The Birlinn imprint publishes Scottish and general UK interest books, from biography to history, military to 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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Hardback | Pub: 11 Nov 2021£30.00£24.00Newcastle has a long and distinguished history through two millennia: a Roman fortress at the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall; an important centre of monasticism; a ‘royal’ bulwark against attacks and invasion from Scotland; and the…
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Hardback | Pub: 21 Oct 2021£35.00£28.00INCLUDES HUNDREDS OF NEW AND EXPANDED ENTRIES From ‘Aald Rock’ to ‘Zeenty-teenty’, A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable is an unputdownable gallimaufry of curious items embracing sayings, put-downs, insults, mottos, traditions, legends,…
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Hardback | Pub: 07 Oct 2021£25.00£20.00On this culinary journey through the Highlands of Scotland, award-winning food writer Ghillie Basan meets a host of artisan food producers, farmers, crofters, fishermen and distillers. From the wild glens of the Cairngorms, the bountiful waters of…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Oct 2021£14.99£11.99The 21st century’s own Gin Craze continues unabated, with exciting new crafted gins launched on a regular basis. Most recently, we have seen growing interest in Pink Gins and the development of a range of flavoured gins, not to mention the…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Oct 2021£12.99£10.39Jeda is a girl on the cusp of adulthood, living in Edinburgh; with a white father and a black mother, she feels self-conscious and out of place. Her feelings of alienation allow the stories of the shapeshifting Shadowman, who embodies all that is…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Oct 2021£14.99£11.99Brother and sister Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn enjoyed a rare bond: they were intimate companions and theirs was one of the most significant musical relationships of the 19th century. They shared and commented on each other’s compositions, each…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Oct 2021£4.99£3.99In today’s world of ready meals and snacking, the value of healthy eating has never been more important. Seafood is one of the healthiest things you can put on your plate: fish is good for the heart, improves circulation, keeps your joints…
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Hardback | Pub: 02 Sep 2021£14.99£11.99In May 2018 NASA called a press conference to announce the successful test-run of their tiny nuclear reactor KRUSTY (Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology). This revolutionary technology, which runs on heat alone, may have profound…
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Hardback | Pub: 02 Sep 2021
£25.00£20.00Neville Chamberlain is remembered today as Hitler’s credulous dupe, the man who proclaimed in September 1938 that the Munich agreement guaranteed ‘peace in our time’. This is a magisterial reappraisal of Chamberlain and his legacy. It reveals…
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Paperback | Pub: 02 Sep 2021£16.99£13.59The Deeside Way is a long-distance path running for 66km (41 miles) from Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, to Ballater in Royal Deeside in the Cairngorms National Park. Mainly following the course of old Royal Deeside Railway line, it is suitable…
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Paperback | Pub: 05 Aug 2021£17.99£14.39Paul 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: 22 Jul 2021£9.99£7.99The brainchild of bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy, the Great Tapestry of Scotland is an outstanding celebration of thousands of years of Scottish history and achievement, from the end of…
Coming soon
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Paperback | Pub: 06 Jan 2022
£9.99£7.99Jane Haining was undoubtedly one of Scotland’s heroines. A farmer’s daughter from Galloway in south-west Scotland, Jane went to work at the Scottish Jewish Mission School in Budapest in 1932, where she was a boarding school matron in charge of…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Feb 2022£12.99£10.39Pipers takes the reader inside the world of the performer community of Scottish piping, introducing the instrument itself and the various different repertories. It also discusses piping techniques as well as information on some of the great piping…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Mar 2022
£8.99£7.19Pressure for independence remains a major force in Scotland, but the case for it has changed substantially since the referendum of 2014. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 60 per cent of the Scottish electorate voted to remain part of the European…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Mar 2022
£12.99£10.39Few aspects of Scottish history inspire as fervent an interest as the wars with England. The exploits of not one, but two, national heroes – William Wallace and Robert Bruce – have excited the attention of a host of novelists, filmmakers,…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Apr 2022
£9.99£7.99Robin Lloyd-Jones has been exploring the west coast and islands of Scotland in his sea kayak for more than forty years. In this book he recalls many a memorable expedition to wild and beautiful shores. Amongst magnificent scenery and ever-changing…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Apr 2022
£9.99£7.99Based on personal memories of his life in Ireland and Scotland in the early 1900s, this was Patrick MacGill’s first novel. It tells the story of Dermod Flynn an independent and feisty youth who earns a meagre living as an itinerant farm hand in…
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Paperback | Pub: 07 Apr 2022£8.99£7.19Featuring 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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Paperback | Pub: 05 May 2022£6.99£5.59The 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£6.99£5.59The 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£6.99£5.59The 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£7.19A 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£7.19Three hundred years ago Scotland entered into an extraordinary bargain with its English neighbour. Like all the best deals it involved giving away little – the tokens of sovereignty – in exchange for major gains: economic, political and…
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Calendar | Pub: 05 May 2022£10.99£8.79Following 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…
We think you might like:
Alistair Moffat
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Paperback | Pub: 08 Nov 2019
£9.99£7.99In 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£11.99From the Ice Age to the recent 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£12.99£10.39Hadrian’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…
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Paperback | Pub: 20 Mar 2017£9.99£7.99History has always mattered to Scots, and rarely more so than now at the outset of a new century, with a new census appearing in 2011 and after more than ten years of a new parliament. An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside…
