Brian Taylor
For the avoidance of doubt, I thrill to contemporary and recent Scottish writing. Alasdair Gray, AL Kennedy, Irvine Welsh. Ian Rankin, Iain Banks (sans M!), Janice Galloway. Tom Devine, TC Smout, Tom Nairn. Liz Lochhead, Don Paterson, Robert Crawford. Neil Gunn, Robin Jenkins, Alexander Trocchi... enough, Brian, enough.
Yet I cannot see past the trio listed above for the works which have enthused me most. It is fashionable to decry Scott: a fashion I deplore. His mastery of language, narrative and history is unsurpassed, never more so than in The Heart of Midlothian.
Hogg’s Justified Sinner mines the metaphysical, mystical heart of dour old Scotland to produce a work of cowing power that still chills to this day.
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon I include for its enormous elegaic power – in addition, frankly, to its evocation of my native North-east. The lyrical beauty, the healthy scepticism, the Scots tongue. These are my three.
Brian Taylor's favourite Scottish Books
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Add to BasketHeart Of Midlothian - Paperback -
£4.99
1736 and the people of Edinburgh are infuriated by the actions of John Porteous, Captain of the Guard. His death reprieved by a distant monarch they resolve to take their own revenge. At the centre of the story is Edinburgh's forbidding Tolbooth prison, known by all as the Heart of Midlothian. -
Add to BasketThe Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner - Paperback -
£7.99
Set in early 18th century Scotland, this novel recounts the corruption of a boy of strict Calvinist upbringing by a mysterious stranger under whose influence he commits a series of murders. Could this stranger be a figment of the imagination, or the devil himself?
Books written by Brian Taylor
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Add to BasketThe Road To The Scottish Parliament - Paperback
£22.99
First published in 1999, this revised and updated guide to the establishment of Scotland's Parliament follows the road to devolution - with fresh detail of the obstacles which stood in the way. The author offers an analysis of the background to this monumental political change.
