Anna Nicholson Escapes the Festival

This month I'm not going to mention the Edinburgh Festival. The papers are full of it and, like Harry Potter no. 7, you can quickly reach saturation point with the coverage. The excellent Edinburgh International Book Festival, however, is another thing.

• Read our coverage of the 2007 Book Festival here, with lists of all the Scottish authors and books attending.

So, what do we have in store for you this August? Some excellent titles - and if you can lug all these to the beach, you will come back happy, enlightened, and entertained.

The first title is our Book of the Year so far: Robert Crawford's massive Scotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature hits the shelves this summer. This is clearly an ambitious enterprise, which aims to cover Scottish writing from St Columba to Trainspotting and will instantly be taken up by all Scot Lit courses as a must have. The fact that Penguin are publishing this, however, and not an academic publisher, will mean that they will throw their considerable weight behind it and push it for the general market. Highly recommended, not least for Robert Crawford's sheer breadth of knowledge and open-minded embrace of all of Scotland's literary heritage.

Talking of literary heritage, Waverley Books have come up with Stevenson's Kidnapped in Gaelic in a graphic novel version, Fo Bhruid. Created by the world-class Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, the various English-language versions formed part of the very successful Edinburgh, UNESCO City of Literature promotion in February of this year. This Gaelic version is a completely new translation by Iain MacDonald of the Gaelic Books Council.

Also part of the same trend is Geordie's Mingin Medicine, a translation of the Roald Dahl classic into Scots. I love the first line of the blurb: 'Geordie's grannie is a crabbit auld grumph.' Very much part of our literary heritage, crabbit grannies.

The Pocket Party Phrasebook: Flirt, Drink and Be Merry in Ten Languages sounds like a great summer title. The blurb says it's aimed at 'party animals who want to avoid the tourist traps and hang out with the locals'. Published by Chambers at £4.99, this book guarantees you some cachet as you struggle to impress the local lounge lizard/beach babe.

Four cracking crime/thriller offerings from writers guaranteed a place on the bestseller lists: the first, The Last Breath by Denise Mina, back with her latest Paddy Meehan title. When Paddy's former boyfriend is found dead in what looks like an IRA killing, naming her next of kin and leaving her a house in Ayrshire in the process, the police are suspicious. Always entertaining, Mina's novels get better all the time.

The second is from Christopher Brookmyre. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks continues with the endearing Jack Parlabane character as Rector of Glasgow's Kelvin University falling into another hair-raising adventure.

The third is Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid. Again featuring the familiar character of Tony Hill, MacDermid's taut psychological thriller has all the trademarks of the genre.

The fourth deserves to make its writer better known and is our August Children's Book of the Month. Jamie Jauncey's The Witness is aimed at young adults (teens, really, but would suit from 11 onwards) and is an edgy, well-written thriller, set in a Scotland of the future.

As usual, I end this selection with a tartan bodice ripper. Highlander Untamed should not disappoint aficionados of the genre. 'Married in a temporary hand fast marriage to her clan's most fierce enemy, Isabel MacDonald can't resist her smouldering attraction to the powerful Highland Chief, who she has vowed to betray.' Can't wait.