The Next Page is SNACK’s round-up of some of the best books published in recent months, and this time it includes literary legends, history, crime, time travel, psychogeography, friendship, and more.
Agnes Owens – Centenary Editions
Many readers would have first encountered Agnes Owens in the short story anthology Lean Tales, alongside James Kelman and Alasdair Gray.
It’s a classic Scottish text, with Owens’s contributions arguably the most impactful, but she remains unjustly overlooked.To mark the centenary of her birth, Polygon have published four new editions of her work, with another three coming later in the year.
If you are pondering which edition to start with, then I would suggest the debut novel, Gentlemen of the West, which has a thoughtful and insightful introduction by Dani Garavelli.
Agnes Owens is one of Scotland’s finest writers, and it’s to be hoped that a new readership is about to discover that for themselves.
The Agnes Owens Centenary Editions are published by Polygon Books
David Keenan – Boyhood
It’s difficult to believe it’s been nine years, and six novels, since David Keenan’s debut This Is Memorial Device announced a singular and significant new voice to Scottish literature. His latest, Boyhood, is arguably his best to date. In 1979, a boy is abducted.
Nine years on, his brother Aaron is still trying to come to terms with this loss. What follows is an expansive novel where we meet angels, gangsters, poets, and vampires.
As with all of David Keenan’s work, he manages to take what appear to be everyday lives and make them extraordinary through art, music, religion, magic, and so much more. This time around he also looks at the nature of adolescence, but in a manner which makes this writer stand apart.
Boyhood is also a love letter to Glasgow, reimagining the place and people to offer something recognisable yet brand new.
Boyhood is published by White Rabbit Books
Murray Pittock – The Shortest History of Scotland
For many of us, Scottish history is an area of knowledge where we’re sadly lacking. Murray Pittock’s The Shortest History of Scotland is the perfect book to help fill those gaps.
In the preface, the author states that ‘History is the best guide to the future we have’, which somehow seems more important today than it has ever been. He goes on to cover the nation’s languages, literature, the relationships with England and Europe, economy, education, self-image, and so much more, right up to recent times.
It also debunks many of the widely accepted truths about Scotland’s past, and gives nuance to the detail and dates. This may be The Shortest History of Scotland, but it’s one of the best.
The Shortest History of Scotland is published by Old Street Publishing
Chris Brookmyre Quite – Ugly One Evening
It’s difficult to overstate the impact of Chris Brookmyre’s Quite Ugly One Morning when it was published in 1996. Introducing readers to maverick journalist Jack Parlabane, it also introduced a vibrant new voice to Scottish crime writing one who revelled in pushing boundaries.
30 years on and a number of Parlabane mysteries since, it’s time to reflect on not just the character, but Chris Brookmyre as well. And that’s the subtext to Quite Ugly One Evening, which is in no small part about growing old and the realisation that there is more time behind you than ahead.
But if that sounds overly serious, have no fear. This novel is laugh-out-loud funny, angry, cynical, and genuinely thrilling, with a warmer heart and more hope than you might expect.
Quite Ugly One Evening is published by Abacus
Andrew Meehan – Hey Man
Hey Man is a moving, honest, and emotional examination of friendship.
17-year-old Dubliner lan meets older actor Tommy in late 1980s London, where they share a summer that changes them both. lan is initially an observer to Tommy’s charismatic main character; a Boswell to his Dr Johnson (or the ‘I’ to his ‘Withnail’).
As their paths cross over the decades, with lan finding God and Tommy finding fame, those roles change and theyhave to learn to adapt. But theirs is a relationship which endures, despite it being complex and emotionally raw at times.
Like its protagonists, Hey Man is a novel with many layers, and it will have you contemplating those friendships central to your own life.
Hey Man is published by Muswell Press
Olga Wojtas – Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues
Olga Wojtas’s Miss Blaine’s Prefect series of novels are among the most engaging and witty of recent years, but always with a twist in the tale.
This time around, the titular time- travelling prefect, Shona McMonagle, finds herself in Enlightenment Edinburgh where she encounters the teenage Walter Scott, a rather laddish Robert Burns, and various philosophers, writers, and other celebrated thinkers.
She also finds herself allied to a group of women who meet clandestinely to discuss current affairs and the burning issues of the day. An entertaining and educative depiction of one of the most defining times in Scotland’s history, Olga Wojtas proves that there’s more than one way to teach us lessons from the past.
Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Parcel of Rogues is published by Saraband Books
Photo credit (David Keenan): Marzena Pogorzaly
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source snackmag.co.uk ’
