Scotland by-the-Book is the NEW app for the traveller, staycationer or armchair wanderer which, once tried, you will want at your fingertips at all times.
It brings books on history, geology, mapping, food and drink, fiction, travel, poetry, politics and more to your phone and desktop – for readers at home and around the globe with an interest in Scotland.
The app includes an interactive map of Scotland featuring the best books and writers, bookshops and literary events this country has to offer. It is designed for people exploring the country and looking for books connected to a specific area – for those exploring their genealogy perhaps, planning a trip, studying – or simply with an interest in writing on and from that area of the country.
This is our latest project to embrace innovative tools that will keep us (and you) bang up to date.
Give it a try, we think you’ll love it!
Check out the video below for our handy guide to using the app. Click here to explore Scotland by-the-Book on your desktop.
How it Works
- Browse Scotland by region, explore books tied to specific landmarks and find out more about each area.
- Explore the map to discover book recommendations, bookshops to visit and festivals to attend.
- Within a region, use the filter buttons to hone your search.
- Add specific books, shops and events to your favourites so you can return to them any time.
- Visit the directory to view our full list of books, bookshops, and events.
- Click on individual pins to find out more information, buy books online, download ebooks and get directions to specific shops and festival venues.
Books are waiting here to inspire and inform the thoughtful explorer, the traveller who wants to scratch beneath the surface – you!
For readers at home and around the globe with an interest in Scotland.
How the app looks on your phone
How the app looks on your desktop
Here to inspire and inform the thoughtful explorer.
You can use the app either on your desktop or on your phone. Head over to www.scotlandbythebook.birlinn.co.uk or download from the App Store or Google Play, and start your journey today!
‘This is very good indeed’
Alexander McCall Smith
‘With authors and books related to every region of the country, the app spotlights the full range of Scottish writing, bookstores and literary festivals, allowing users to seek out literary locations close to their local area or destination’
The National
‘It looks great! Well done’
Alistair Moffat
‘This new Scotland-by-the-book app is great! Excellent work, and I look forward to exploring further’
Samual Tongue, Scottish Poetry Library
Looking for Crime Fiction with a strong sense of place? Look no further than the bestselling D.C.I. Daley series from Denzil Meyrick!
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Paperback | Pub: 29 Jan 2015£9.99
Large measures, dark hearts. When the body of a young woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the west coast of Scotland, D.C.I. Jim Daley is despatched from Glasgow to lead the investigation. Far from home, and his troubled marriage, it seems…
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Paperback | Pub: 17 Jun 2014£9.99
When your worst nightmare returns, survival is all. Ruthless crime lord James Machie was assassinated in the back of a prison ambulance following his trial and conviction. But now, five years later, he appears to be back from the grave and hell-bent…
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Paperback | Pub: 27 Apr 2015£9.99
Death. Betrayal. Revenge. When a senior Edinburgh Civil Servant spectacularly takes his own life in Kinloch Harbour, D.C.I. Jim Daley comes face-to-face with the murky world of politics. To add to his woes, two local drug dealers lie dead,…
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Paperback | Pub: 23 Mar 2016£8.99
It’s December, and the Shannon family are returning home to their clifftop mansion near Kinloch for their annual AGM. Shannon International is one of the world’s biggest private companies, with tendrils reaching around the globe in…
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Paperback | Pub: 20 Mar 2017£8.99
As the Second World War nears its end, a man is stabbed to death on the shoreline of Kinloch, in the shadow of the great warships in the harbour. Many years later, the postman on Gairsay, a tiny island off the coast of Kintyre, discovers that the…
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Paperback | Pub: 06 Sep 2018£8.99
One of the Scotsman‘s Books of 2018 When Professor Francombe and her team of archaeologists find the remains of three women on a remote Kintyre hillside – a site rumoured to have been the base of Viking warlord Somerled – their delight…
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Paperback | Pub: 11 Jul 2019£9.99
Silent waters run deadly . . . When the luxury cruiser, hastily renamed Great Britain, berths in Kinloch harbour, the pressure is on DCI Jim Daley. The UK Government are taking a high-powered group of businessmen and women on a tour of the British…
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Paperback | Pub: 04 Jun 2020£8.99
Voted Culture NL’s Book of the Year for 2020 Teenager Alison Doig disappeared from Kinloch over thirty years ago under mysterious circumstances. Her reclusive family still live in a remote part of the Kintyre peninsula, amidst rumours of…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Jun 2021£9.99
A SUNDAY POST TOP PICK FOR SUMMER READING ‘This latest DCI Daley thriller is deftly plotted and peopled with sympathetically drawn local characters and satisfyingly nuanced local wrongdoers’ – Irish Independent When a light aircraft…
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Jun 2022£9.99
Everyone has a past they can’t forget . . . Glasgow, 1983, and a beat constable walks away from a bar where he knows a crime is about to be committed. It is a decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life. In the present, an old…
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Paperback | Pub: 01 Jun 2023£8.99
Be sure your sins will find you out . . . one day. A potent new drug has hit the streets of Kinloch, and DCI Daley and Scott are struggling to catch the notorious gang behind this evil trade. After a party of Oxford students arrives in town for a…
Want to find the best places to go in the Scottish Highlands? Learn from the experts!
