I do not remember when my admiration for Scottish Island start. It is very possible that the first book that made me dream about the Scottish islands was The Strange One - a charming story of a white billed goose which lost his pack and a couple of people who found love where nobody expected it. Perhaps the fascination of the islands located in the Far North has its source in even earlier readings? I do not know, but I remember being in a tiny fishing town in Scotland, literally at the end of the world, and I said, to the delight of all my companions, that if I had one more life at my disposal, I would like to live in such a place. There is something irresistibly attractive in the islands surrounded by the icy sea, windswept for most of the year. People living in such places must be tough, at least I think. I love the islands and I try to read about more. And this year Scotland was in our holiday plans (unfortunately changed by family events), that's way today I will tell you about the books that take place on the Scottish islands.
Karen Altenberg "Island on Wings"
The most working on our imagination Scottish archipelago is St Kilda - in the western part of the Hebrides. No one has lived there since the 1930s. Karen Altenberg's book is a historical novel about two people who voluntarily moved into a lonely and primitive place. It is an emotional, beautifully written novel about love, a sense of mission and misunderstanding.
Susan Fletcher "The Silver Dark Sea"
Susan Fletcher is one of my beloved authors, and I always look forward to reading books with impatience. She can write poetry and creates female narrators with an incredibly suggestive voice. The Silver Dark Sea is a book whose action takes place on a fictitious island, not necessarily Scottish, but the author admits that she was inspired by the Scottish islands and the descriptions of places on them. The inhabitants of the island lost one of the residents a few years earlier. Now the sea throws ashore a mysterious stranger whose arrival will change them all.
Judy Fairbairns "Island Wife"
This book does not fully meet the expectations that I placed in it. Nevertheless, it is worth reaching for it, if you are curious about what life is like on the island and you want to know its less romantic image.
Sarah Moss "Night Walking"
Night Walking is a story about Anna, who along with her husband moves for the summer on an uninhabited island. He wants studies the behavior of puffins, and she can barely cope with an insomniac toddler and an equally difficult older son. Her life does not get easier when one day, she digs up a small child's skeleton in the garden. At the same time, the reader learns the story of May, a young girl who came to this island in the XIX century with the intention of spreading the principles of hygiene among the islanders living in primitive conditions. The book is a bit gloomy, but incredibly addictive, and Anna can look at her own life with detachment and humor.
S. K. Tremayne "The Ice Twins"
Cold and gloomy islands are a perfect background for crime stories. The Ice Twins takes place on a fictional island off the coast of Scotland. The family who is moving there is affected by a terrible tragedy - a year before one of the Moorcroft twin daughters died - Lydia. After moving, the sister suddenly reveals that she is actually Lydia. The atmosphere is dense, and reading is difficult to tear.
Adam Nicolson "Sea Room: An Island Life"
It is so strange that in today's ten there are many authors, which I really like and have been faithful to for years. Adam Nicolson is also one of my favorites. I met him thanks to a book about Sissinghurst - one of English residences with a fascinating history, for which Nicolson got the Ondaatje award. Then I read his story about years spent in the English countryside, in Sussex, and I learned that Nicolson knows how to tell stories about everyday life and nature around him in a funny and poetic way. I liked those unpretentious, beautifully written memories and started to reach for other books by the author. Sea Room is probably my favorite title. This is a wise, passionate and delightful book. At the age of twenty-one, the author inherited three small islands located in the Hebrides. These islands, bought years ago by the author's father, become for Nicolson not only a repository of memories, but above all a place of escape. It is beautifully written and I want to read this book again.
Kathleen Jamie "Findings"
I repeat this few times but the language of many of the books I wrote about is poetic, and I would like to use this adjective no more, but in the case of Findings I have to. Kathleen Jamie is first and foremost a recognized and award-winning poet, while Findings is her thoughts on traveling around Scotland, including the Orkneys. This is a thin book that you read slowly, with a pencil in hand, delighting with elaborate language and with the author delighting the world. A must read!
Peter May "The Blackhouse"
Black House and the next two parts of the series: The Lewis Man and The Chessmen are a sensational series of detective stories that are not exactly detective stories. It is rather a moral novel with a criminal plot, embedded in the realities of the island of Lewis. Their hero is a Finn, a policeman from Edinburgh, in various ways associated with the island. The matters he deals with are complicated, and to solve them, you will often have to penetrate deeply into the local community and understand the laws that govern it, as well as learn the secrets.
Ann Cleeves "Raven Black"
This book is the first part of the so-called Shetland cycle, that is, detective stories that take place in the Shetland Islands. They are true criminal stories, with a somber policeman in the lead role, a small community of the island and with interesting criminal riddles that are not so easy to solve. BBC made the series based on this series.
Fred Bodsworth "The Strange One"
I hesitated to put this book in today's list, because the truth have to be said, only a small part of the action is taking place on the Scottish island. However, this is one of the titles that I associate the most with Scottish islands, and the journey to the island of Barra and observations of birds living there for years are high on the list of my dream travels. It is a story about a white billed goose who loses his pack and goes to Canada, and a young writer who falls in love with an Indian woman. Beautiful and wise novel, wrongly somewhat forgotten.
Do you know any of the titles? Or maybe you will add other books that take place on Scottish islands or just in Scotland? Perhaps dozens of Scottish, but not necessarily island titles will appear here too soon!