Another List
Posted in A L Kennedy, Alan Warner, Alasdair Gray, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish Fiction at 12:00 on 7 August 2019
I recently came across this list of ten of the best Scottish fiction books. (A bit late I must admit. It was produced five years ago by the Irish Times on the eve of the Scottish Independence Referendum.)
The ones in bold I have read.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961)
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark (1963)
Lanark by Alasdair Gray (1981)
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)
The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway (1989)
Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington (1992)
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1993)
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner (1995)
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin (1997)
Day by A L Kennedy (2007)
Most of the usual suspects appear here. Trainspotting is the only one I haven’t read.
The list seems to be biased towards more modern novels. Remarkable for its absence is Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song (now nearly 100 years old, however.) I doubt that’s an omission any such list produced in Scotland would make, though.
Tags: A L Kennedy, Alan Warner, Alasdair Gray, Iain Banks, Ian Rankin, indyref, Irish Times, Irvine Welsh, Janice Galloway, Jeff Torrington, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Muriel Spark, Scottish Independence Referendum
