Books
The Skinny book guide – bringing you book reviews, features, events, reviews and author interviews. Find previews and on the ground reporting from festivals of literature and poetry in Scotland and beyond.
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FestivalsSome Standouts at StAnza
Want to learn more about poetry in one fell swoop? Fancy a trip to St Andrews? Read on... Read more »| 04 Mar 2011 -
Features
Doug Johnstone: Whisky Galore, And A Wee Bit More
Doug Johnstone's third novel, Smokeheads, is a thriller set on the island of Islay, whisky's spiritual home Read more »| 03 Mar 2011 -
Book ReviewsGlasgow Fairytale
See, it aw started when this guy wrote a book aboot Glesga. Except it wisnae aw aboot the Armadillo and Lulu, and that. Naw, whit it wis, he put aw t... Read more »| 25 Feb 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Blackhouse
Detective Fin McLeod returns to his childhood home, the Isle of Lewis, for the first time in 17 years to investigate a brutal murder. Rediscovering the islan... Read more »| 25 Feb 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Shard Box by Liz Niven
In a new collection of poems about her experiences in China, Liz Niven seems the perfect traveller. She’s adventurous in confronting the cultur... Read more »| 24 Feb 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Celestial Cafe by Stuart Murdoch
The Celestial Café is the first book by Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch. Written in diary-form it gives the reader an insight into the min... Read more »| 23 Feb 2011
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Book ReviewsJamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch
The whistle stop nature of this simple adventure story is a bit deceiving. Jaf's account of growing up in London, mid-nineteenth century, combines br... Read more »| 22 Feb 2011 -
Book Reviews
Twenty-One Locks
There are 21 locks in a canal running through a standard-issue north Lancashire town, the nondescript anonymity of the village perfectly befitting Je... Read more »| 22 Feb 2011 -
FeaturesMills & Boon: 'I Read These, So You Don't Have To'
Valentine's Day is coming up, so why don't you read one of Mills and Boon's romance novels? Because of everything that follows, that's why not Read more »| 01 Feb 2011 -
Book Reviews
Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer’s exploration into that old Science vs. Art debate throws up some refreshing and thought-provoking messages. Lehrer takes his mode... Read more »| 28 Jan 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Liberation of Celia Kahn by J. David Simons
Set against the background of rent strikes, anti-war sentiment and a revolution brewing in Russia, a young Jewish woman from the Gorbals gains her first tast... Read more »| 27 Jan 2011 -
Book Reviews
Wartime Notebooks by Marguerite Duras
The posthumous publication of a writer’s early notebooks and drafts can often feel like a cynical opportunity, or a desk-clearing exercise of little in... Read more »| 26 Jan 2011 -
Book ReviewsTreblinka by Chil Rajchman
Chil Rajchman’s memoir of mass extermination in the Nazi death camp of Treblinka is unhysterical in tone, but harrowing in effect. Its spare, unsensati... Read more »| 25 Jan 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Breakers by Claudie Gallay
Villages at the end of the earth share a degree of uniformity in that through their inhospitable settings and eccentric communities, they have an ability to ... Read more »| 25 Jan 2011 -
Book Reviews
The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter
A literary novel that borrows elements from Portrait of a Lady and The Big Sleep sounds a bit too literary and not very novel. But The Legacy isn&rs... Read more »| 05 Jan 2011