A Lesson the Value of Perseverance: NASA and the Stirling Engine 23 Feb '21 In the week NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars, Birlinn MD Hugh Andrew looks at another case of long-range perseverance with a NASA... Read More
How to Be the Perfect Romantic Poet by Liz Lochhead 23 Feb '21 It’s 200 years since the death of John Keats in Rome on February 23rd, 1821. While Liz Lochhead’s poem about the Romantic poets playfully... Read More
Extract from Hedy’s War by Jenny Lecoat 22 Feb '21 Hedy’s War by Jenny Lecoat is a gripping WWII novel based on the true story of Hedwig Bercu, a Jewish girl who finds herself on Jersey when... Read More
Poem of the Week: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Jim Carruth 01 Feb '21 Jim Carruth is Glasgow’s Poet Laureate, but don’t let images of that city dominate your sense of his work. He’s also the poet of... Read More
Poem of the Week: Jenni Fagan, Spell for Hope and Renewal 26 Jan '21 Jenni Fagan has brightened the start of 2021 with the January publication of her novel Luckenbooth, which she describes as a “love letter to... Read More
Poem of the Week: Norman MacCaig, Praise of a thorn bush 18 Jan '21 An Edinburgh school teacher by profession, poet Norman MacCaig spent his summers in Assynt in the far north west of Scotland. From their first visit... Read More
Birlinn Books – Notes from the Basement, December 21st, 2020 21 Dec '20 It’s the winter solstice, called by a poet ‘the year’s midnight’, and our final newsletter of the year comes just a few hours before the hour... Read More
A January Bargain 21 Dec '20 Remember when there used to be the ‘January Sales’? Or did you ever queue up early on a freezing Boxing Day? We seem now to be in an... Read More
Getting Over Christmas (in Japan) 15 Dec '20 Iain Maloney moved to Japan in 2005. This year, we published his memoir The Only Gaijin in the Village, the story of moving out of the city to the... Read More
Poem of the Week: Winter by Alexander McCall Smith 15 Dec '20 We are now just a week away from the shortest day of the year, so it seems particularly appropriate to share the poem ‘Winter’ from... Read More
A is for Applecross: A Gaelic Alphabet 08 Dec '20 Alistair Moffat’s In Search of Angels: Travels to the Edge of the World is his own journey in the footsteps of the Irish saints who brought... Read More
A Sonnet of Ice and Fire: ‘The Salamander’ by Hamish Henderson 07 Dec '20 Soldier, academic, folklorist, political activist, songwriter, translator but above all a poet, Hamish Henderson’s collected work is an... Read More