Download or read book Household Ghosts A James Kennaway Omnibus written by James Kennaway and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tunes of Glory Household Ghosts Silence This volume collects three of the very best works by James Kennaway, the brilliant young novelist and screenwriter who tragically died in a car crash at the early age of forty. Memorably filmed with Alec Guinness and John Mills, Tunes of Glory is a grippingly dramatic exploration of the glamour and the brutality of post-war army life as the tensions and conflicts in the officers' mess of a Highland regiment lead to shame and tragedy. Household Ghosts is a claustrophobic tale of family tension, love triangles and the persistence of the past-one of Kennaway's favourite themes. Set in a country house in Scotland the book is haunted, like the privileged family it describes, by the ghosts of Scotland's own turbulent history. Taken from completed drafts on the author's desk, Silence tells of the accidental meeting and the complex union between a white man and a black woman in times of racial tension and sexual violence. Set in a North American city in midwinter Kennaway's last and brilliantly succinct novel expands into a universal allegory of suffering and death.
Download or read book The British National Bibliography written by Arthur James Wells and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 1926 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Scotland and the First World War written by Gill Plain and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did war look like in the cultural imagination of 1914? Why did men in Scotland sign up to fight in unprecedented numbers? What were the martial myths shaping Scottish identity from the aftermath of Bannockburn to the close of the nineteenth century, and what did the Scottish soldiers of the First World War think they were fighting for? Scotland and the First World War: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Bannockburn is a collection of new interdisciplinary essays interrogating the trans-historical myths of nation, belonging and martial identity that shaped Scotland’s encounter with the First World War. In a series of thematically linked essays, experts from the fields of literature, history and cultural studies examine how Scotland remembers war, and how remembering war has shaped Scotland.
Download or read book The Early Life of James McBey written by James McBey and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and Introduced by Nicolas Barker This book is an autobiographical account of the early years of James McBey, the self-taught boy from a humble north-east village who became one of Scotland's most successful and celebrated artists. Writing with charismatic frankness and realism, McBey describes his passionate desire to be an artist, from his first etchings (printed with the help of an old mangle) to the moment when he left a stultifying job to strike out for Holland to create a life of his own. McBey's journey was not an easy one. Poverty, ignorance, his family's indifference, the petty routines of an Aberdeen bank, his mother's suicide, all these are evoked with gravity, clarity and a lightness of touch – like the etchings themselves – which will long remain in the reader's mind. Introduced by Nicolas Barker, who edited the original manuscripts, this book offers a real-life portrait of the artist as a young man and establishes James McBey as a gifted prose stylist in his own right.
Download or read book The Land Of The Leal written by James Barke and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This huge novel, closer in scope to a Russian epic than to any English counterpart, opens at the turn of the century in the extreme poverty of the Rhinns of Galloway, an agricultural backwater of the southern-most part of Scotland. With a loving regard for the land and its people, Barke traces the lives of David and Jean Ramsay who, full of hope, painstakingly uproot themselves and their family in the search for prosperity. Their efforts to retain respect and a decent way of life are thwarted by unemployment in increasingly hostile circumstances, and a harsh environment inevitably leaves its mark. But a new generation emerges to question the authority of an uncaring society and, even as Fascism rages through Europe, a new hope is born. ‘Barke’s characters are both intelligent and spirited.’ Times Literary Supplement ‘An elegy for the old way of life.’ New Statesman
Download or read book Two Worlds written by David Daiches and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foreword by David Daiches with an additional essay, ‘Promised Lands’. In this captivating autobiography of his childhood and student years David Daiches recalls a unique period between the two world wars. There was something very special about the Scottish-Jewish interchange in those years. It has had its counterparts in other cultures yet few have been captured so vividly or with such insight peculiar to the very young. Daiches was one of the sons of Edinburgh’s chief Rabbi. In their home, a quiet dark hub of foreign faith, memories of light and festivity predominated. Illustrious visitors from every corner of the globe would call on the distinguished Rabbi and the sons of the house would argue cheerfully with these itinerant scholars and diplomats. School was Scottish, Presbyterian, with its characteristics smell of wood, chalk, ink and schoolbag leather. Daiches did not play games, sing hymns, wear the ubiquitous school shorts or socialise after school yet not only did he survive these tribulations, he excelled. ‘The two cultures of my childhood . . . I was equally at home in both. That was my good fortune and I have never ceased to be grateful for it.’ ‘Promised Lands’ is a moving memoir of the author’s father and a timely meditation on exile, pluralism and synthesis, and on the need to welcome and also to balance the vital cultural differences which show us what we are and how we all belong to the imagined community of Scotland.