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Paperback | Pub: 05 Aug 2021£17.99Paul Murton journeys the length and breadth of the spectacularly beautiful Scottish Highlands. In addition to bringing a fresh eye to popular destinations such as Glencoe, Ben Nevis, Loch Ness and the Cairngorms, he also visits some remote and…
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Paperback | Pub: 01 Apr 2021£9.99Shortlisted for the The Great Outdoors Award for Outdoor Book of the Year and the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature There are strange relics hidden across Scotland’s landscape: forgotten places that are touchstones to incredible…
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Paperback | Pub: 01 Apr 2021£9.99
When Mike Tomkies moved to a remote cottage on the shores of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland, he found a place which was to provide him with the most profound wilderness experience of his life. Accessible only by boat, the cottage he…
Taking a trip to the Scottish isles? Plan your journey and get the best out of your holiday!
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Paperback | Pub: 06 Oct 2022£18.99Shortlisted for the Scottish Nature Photography Book Awards Washed by the surging waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the island chain of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides lies at the very edge of Europe. From white shell sands, peaty moors and gnarly…
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Paperback | Pub: 25 Oct 2018£9.99
Mull and Iona are two of the most visited islands in Scotland, and have played a central role in the history of the country. As the cradle of Christianity in Scotland, Iona has been a place of pilgrimage for almost 1,500 years and was a beacon of…
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Paperback | Pub: 01 Jul 2021£12.99The Outer Hebrides lie 40 miles to the west of mainland Scotland, forming a barrier to the North Atlantic. Culturally distinct from early prehistory, the islands contain a wealth of historical and archaeological monuments, including the standing…
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Paperback | Pub: 18 Jul 2011£14.99Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides are widely regarded as among the best pieces of travel writing ever produced. Johnson and Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring…
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Paperback | Pub: 27 Sep 2018£8.99This is a fabulous treasury of legend and wonder. Discover tales of monsters who dwell in lakes, of small people who trap humans in earthen mounds where time stands still; of dark, shape- shifting spirits whose cloak of human form is betrayed by the…
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Paperback | Pub: 08 Mar 2018£9.99Anne Cholawo was a typical 80s career girl working in a busy London advertising agency, when in 1989, holidaying in Skye, she noticed an advert for a property on the Isle of Soay – ‘Access by courtesy of fishing boat’. She had…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Apr 2022£9.99
In 1938 John Lorne Campbell bought the Hebridean isle of Canna. He wanted to prevent it becoming a rich man’s playground (like so many other islands and Highland estates), to preserve a part of traditional Gaelic culture and show that…
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Paperback | Pub: 01 Aug 2016£7.99The Isle of Skye offers a magical combination of wild land and breath-taking natural beauty. Skye’s geological history involves some of the most ancient rocks on the planet; a grandstand view as the Highlands of Scotland were formed over 400…
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Paperback | Pub: 23 May 2019£8.99In this book William Mackenzie records a world of local legend, folklore and superstition, and charts the changes he saw in his lifetime in agriculture, education, the Church and, of course, emigration. He recounts the history of the leading…
FIND THESE GEMS AND MUCH MORE ON OUR APP
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Paperback | Pub: 29 Jan 2015£9.99
Large measures, dark hearts. When the body of a young woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the west coast of Scotland, D.C.I. Jim Daley is despatched from Glasgow to lead the investigation. Far from home, and his troubled marriage, it seems…
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Paperback | Pub: 26 Jun 2013£6.99In the village of Tobermory, on the Scottish island of Mull, lives a very special ginger cat. But once upon a time he didn’t think he was special at all – not like the woolly cats of Loch Ba, the singing cats of Staffa, or the fishing…
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E-Book | Pub: 22 Sep 2015£9.99
Discover the ultimate chronicle of a nation. In this book, Alistair Moffat brings vividly to life the story of Scotland, from the dawn of prehistory through to the twenty-first century. Ambitious, richly detailed and highly readable, Scotland: A…
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Hardback | Pub: 19 Oct 2023£35.00Maps can tell much about the story of a place that traditional histories fail to communicate. This is particularly true of Edinburgh, one of the most visually stunning cities in the world and a place rich in historical and cultural associations….
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Paperback | Pub: 20 Jul 2023£20.00
The medieval earldoms of Orkney and Caithness were positioned between two worlds, the Norwegian and the Scottish. They were a maritime lordship divided, or united, by the turbulent waters of the Pentland Firth. This unlikely combination of island…
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Hardback | Pub: 19 Oct 2023£25.00
Liz Lochhead is one of the country’s leading poets. Her work has paved the way and inspired some of the most inspirational voices writing in Scotland today, including Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. In A Handsel, the…
