was a wee while ago now, so I can't remember how the shortlist was selected. I suppose readers of The List may have suggested the titles.

Would like to get round to The House With The Green Shutters for sure, and Sunset Song since it was the winner. I know that these were taught in some schools - not mine.

7glabrous
mar 3, 2007, 1:36 pm

be sure to let us know how you get on with Our Fathers, deargreenplace, I'm itching to talk about it wi anybody who's read it, or any of Andrew O'Hagan's writing.

8kicking_k
mar 5, 2007, 4:21 pm

Hmmm. Yes, I'd question the Scottish-ness of several of the choices, too. Though there are several writers on there whose Scottishness I may merely have missed (such as de Quincey - I hadn't thought he was Scottish, but I'm happy to be corrected).

I suppose it's difficult to say what the criteria should be: is it enough to be born in Scotland (even if the author doesn't live there or write about it), or to set a novel there if the author is not Scottish-born? (And how does Heart of Darkness qualify on any terms?

I've only read 23, but then, as someone else said, there's a lot of 20th-century writing on there and I don't read as much modern fiction as I probably ought to. And I've frequently read other things by the same writers.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995) Kate Atkinson (wonderful)
Black and blue (1997) Ian Rankin (I like The Falls better)
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822) Thomas De Quincey (vertiginous)
The Coral Island (1858) R. M. Ballantyne (interesting, but very much of its time)
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) Tobias Smollett (fun but episodic)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) J.K. Rowling (who hasn't?)
Heart of Darkness (1902) Joseph Conrad (disappointing)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) Arthur Conan Doyle
The House with the Green Shutters (1901) George Douglas Brown (like a Russian play)
King James Bible: Authorised Version (1611) Various
The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) James Boswell
Madame Doubtfire (1987) Anne Fine (Goggle-Eyes was my favourite)
Mr Alfred, M.A. (1972) George Frie (depressing)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) George Orwell
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998) Alexander McCall Smith
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) James Hogg (gothic!)
Sartor Resartus (1836) Thomas Carlyle (For college...)
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Robert Louis Stevenson (I love Stevenson)
Sunset Song (1932) Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) John Buchan (Why doesn't Hannay just stay in London?)
The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989) Janice Galloway
The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain Banks (A bit teenage)
The White Bird Passes (1958) Jessie Kesson (Beautiful and sad)
The Wind in the Willows (1908) Kenneth Grahame

I can't say I'm exactly aching to read any of the ones I haven't, except The Golden Bough. Anybody got any favourites they'd like to promote?

9aynar
dec 16, 2008, 12:18 pm

This is too good a thread to be laying dormant, I think, so here's my contribution.

I have read:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) J.K. Rowling
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) Arthur Conan Doyle
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) George Orwell
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998) Alexander McCall Smith
The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain Bank
Whisky Galore (1947) Compton Mackenzie

Only seven!

I have read other works by these authors than the ones in the list: Iain Crichton Smith, Anne Fine, Ian Rankin, Irvine Welsh. And I'm part-way through James Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

And these are on my `to read' list, though I fancy plenty of the others too:

The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) James Boswell
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) Muriel Spark
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) James Hogg
The Cone-Gatherers (1955) Robin Jenkins

10antisyzygy
dec 16, 2008, 3:51 pm

I've managed 24 although I don't read much fiction these days, and like kicking_k, not much modern stuff.

I'm looking out for a nice copy of Sartor Resartus

Incidentally, I added the complete list to common knowledge, so you can easily see your library mapped to it:

The List 100 Best Scottish Books

11DromJohn
dec 16, 2008, 4:58 pm

Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.

12MarianV
dec 16, 2008, 8:01 pm

Waiting for Lindsay by Moira Forsyth is one of the best books I've ever read. I recommended it to my grief group.
(Thomas Dunne Books 2001)

13cjohn
maj 19, 2009, 8:49 am

From the list - books read -

Buddha Da (2003) Anne Donovan - recommend

The Cutting Room (2002) Louise Welsh - recommend

Grace Notes (1997) Bernard MacLaverty

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) J.K. Rowling

Hotel World (2001) Ali Smith

Joseph Knight (2003) James Robertson

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) George Orwell

One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (1999) Christopher Brookmyre

Paradise (2004) AL Kennedy

The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) John Buchan

Trainspotting (1993) Irvine Welsh

The Trick is to Keep Breathing (1989) Janice Galloway

Under the Skin (2000) Michel Faber

The White Bird Passes (1958) Jessie Kesson

14starrryeyes
mar 8, 2010, 8:34 pm

ive only read 12, which is appalling for a scottish literature student;-(

15BillKennedy
mar 8, 2010, 10:01 pm

I would say you should include the other two books in Lewis Grassic Gibbon's trilogy 'A Scot's Quair' : 'Grey Granite' and 'Cloud Howe'. Though 'Sunset Song' is the best of the three, they all should be read, IMHO.

16kirsty
jul 17, 2010, 6:42 pm

#14 me too - I think I've read 16 but that might be because i think I should have read them

I'd also query the Scottishness of some of them. For example, Anne Fine and J K Rowling are English authors who moved to Scotland as adults. Alan Warner moved to Ireland to take advantage of the tax breaks (presumably) and write and I would query anyone who suggested that he was an Irish author.

I think Peter Pan should be included on the list.

17diatomite
apr 19, 2020, 6:01 am

Needs brought up to date if only for "And The Land Lay Still" by James Robertson. Should also add "Sikundar Burnes" by Craig Murray and perhaps one (or more) of Ken Macleod's.