Smashing the Bestseller lists on DAY ONE!
04 Jun ’21
Within 24 hours of publication, For Any Other Truth topped the Audible Audiobook Chart at No. 1 over ALL audiobooks available! It also smashed the…
The Great Tea Race – Extract from Les Wilson’s PUTTING THE TEA IN BRITAIN
16 Jun ’21
‘Rich in fascinating detail and stories … it deserves to sell like hot cakes washed down with a fortifying blend of Assam and Ceylon…
The darkest place is calling: Extract from For Any Other Truth by Denzil Meyrick
15 Jun ’21
When a light aircraft crash-lands at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley and his colleague Brian Scott rush to the scene. But it soon becomes clear that…
Denzil Meyrick’s ‘For Any Other Truth’ – The Readers Have Their Say
14 Jun ’21
Readers have been leaving their mark on the Amazon site for ‘For Any Other Truth‘, Denzil Meyrick’s latest chart-topping book in…
Super Salad from The Scottish Vegan Cookbook
14 Jun ’21
The Scottish Vegan Cookbook by Jackie Jones is packed full of delicious, wholesome recipes that make the most of ingredients readily available in…
Poem of the Week: The Poet by George Mackay Brown
11 Jun ’21
The title of our new volume of selected poems by Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown, Carve the Runes, comes from the words inscribed on his island…
Poem of the Week: Adelstrop Revisited by Alexander McCall Smith
08 Jun ’21
Travelling on public transport brings with it a particular set of rules and etiquette, and for many, a small silver lining to the past year was the…
Must Read
One for Discussion – 100 Novels that Shaped our World
09 Nov ’19
Birlinn are delighted to have two novels on the list – 100 Novels that Shaped our World, selected by BBC Radio 4 Front Row presenter and TLS…
A Library of One’s Own
09 Nov ’19
‘From the moment I first ventured into a library I wanted one of my own.’ Famously, Virginia Woolf said that a woman must have money and a room of…
Miracles in the Sky: Extract from A Sky Full of Kites by Tom Bowser
02 Jun ’21
Red kites were once Britain’s most common bird of prey. By the early 1900s they’d been wiped out in Scotland and England following centuries…
It’s World Whisky Day! What’s your Dram?
15 May ’21
Whisky is just the best go-to tipple on cold days, fireside evenings, after long walks on the beach or in the hills, sitting with a good book……
Dystopian Visions – Closer than you think?
14 May ’21
‘The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command’ — George Orwell George…
Something Money Can’t Buy
23 Apr ’21
Michael McEwan on the failed European Super League At the entrance to Celtic Park, the home of Glasgow Celtic FC, there is a bronze statue of the…
Poem of the Week: from The Book of Iona edited by Robert Crawford
23 Mar ’21
With Palm Sunday and Holy Week on the horizon, we turn west to The Book of Iona. This anthology, edited by Robert Crawford, is ‘given over to…
World Poetry Day: Dispatches from the Poetry Desk
18 Mar ’21
We are proud of the Polygon poetry catalogue, which runs the gamut from the collected works of Norman MacCaig and Hamish Henderson, to volumes by…
World Poetry Day Staff Picks: Our Favourite Scottish Poems
18 Mar ’21
The act of choosing a favourite can be all about the moment in time, it’s to capture a feeling, mood or resonance rather than to designate a…
A Lesson in 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…
2021 Previews: Alexander McCall Smith
16 Feb ’21
What’s coming from the master storyteller this year? Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world’s most prolific authors and his books are in…
‘Movement is Life’: Run Forever
15 Feb ’21
Amby Burfoot, author of Run Forever: Your Complete Guide to Healthy Lifetime Running, first competed in the Boston Marathon in 1965. He won that race…
A Valentine’s Day Gift from Alexander McCall Smith
12 Feb ’21
Alexander McCall Smith woke up one morning – about a week ago – with a new poem fixed firmly in his mind. It had revealed itself to the…
Countering Disinformation: Russia behind the Headlines
09 Feb ’21
When we published Angus Roxburgh’s memoir, Moscow Calling: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent, in 2017 it was praised far and wide for offering…
Two Love Poems by Edwin Morgan
08 Feb ’21
As Jackie Kay writes in her introduction to twenty poems by Edwin Morgan about love, ‘Edwin Morgan knew all about love: its mysteries, its…
Looking Forward to… Rhubarb!
08 Feb ’21
Even if you don’t feel like going out in the cold, there is plenty of planning-ahead to do for your green space. Our gardens have been in deep…
Burns Night? It’s Looking a Little Different This Year…
25 Jan ’21
A Poem for Burns Night by Alexander McCall Smith Give us your hand – here’s ours: All Scotland, though a little quieter now, Is a bit happier in…
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…
Alastair McIntosh on COP26 and the Climate Crisis in the Latest Episode of the Birlinn Podcast
03 Nov ’20
Photo by Jaz King on Unsplash In the latest episode of the Birlinn Limited Podcast, environmental campaigner and writer Alastair McIntosh speaks from…
We’ve Discovered a New Podcast (and we are happy to share!)
29 Oct ’20
At this peculiar – and often lonely – time of social isolation, there can be few more welcome treats than the discovery of a brand new…
