The Birlinn imprint publishes Scottish and general UK interest books, including biography, history, military, politics and Scottish Gaelic. The name comes from the old Norse word birlinn, meaning a long boat or small galley used especially in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland in the Middle Ages.
What’s new from Birlinn?
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| Pub: 07 Jul 2022£19.99This unique and delightful map of mainland Scotland and the Hebrides, from the collection of the National Library of Scotland, is a magnificent pictorial map of Scotland. Not just annotated with beautiful calligraphy, it also includes dozens of…
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| Pub: 07 Jul 2022£19.99The Forth Rail Bridge is one of the world’s great engineering feats, and one of its most well-known. When it opened in 1890, the cantilevered bridge had one of the world’s longest spans, at 541 metres. Its distinctive and innovative design marks…
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Jun 2022£12.99
Is There a Pigeon in the Room? is a deeply personal book about Cameron Wyllie’s remarkable four-decade career in teaching. It’s a tapestry of anecdotes and reflections on topics like drugs, parenting and sex education, laced with stories about…
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Jun 2022£14.99
The Moray Way consists of all or part of three previously existing routes: the Moray Coast Trail, the Speyside Way and the Dava Way. Together they cover a huge and varied range of landscapes.This book is the ideal guide to much of what this…
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Jun 2022£6.99
Throughout the world there exists an enduring fascination with our ancestry – who we are and where we come from. Nowhere is this more evident than with the generations of Scots who over the centuries have left their native Scotland to create a new…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£7.99
At the age of 10, Rowena Farre left the security of her parents’ home in India and was sent to live with her aunt on a lonely croft in the wild and remote Highlands of Scotland. During her stay in Sutherland, she drew strength from the…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£7.99The written history and archaeological records of Central Scotland takes us back to Pictish times some 5,000 years ago. The geology of the area stretches back a further 400 million years. The oldest rocks are found near Lesmahagow and in the…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£7.99The Small Isles comprise the Inner Hebridean islands of Rum, Eigg, Canna and Muck. The landscapes, rocks and fossils of these beautiful, remote islands tells of a drama involving erupting volcanoes, an ancient ecosystem that included dinosaurs and…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£7.99The south of Scotland has a long and turbulent geological past. Perhaps most notably, it marks the place where, 432 million years ago, an ocean, once as wide as the north Atlantic, was compressed by a convergence of ancient lands and then ceased to…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£8.99
A small inheritance and a letter from his grandfather mark the beginnings of a journey that leads Peter Angus Gillies from his mundane job in Canada to Ardnish, the land of his forebears, on the rugged and remote west coast of Scotland. As Peter…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£8.99
Three hundred years ago, Scotland struck an extraordinary bargain with its English neighbour. Like all the best deals it involved giving away little – nominal sovereignty – in exchange for major gains: economic, political and cultural. Control…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£8.99Featuring iconic animals from red deer, golden eagles and Highland cows to red squirrels, pine martens and salmon as well as the plants, trees and flowers which thrive in mountain, forest, moor and seashore, this book is the ideal way to explore…
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Calendar | Pub: 05 May 2022£10.99Following the continued success of the Scottish Maps Calendar, Birlinn is once again proud to collaborate with the National Library of Scotland. This new calendar features more of the most beautiful maps of Scotland ever made. From the very earliest…
Coming soon
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Hardback | Pub: 21 Jul 2022£16.99
‘Peppered with humour, empathy and kindness’ – Sunday Post Ever since her pet sheep Lulu accompanied her to school at the age of seven, animals and nature have been at the heart of Polly Pullar’s world. Growing up in a remote…
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Hardback | Pub: 04 Aug 2022£14.99
In 2019, Jenna Watt took part in the stalking of a hind on the vast Highland estate of Corrour: part of an immersive attempt to understand the ideas that lie behind ‘rewilding’, and what it means emotionally and physically to participate in…
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Paperback | Pub: 04 Aug 2022£16.99
Under President Xi Jinping, China’s global ambitions have taken a dangerous new turn. Bullying and intimidation have replaced diplomacy, and trade, investment, even big-spending tourists and students have been weaponised. Beijing has strengthened…
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Hardback | Pub: 04 Aug 2022£22.00
One of the most famous queens in history, Mary Stuart lived in her homeland for just twelve years: as a dauntless child who laughed at her friendsʼ seasickness as they sailed to safety in France and later, on her return as a 18-year-old widow to…
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Paperback | Pub: 04 Aug 2022£12.99
It started and ended with a financial catastrophe. The Darien disaster of 1700 drove Scotland into union with England, but spawned the institutions which transformed Edinburgh into a global financial centre. The crash of 2008 wrecked the city’s…
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Paperback | Pub: 15 Sep 2022£20.00Scotland is famed for its rugged coastlines, pristine beaches, endless rivers and deep lochs. From the Highlands to the Islands, from the east coast to the west coast, the whole country is an unreported mecca for wild water sports. Mollie Hughes has…
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Paperback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£14.99
The Bruces of fourteenth-century Scotland were formidable and enthusiastic warriors. Whilst much has been written about events as they happened in Scotland during the chaotic years of the first part of the fourteenth century, England’s war with…
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Hardback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£20.00
One hundred years ago, Winston Churchill prepared to defend his parliamentary seat of Dundee in the 1922 General Election. He had represented the industrial town since 1908, enjoyed a majority of more than 15,000 votes and confidently described it…
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Hardback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£20.00In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left on a shelf for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to tell than appeared, so he sent it for further…
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Hardback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£30.00
Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger is about geography, exploration, and a 2000-year-old geographical mystery. By the eighteenth century, the river Niger was to Europeans a source of wonder, potential wealth, and a two-part…
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Hardback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£16.99
In 2016, Sandy Winterbottom embarked on an epic six-week tall-ship voyage from Uruguay to Antarctica. At the mid-way stop in South Georgia, her pristine image of the Antarctic was shattered when she discovered the dark legacy of twentieth century…
We think you might like:
Alistair Moffat
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Paperback | Pub: 08 Nov 2019£9.99
In an epic narrative, sometimes moving, sometimes astonishing, always revealing, Moffat writes an entirely new history of Britain. Instead of the usual parade of the usual suspects – kings, queens, saints, warriors and the notorious – this is a…
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Paperback | Pub: 21 Sep 2017£14.99
From the Ice Age to the Scottish Referendum, historian and author Alistair Moffat explores the history of the Scottish nation. As well as focusing on key moments in the nation’s history such as the Battle of Bannockburn and the Jacobite…
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Paperback | Pub: 06 Mar 2017£12.99Hadrian’s Wall is the largest, most spectacular and one of the most enigmatic historical monument in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running 73 miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least 26 miles down…
