BOOK NOW:
A celebratory programme of events has been announced for Book Week Scotland 2021. Marking 10 years since the week was first held, it runs November 15-22 and opens with the premiere of a new documentary by Denise Mina, The Women Writers of Garnethill. Another film, exploring the inspirations behind former Makar Jackie Kay’s bestselling novel, Trumpet, will premiere later in the week.
Further highlights include a Damian Barr Literary Salon starring Baggage author Alan Cumming, plus several Authors Live events featuring a host of writers including Patience Agbabi, Aisha Jassat, Chris McQueer and Cat Hepburn.
Other high-profile events, featuring leading authors such as Graeme Macrae Burnet, Marion Todd, James Robertson and Bake-Off winner Peter Sawkins, will take place at venues across the country.
Book Week Scotland is delivered by The Scottish Book Trust, whose CEO, Marc Lambert, said: “2021 marks a decade of Book Week Scotland, a massive milestone that all of us at Scottish Book Trust are extremely proud of. Last year alone, we reached 292,000 people through free Book Week Scotland events.”
He added: “Book Week Scotland would not be possible without the many libraries, bookshops, community groups and schools that take part.”
For full programme details, including events happening near you, visit https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/book-week-scotland
JUST OUT:
Angus Robertson’s new book, Vienna: The International Capital, is launched this week (Oct 18-22) in Edinburgh, London and the Austrian capital itself. It offers a fresh perspective on the city in which Robertson worked as a journalist for nearly a decade. Written prior to his election in May as MSP for Edinburgh Central, it focuses on Vienna’s importance as the world’s historic capital of international affairs and diplomacy.
Based on his intimate knowledge of the city, it tells the story of how a garrison town at the edge of the Roman Empire became a glittering international city, with reference to key players in its history, from cultural icons such as Mozart and Freud to political figures including Adolf Hitler and John F Kennedy.
Now Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Robertson said Vienna is “the book I wanted to read about the city but couldn’t find in any bookshop, so I wrote it myself”.
Writing and researching the book during the period between serving as a Westminster MP and his election to the Scottish Parliament as MSP for Edinburgh Central, the work took him into the Austrian National Library, Austrian State Archive and the National Library of Scotland. There, he examined primary sources including handwritten letters by Queen Victoria, Emperor Francis Joseph and others, as well as previously undiscovered personal correspondence from a UK ambassador to Vienna criticising international acquiescence with the Nazi “Anschluss”.
“As a diplomatic affairs correspondent I was in the right city to cover the United Nations and the myriad of other international organisations headquartered in the Austrian capital which is where modern diplomacy began,” said Robertson. “Writing Vienna: The International Capital between my time at Westminster and before my election to Holyrood has reinforced my view that smaller countries can play a big role in international relations and Scotland should follow Austria’s lead as a bridge-builder and supporter of multilateral diplomacy.”
Vienna: The International Capital by Angus Robertson is published by Birlinn, £25
THE WINNER IS:
Highlands-based author Merryn Glover has won the Bookmark Book Festival Book of the Year Award 2021 for her novel, Of Stone and Sky. The award was announced at the festival in Blairgowrie last weekend (October 9 and 10). Set on a farming estate in the upper reaches of the River Spey, Of Stone and Sky follows several generations of a shepherding family in a paean to the bonds between people, their land and way of life. The publisher describes it as "a profound mystery, a passionate poem, a political manifesto, shot through with wisdom and humour".
The full shortlist for the Bookmark Book of the Year Award was: Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe (Penguin Viking); Of Stone and Sky by Merryn Glover (Polygon); Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro (Hachette); How to Survive Everything by Ewan Morrison (Saraband); The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff (Bloomsbury); We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (Zaffre).
Of Stone and Sky by Merryn Glover is published by Polygon, £16.99
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