My Favourite Scottish Novels

by Margot Livesey

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6 books

I grew up on the edge of the Scottish Highlands where my father taught in a boys’ private school. I love novels that capture the landscapes and legends of my childhood and also the cities, especially Edinburgh, that I later came to enjoy.

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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Muriel Spark, 2012

I attended a girls’ school with a grim school uniform and many spinster teachers, so of course I love Spark’s cunning novel about the eccentric Miss Jean Brodie who takes her chosen girls – the crème de la crème - in a very surprising direction.

O Caledonia

Elspeth Barker, 2022

Barker’s only novel brilliantly evokes the short life of Janet who grows up north of Aberdeen and, like Emily Bronte, much prefers animals to humans. Janet’s triumph is to make everyone hate her. Barker’s is to make the reader love her.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales of Terror

Robert Louis Stevenson, 2006

Steven King claims that hearing his mother read aloud the scene when Hyde tramples over a child in the street made him love horror. Robert Louis Stevenson set the novel in London but the dark streets and thick fog bring Edinburgh to mind. No one has invoked the divided self better.

Knots and Crosses

An Inspector Rebus Novel

Ian Rankin, 2014

For more than two decades, Ian Rankin has filled the street of Edinburgh with the doings of his detective John Rebus and the criminals he pursues. Like many readers, I am a huge fan of Rebus’s bad behaviour and fierce morality. It was hard to choose among Rankin’s many books but this is one of my favourites.

Life After Life

Kate Atkinson, 2013

I don’t know if Kate Atkinson would call herself a Scottish writer but she has lived in Edinburgh for many years. Ursula Todd is born on a snowy night in 1910. Or maybe she dies on that snowy night? Each chapter is a little tale and Ursula dies many times before she reaches 1967.

Sunset Song

Lewis Grassic Gibbon, 2013

Lewis Grassick Gibbons’ iconic novel follows Chris Guthrie as she grows up on her father’s farm in the north east of Scotland. The vernacular takes a bit of getting used but soon the world of the novel asserts itself. Chris loves book learning, and loves the land but comes to hate her cruel father. The ending is ravishing.