Fiction - Historic or otherwise - set in Scotland
 

I am planning a trip to Scotland next year and one of the ways I love to prepare is to read good fiction set in the country I plan to visit.

I love mystery and historical fiction but any suggestions will be welcome. Even a good non-fiction would be great as I don't have much background in the history of Scotland.

Any suggestions?

(I have already read all the Outlander series, by the way.)

It isn't all set in Scotland, but Ali Smith is a great Scottish writer of literary fiction, and some of her work does take place in Scotland.

Also along a literary bent, are the novels of Andrew O'Hagan. Personality was rather remarkable, I thought. He has been nominated for several prizes.

These are not mysteries or historical novels. O'Hagan has also written some nonfiction.

I don't know how to say this without sounding like a snob, but although these authors write fiction, it isn't light.

OK, saying I have read Outlander doesn't mean I only read "light" ;)

Ian Rankin's Rebus mysteries are good. They take place in Edinburgh.

well I was going to suggest Diana Gabaldon and Ian Rankin, but others have beat me to it - look for anything about Mary Queen of Scotts - she is a fascinating historical figure

Can't get better historical fiction than Dorothy Dunnett's The Lymond Chronicles.

John Buchan wrote lots of books early in the 20th c., the most famous of which is The Thirty-Nine Steps. I've read some of them, and they are fun to read.

Alexander McCall Smith's character Isabel Dalhousie, M. C. Beaton's village policeman Hamish McBeth, Ann Cleeves has a wonderful series set on the Shetland Islands, Candace Robb's Dame Margaret Kerr set in the 13th c., Jeanne M. Dams' Holy Terror in the Hebrides, and Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, of course.

Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books all have a very strong sense of place. "One Good Turn" conveys the madness of Edinburgh in August brilliantly...

LCBoniti: have I got a movie for you!

We just finished watching The Angel's Share set largely in Glasgow and the Highlands. It's a Ken Loach film, but one of his that has a bright side. I think you will like it.

You seem to have got a good list going. One Good Turn is tons of fun to read.

Great list -I've already downloaded a few of them.

And I will definitely find that movie, tuscanlifeedit.

Thanks, everyone!

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Dark Ship by Anne MacLeod

The Gathering Night by Margaret Elphinstone

Thin

<i>Fiction - Historic or otherwise - set in Scotland
Posted by: LCBoniti on Jul 5, 14 at 2:34pm
Any suggestions?</i>

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde might fit your call. The story by Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by a certain Deacon Brodie, formerly of Edinburgh. This mural from the Deacon Brodie Tavern gives a brief on the character http://tinyurl.com/kzpkw5q.

Rosslyn Chapel is a short bus ride from Edinburgh. This small church figures in the Dan Brown book, The Da Vinci Code. The chapel makes an interesting visit.

Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series.

A rather more demanding (though short) classic might be James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Though I would take Stevenson's historical view of the Jacobites with a pinch of salt, you could do worse than his Kidnapped.

I also very much enjoyed Adam Nicolson's Sea Room, which tells the story of a small patch of the Hebrides he inherited.

If you've time for some social history, you might be able to find Smout and Wood's "Scottish Voices", an overview of the development of Scottish daily life from 1745 to 1960, told through extracts of personal accounts from the time.

It's not fiction, and it's certainly not light, but it's historical: Samuel Johnson's "Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland". Then you should read James Boswell's "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides", which is an account of the same trip, by Johnson's companion.

Compton MacKenzie's "Whiskey Galore" set in the fictional Outer Hebrides islands of Great Todday and Little Todday and based on a real incident in which a freighter loaded with cases of whiskey goes aground. A classic!

You meant whisky of course :)

MacBeth

Light reading but lots of fun.....

Legend in Green Velvet by Elizabeth Peters
The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
Son of the Morning by Linda Howard

Try to find a used copy of "Bride of the McHugh," one of my all-time favorite historical novels.