Saltire Society Shortlist 2008

The final shortlist for the 2008 Saltire Society Literary Awards have been announced. There are four categories this year, and the winners will be announced at a ceremony on Friday 28th November.

Scottish Book of the Year Award

• Meaghan Delahunt The Red Book Granta Books
• Mick Imlah The Lost Leader faber and faber
• James Kelman Kieron Smith, Boy Hamish Hamilton books
• Martainn Mac an T-Saoir An Latha as Fhaide CLÀR
• James Meek We Are Now Beginning Our Descent Canongate
• Andrew O'Hagan The Atlantic Ocean faber and faber
• Ali Smith Girl meets boy Canongate

• 
  Add to Basket
  £20.00
  The Atlantic Ocean: Essays On Britain And America - Andrew O'Hagan - Hardback
  Andrew O'Hagan, multi-award-winning fiction writer, reporter and memoirist, presents a series of essays that explore what America means to the British. O'Hagan deals with a wide range of subjects, including Margaret Thatcher, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, Hurricane Katrina, and the war in Iraq.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £7.99
  Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith - Paperback
  'Girl Meets Boy' is a novel from the pen of Ali Smith, author of 'Free Love', 'Like', and 'The Accidental'.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £18.99
  Kieron Smith, Boy - James Kelman - Hardback
  Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of the city, a world away from the close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £9.99
  The Lost Leader - Mick Imlah - Paperback
  Many of the poems in Mick Imlah's collection take on the most over-worn of Scottish myths as their apparent starting points: Saint Columba and the medieval wizard Michael Scot; the Wallace and the Bruce; Queen Mary and John Knox; the Bonnie Prince; and more.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £10.99
  The Red Book - Meaghan Delahunt - Paperback
  20 years after the Bhopal gas disaster, three lives are bound together by a series of coincidences in this beautifully-written novel.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £16.99
  We Are Now Beginning Our Descent - James Meek - Hardback
  With all the explosive drama of 'The People's Act of Love', James Meek's novel spans continents and cultures. It is a timeless tale of folly and the pursuit of love, set against the incendiary politics of our time.

Saltire Society/Royal Mail Scottish First Book of the Year

• D C Jackson The Wall faber and faber
• Simon Kövesi James Kelman Manchester University Press
• Shona MacLean The Redemption of Alexander Seaton Quercus
• Andrea McNicoll Moonshine in the Morning Alma Books
• Andrew Nicoll The Good Mayor Black and White Publishing Ltd.
• Elaine di Rollo The Peachgrowers' Almanac Chatto & Windus

• 
  Add to Basket
  £8.00
  The Good Mayor - Andrew Nicoll - Paperback
  Set in the little town of Dot in a forgotten part of the Baltic, this novel tells the story of Tibo Krovic, the good and honest Mayor of Dot, and his love for his secretary, the beautiful, lonely, but married, Mrs Agathe Stopak.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £15.99
  James Kelman - Simon Kövesi - Paperback
  This is a full-length study of the novels of James Kelman, one of Scotland's most influential contemporary prose artists and 1994 Booker Prize winner.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £7.99
  Moonshine In The Morning - Andrea McNicoll - Paperback
  'Moonshine in the Morning' presents an unforgettable cast of strong-minded women and their wayward husbands clinging to village life in Thailand before the relentless advance of modernity.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £16.99
  The Peachgrowers' Almanac - Elaine Di Rollo - Hardback
  'The Peachgrowers' Almanac' is a novel about feisty women, the devotion of sisters, and the Victorians' obsession with photography, medicine, collecting, inventions, science - and experiments.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £14.99
  The Redemption Of Alexander Seaton - Shona MacLean - Hardback
  Is the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister? When he collapses in front of two sisters on that dark, wet night, they guess rightly that he's been murdered by poisoning. So begins this tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £8.99
  The Wall - D. C. Jackson - Paperback
  In the small Ayrshire town of Stewarton, the school holidays are like a microwave. So much happens & all so fast. Norma Gordon has got a problem. She needs to find Rab McGuire fast. Her big brother Barry's no use. He's in love for the first time. Michelle Montgomery loves Barry too but her mum & Aunt Alice won't let them be together.

NLS Research Book of the Year

• Alexander Fenton Scottish Life and Society: Food of the Scots John Donald in association with The European Ethnological Research Centre and National Museums Scotland
• Ian Duncan Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh Princeton University Press
• Christopher Harvie A Floating Commonwealth: Politics, Culture, And Technology On Britain's Atlantic Coast, 1860-1930 Oxford University Press

• 
  Add to Basket
  £58.00
  A Floating Commonwealth: Politics, Culture, And Technology On Britain's Atlantic Coast, 1860-1930 - Christopher Harvie - Hardback
  This portrait of society and identity in high industrial Britain focuses on the sea as connector, not barrier, and argues that the port cities and their hinterlands formed a 'floating commonwealth' whose interaction with one another and with nationalist and imperial politics created an intense political and cultural synergy.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £40.00
  Food Of The Scots: A Compendium Of Scottish Ethnology - Hardback
  Food, like procreation, is one of the major concerns of the human race. The farther back in time we go the more the daily diet is related to the local environment. This text explores the nature of food in the past, including game & wild plants, cereals & dairy products, flesh & drink, whether home-brewed ale or wines from abroad.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £23.95
  Scott's Shadow: The Novel In Romantic Edinburgh - Ian Duncan - Hardback
  'Scott's Shadow' is a comprehensive description and analysis of the distinctive field of literary production that flourished in Edinburgh (making it a rival to London) between 1802 and 1832.

Scottish History Book of the Year

• Michael Brown The Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307 – 1323 Edinburgh University Press
• PJG Ransom Iron Road: The Railway in Scotland Birlinn
• Alex Woolf From Pictland to Alba Edinburgh University Press

• 
  Add to Basket
  £22.99
  From Pictland To Alba - Alex Woolf - Hardback
  This volume charts the transformation of the political landscape of northern Britain between the middle of the eighth and the middle of the eleventh centuries.
• 
  Add to Basket
  £30.00
  The Iron Road: The Railway In Scotland - Philip John Greer Ransom - Hardback
  'Iron Road' is a comprehensive and authoritative history of the Scottish railways. A pleasure for any railway enthusiast, this title explores technical details as well as social and cultural aspects of the industry, drawing together a vast amount of carefully researched material.