Download or read book The Weatherhouse written by Nan Shepherd and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The women of the tiny town of Fetter-Rothnie have grown used to a life without men, and none more so than the tangle of mothers and daughters, spinsters and widows living at the Weatherhouse. Returned from war with shellshock, Garry Forbes is drawn into their circle as he struggles to build a new understanding of the world from the ruins of his grief. In The Weatherhouse Nan Shepherd paints an exquisite portrait of a community coming to terms with the brutal losses of war, and the small tragedies, yearnings and delusions that make up a life.
Download or read book Scottish Ballads written by Emily Lyle and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This selection includes more than eighty of the finest ballads, together with an introduction, notes and glosses. The versions come from the last three centuries-from the time of Burns and Scott, who were among the earliest collectors, up to the present day. Although the ballads are anonymous in a way, the singers themselves determine the versions we have, by a process of selection, interpretation and refashioning. Wherever possible, this edition includes the names of the singers, many of whom were women. An internationally recognised ballad scholar, Emily Lyle is a research fellow at the School of Scottish Studies in the University of Edinburgh, and is general editor of The Grieg-Duncan Folk song Collection.
Download or read book The Highland Lady In Ireland written by Elizabeth Grant and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and Introduced by Patricia Pelly and Andrew Tod. ‘They have made an Irishwoman of you now, and may they know the value of the daughter they adopted into their country.’ Elizabeth Grant’s sister The early life of Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus, so memorably recorded in her Memoirs of a Highland Lady has had an avid readership since the book’s first publication in 1898. This volume takes up the story after she arrives in Ireland, following her marriage to Colonel Smith of Baltiboys. This journal, begun in 1840, will be recognisable to her many followers by the charm, vigour and intelligence that fill every page. They vividly depict the day to day life of her family, her immense efforts to improve the Baltiboys estate and how she coped with the terrible ravages of famine. Her sharp observations of all classes of society however, from corrupt landowners to the poor and often dissolute farm-workers, make this book a memorable and important chronicle of her times and a unique contribution to the social history of Ireland.
Download or read book Fergus Lamont written by Robin Jenkins and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Half Scotland sniggered and the other half scowled, when in letters to the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald, I put forward my suggestion that prisoners in Scottish jails be allowed to wear their kilts as their national birthright if such be their wish.' From his origins as an illegitimate child in the slums of Glasgow, Fergus Lamont sets out to reclaim his inheritance and to remake his identity as soldier, poet and would-be aristocrat. Covering the years from the turn of the century to the Second World War, Fergus's unforgettable voice recounts a tale of vanity, success and betrayal which shines its own sardonic light on Scotland and the cultural and political issues of the day. At odds with his origins and unsettled in his aristocratic pretensions, Fergus Lamont reaches middle age before he is offered at least the hope of redemption in a love affair with an island woman. How it turns out and what he learns too late, adds a tragic dimension to the scathing humour of this, Robin Jenkins's most searching exploration of the modern Scottish psyche.
