North Uist (Outer Hebrides) – 
Bonnybridge (Falkirk) – 
Kyle of Tongue and Ben Hope (Sutherland) – 
Pitlochry (Perthshire) – 
Wigtown (Dumfries and Galloway) – Novel set mainly in ABRUZZO
TripFiction armchair travel by book – SCOTLAND
16th April 2020
TripFiction armchair travel by book – Scotland.
We may all be confined to quarters for a while, but TripFiction is here to help you travel vicariously through books with a strong sense of place. The TripFiction team have been trawling through their database of thousands of books – novels, memoirs and travelogues – and hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve dug up to help you get through these difficult times.
SCOTLAND
We have more than 300 books set in Scotland. Check out our Great Books Map for some top 5 or 10 #LiteraryWanderlust suggestions set in some of our great British cities and regions. But get off the beaten track and hunt down a few books set in more quirky places around Scotland. Here are a few ideas to get you exploring with a book…
North Uist (Outer Hebrides) – Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard
Rose Leonard is on the run from her life.
Taking refuge in a remote island community, she cocoons herself in work, silence and solitude in a house by the sea. But she is haunted by her past, by memories and desires she’d hoped were long dead. Rose must decide whether she has chosen a new life or just a different kind of death. Life and love are offered by new friends, her lonely daughter and most of all Calum, a fragile younger man who has his own demons to exorcise.
But does Rose, with her tenuous hold on life and sanity, have the courage to say “Yes” to life and put her past behind her?…
Bonnybridge (Falkirk) – Talk of the Toun by Helen MacKinven
An uplifting black comedy of love, family life and friendship, Talk of the Toun is a bittersweet coming-of-age tale set in the summer of 1985, in working class, central belt Scotland.
Lifelong friends Angela and Lorraine are two very different girls, with a growing divide in their aspirations and ambitions putting their friendship under increasing strain.
Artistically gifted Angela has her sights set on art school, but lassies like Angela, from a small town council scheme, are expected to settle for a nice wee secretarial job at the local factory. Her only ally is her gallus gran, Senga, the pet psychic, who firmly believes that her granddaughter can be whatever she wants.
Though Lorraine’s ambitions are focused closer to home Angela has plans for her too, and a caravan holiday to Filey with Angela’s family tests the dynamics of their relationship and has lifelong consequences for them both.
Effortlessly capturing the religious and social intricacies of 1980s Scotland, Talk of the Toun is the perfect mix of pathos and humour as the two girls wrestle with the complications of growing up and exploring who they really are.
Kyle of Tongue and Ben Hope (Sutherland) – Polar Nights by Simon Hacker
Hitching a ride on a rogue iceberg, a polar bear washes up on the north coast of Scotland and immediately causes havoc in a small fishing community. Intent on the media scoop of the decade, TV journalist Rebecca Riposte and her cameraman Ben are swiftly on its trail. But so, too, is Lord Tobias von Hindmarch – a man desperate to settle an old hunting score and bag the one trophy missing from his collection.
Meanwhile, scientist Dan Travis flies in, his mission to play down the implications of the iceberg and bolster the government’s melting green reputation. As the weather closes in, Rebecca is forced to rely upon the help offered by a police officer with a murky past. Equally, after he falls for Rebecca and resolves to help her, Dan faces his own dilemma: his only route to reach her is by the guiding hand of a sinister mountain guide.
And as the action converges and the body count rises, each must face challenges more deadly than their darkest fears.
Pitlochry (Perthshire) – Tuesday’s Socks by Alison Ragsdale
Founder and sole employee of Mere Accounting, Jeffrey Mere is a solitary man. He has spent his entire life close to home, in the picturesque Scottish town of Pitlochry. After sixty-four years of playing it safe, with retirement looming, Jeffrey resolves to climb Ben Macdhui, Britain’s second highest peak.
His decision sets off a chain of events that changes his life forever.
He returns from the mountain to find that nothing is as he left it and events begin to spiral out of control. Within a few weeks a fire threatens the street where he lives, there is a new woman in his life and he finds himself on the ancient streets of Rome.
Is sixty-four too old to take a leap of faith that could change everything?
Wigtown (Dumfries and Galloway) – The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown – Scotland’s largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover’s paradise? Well, almost …
In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town Scottish life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.
We hope these off-the-beaten track books set in Scotland help you escape for a little while. Let us know what other quirky places you’ve heard of around the country, and check out our database for any books set there. Prefer the cities? Have a look at our Great Books Map for 5 great books set in Edinburgh or in Glasgow.
The TripFiction Team
Join us on Social Media:
Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction)
Please wait...
