Saltire Society Shortlist Announced
The Saltire Society have announced their short leet for the 2006 Scottish Book of the Year Awards. There are two awards - a Book of the Year, worth £5000, and a First Book Award, worth £1500. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on St Andrew's Day, 30th November 2006.
The short listed books are:
First Book:
- Simon Biggam, These Are Only Words (read an extract)
- Maggie Fergusson, The Life of George Mackay Brown
- Alice Greenway, White Ghost Girls
- Jane Harris, The Observations
- Alison Miller, Demo (read an interview with the author)
Book of the Year:
- John Burnside - A Lie About My Father
- David Crane, Scott of the Antarctic, A Life of Courage and Tragedy in the Extreme South
- Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture
- Duncan Glen, Collected Poems 1965-2005
- WN Herbert, Bad Shaman Blues (read Roddy Lumsden's interview with WN Herbert)
- Andrew O'Hagan - Be Near Me
- James Robertson, The Testament of Gideon Mack (read an interview with James Robertson)
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£8.95Bad Shaman Blues - Paperback -
Herbert is a highly entertaining poet who writes both in English and Scots. In 'Bad Shaman Blues' he explores the English and Scottish Borders, and goes on an absurd shamanic flight to Siberia. -
Add to BasketBe Near Me - Hardback -
£16.99
In a small Scottish parish, an English priest is stalked by the fear of scandal, class hatred and lost ideals. As he looks back on his childhood, Father David begins to reconsider the central events of his life, and to see what may have happened to the political hopes of his generation. -
Add to BasketDemo - Paperback -
£7.99
'Demo' is a compelling debut novel which depicts the lives of four central characters - Scottish and English - against a backdrop of the current anti-globalisation and anti-war movements. -
£25.00The Life Of George Mackay Brown: The Life - Hardback -
George Mackay Brown was one of Scotland's greatest 20th century writers, but in person a bundle of paradoxes. Maggie Fergusson interviewed him several times and is the only biographer to whom he gave his blessing. Through his letters and through conversations with his acquaintance, she discovers that his life was vivid and surprising. -
Add to BasketA Lie About My Father - Hardback -
£12.99
This book presents a story about forgiving but not forgetting, about examining the way men are made & how they fall apart, about understanding that in order to have a good son you must have a good father. The author's honesty, thinking & images of beauty & fracture combine to create a moving memoir of two lost men: a father & his child. -
Add to BasketThe Observations - Hardback -
£12.99
Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley takes a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella. Bessy is intrigued by her new employer, but puzzled by her increasingly strange requests. -
Add to BasketRapture - Paperback -
£8.99
Carol Ann Duffy's 'Rapture' is about the loss and rediscovery of love in all its aspects - erotic, intellectual, emotional. -
Add to BasketThe Testament Of Gideon Mack - Hardback -
£17.99
Mack is a minister who doesn't believe in God, the Devil or an afterlife. One day he discovers a standing stone in the middle of a wood where previously there had been none. Unsure what to make of this apparition, Mack's life begins to unravel dramatically. -
Add to BasketThese Are Only Words - Paperback -
£9.99
Biggam's narrator is a city-centre shopworker who cultivates a facade of blandness to hide a secret life of watching strangers and colleagues. An urban chameleon, a Tom Ripley for the new millennium, an insanely gifted technofreak: Biggam has created a sociopath for our time.