Welcome back to Book Break!
My name's Emma, and–
What?
What do you mean, I'm not Emma?
I am wearing hipster dungarees and a headscarf.
Huh?
How can I be any more Emma?
Fine. Fine. Fine. Everybody's a critic.
Honestly, some people just can't let you live your life. Are you happy now?
Hi guys, it's Lianne.
I usually live over at Literary Diversions here on the Internet, but I am here on Book
Break today to bring you a very special episode all about books set in sunny Scotland.
[nervous laugh]
OK, I might have over-exaggerated the sunny just, just slightly
Let's just, let's just go outside. Let's just–
I'm sure we won't get rained on.
Edinburgh has been the setting for many a grizzly murder in the past, but did you know
that it is also the home of the Marcia Lane School for Girls, and the stomping ground
of the sophisticated, suspicious, and ever so slightly sinister Miss Jean Brodie?
In the world of Muriel Sparks's girls school, hatlessness is an offence, fascism is all
the rage, and the quest for immortality reigns supreme.
Have I intrigued you?
Answer in complete sentences please, there's a dear.
When it comes to Scottish classics, an oft-overlooked gem is John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.
When Richard Hannay, a Scottish ex-pat returns to the UK after a long stay in Rhodesia, the
last thing that he expects to have to do is to reawaken and resurrect that oft-discussed,
suspicious, Scottish hospitality.
One night, a neighbour bangs on Richard's door, and spins for him a good old tale of
spies and plots, that goes all the way to the heart of Europe.
The neighbour thinks Richard a very canny man, but does Richard believe his new neighbour,
or does he think that he's a big old waggy? That's a liar to you lot.
And can a wee Scottish lad save the world?
Guess you're going to have to read the book and find out.
Here we are in the grounds of the magnificent Hopetoun House, Scotland's oldest and finest
stately home.
The keen-eyed amongst you may recognise these grounds as the place for a very famous duel
that was fought in a recent adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's pretty famous novel Outlander.
Outlander is the tale of a woman torn from the post-war 40s, and thrown backwards in
time into clan wars of the Scots.
What do you think you would choose?
Whether in the 40s or the 17th century, you can guarantee that Hopetoun House's windows
have seen it all.
Behind me in the near distance from Hopetoun House stands the stately figure of the Forth
Road Bridge, and the gateway to the north of Scotland.
Opened in 1964, it was the largest suspension bridge of its time outside of the US.
And it has seen the feet of very many weary travellers heading north in search of fame
and fortune, away from the vast cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
More than half of Ann Cleeves's characters from her Jimmy Perez Shetland series have
travelled across this very bridge in search of peace and quiet on the northern Scottish
isles.
Unfortunately, what they find tends to be dead bodies, and rather a lot of them for
somewhere so far away from civilisation.
Luckily what they'll also find there is the calm and supportive figure of detective Jimmy
Perez, a little world-weary, a little worn, but there to solve all of your murderous deeds.
But island life doesn't always end in stabby things, I promise.
In fact, if you listen to Lillian Beckworth in The Hills is Lonely, you'll discover that
mostly, island life consists of fist fights between locals in the pub, which are promptly
forgotten the next morning, over a hair of the dog and another wee dram,
mourners who stand by gravesides in their one funeral suit, without removing their bonnet
in case their head gets cold,
and post offices that don't open until the milking of the cows.
But we mustn't be complacent in the wild woollies of the Scottish highlands, for the lochs and
glens remember the times when witches roamed.
Selkies waited in the deep for unsuspecting fisherman,
and the Ghillie Dhu hid just around trees to tempt out all those children that you don't
want.
But that is just what Macbeth does, is he listens to the predictions of the three witches,
and then creeps home along heath and heather to murder his king, and steal the throne.
But blood and birth win out, and Macbeth's time is running short.
When shall we three meet again?
I can do Wednesday.
But as I leave you here, to find your way out of this shady glen, I have to warn you,
don't go too far south.
Or you might find yourself, in the debatable land.
That little border between England and Scotland where bloody battles raged and neither side
managed to plant a flag.
But if you do find yourself there, take Graham Robb with you, and listen carefully as he
takes you from the time of Henry VIII, by cart, horse, and bicycle, all the way through
to the present, through ghost towns and abandoned graveyards, to the last chapter of Scotland's
bloody history.
Mind how you go now.
We got wet!
Whose plan was filming outside?!
Yours again.
Oh yeah.