Download or read book The Devil and the Giro written by Carl MacDougall and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and Introduced by Carl MacDougall. The Scottish story has its roots in an oral tradition where stories were told to entertain. It is a tradition that has not diminished over the years and indeed there is today a body of young writers in the forefront of contemporary literature whose narrative voice is as compelling as that of their illustrious predecessors. The Devil and the Giro includes stories from all the major Scottish writers both famous and unsung. Hogg, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Hugh MacDiarmid, Muriel Spark, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray are but a few of the fifty contributors. The anthology encompasses many examples of the themes in which Scottish writers have always excelled, most notably in that archetypal twinning of opposites where the ordinary meets the fantastic, man encounters the Devil, or the real and the supernatural converge. This is the stuff of the ancient storytellers and the tradition has persisted to this day where the hard reality of urban existence still involves coming to terms with life and death. ‘A big generous anthology . . . All in all a magnificent thematic and hugely enjoyable anthology which proves that the Scottish short story has been and is a flourishing form.’ Iain Crichton Smith, Scotsman
Download or read book Smeddum written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 991 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and introduced by Valentina Bold. This selection of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s writing brings together old favourites and new material for the first time. There are all his lively contributions to Scottish Scene (co-written by Hugh MacDiarmid) including the unforgettable lilt and flow of his short stories ‘Smeddum’, ‘Clay’, ‘Greendenn’, ‘Sim’ and ‘Forsaken’. The anthology ends with the full text of his last novel, The Speak of the Mearns, unpublished in his lifetime. Valentina Bold has also included a collection of poems, ‘Songs of Limbo’, taken from typescripts in the National Library of Scotland, and a selection of Grassic Gibbon’s articles and short fiction, with work done for The Cornhill Magazine along with book reviews and essays on Diffusionism, ancient American civilization and selected studies from his book on the lives of explorers, Nine Against the Unknown. A Lewis Grassic Gibbon Anthology provides an indispensable supplement to Canongate’s edition of A Scots Quair, and it also offers further insight into the wide-ranging interests and the lyrical, historical and political writing of the greatest and best-loved Scottish novelist of the early twentieth century. ‘It would be impossible to over-estimate Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s importance . . . [his work] permeates the Scottish literary consciousness and colours all subsequent writing of its kind.’ David Kerr Cameron ‘Gibbon’s style is one of the great achievements of [A Scots Quair] and should be seen in relation to Scottish forerunners like John Galt as well as in the context of modern innovators such as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner.’ Tom Crawford
Download or read book The Watcher by the Threshold written by John Buchan and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and introduced by Andrew Lownie. ‘The short story is the real form’ John Buchan This is the first ever complete collection of all Buchan’s shorter Scottish fiction. Set largely in his beloved Borders, these stories and novellas show the full range and depth of Buchan’s writing. Featuring shepherds, poachers, gamekeepers and drovers, they are worlds away from the tales of aristocratic adventure with which he is so often associated. Shot through with characters and places he returned to in his full-length fiction, the Buchan that emerges from this collection is a very different and much more complex writer than he is often held to be. ‘John Buchan was the first to realise the enormous dramatic value of adventure in familiar surroundings happening to unadventurous men.’ Graham Greene
Download or read book Modern Scottish Gaelic Poems written by Donald Macaulay and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduced by Donald MacAulay. This indispensable anthology contains selections of the best work by Scotland’s most acclaimed modern Gaelic poets: Sorley Maclean, George Campbell Hay, Iain Crichton Smith, Derick Thomson and Donald MacAulay. Designed as much for English readers of Gaelic, the poems are presented with line-for-line translations. These translations have been made by the poets themselves, thereby maximising the retention of the sprit and form of the originals. Donald MacAulay is Professor of Celtic at the University of Glasgow. ‘This is the ideal collection for those who wish to enjoy Gaelic poetry without learning the language.’ Birmingham Post ‘This book deserves to be read not only to gain an insight into modern Gaelic poetry, but because it contains poetry of merit that is now available in English.’ Press and Journal ‘Nua-Bhardachd Ghaidhlig breathes the very soul of Gaelic Scotland. It is an anthology of the first importance.’ Books Ireland
Download or read book The Corn King and the Spring Queen written by Naomi Mitchison and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduced by Naomi Mitchison. Set over two thousand years ago on the clam and fertile shores of the Black Sea, Naomi Mitchison’s The Corn King and the Spring Queen tells of ancient civilisations where tenderness, beauty and love vie with brutality and dark magic. Erif Der, a young witch, is compelled by her father to marry his powerful rival, Tarrik the Corn King, so becoming the Spring Queen. Forced by her father, she uses her magic spells to try and break Tarrik’s power. But one night Tarrik rescues Sphaeros, an Hellenic philosopher, from a shipwreck. Sphaeros in turn rescues Tarrik from near death and so breaks the enchantment that has bound him. And so begins for Tarrik a Quest – a fabulous voyage of discovery which will bring him new knowledge and which will reunite him with his beautiful Spring Queen. ‘This breathtaking recreation of life in the ancient world welds the power of myth and magic to a stirring plot.’ Ian Rankin
Download or read book The Clique written by and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Silence written by James Kennaway and published by Jonathan Cape. This book was released on 1972 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
