Books
Suggested reading of various genre.
Frommer’s Scotland’s Best-Loved Driving Tours
by David Williams
Book Description
Completely redesigned last year, with gorgeous covers and a handy new trim size, Frommers Driving Tours are the premier full-color series for travelers who want to hit the road and explore at their own pace. Each guide is packed with detailed, color-coded maps and stunning full-color photographs. We outline dozens of driving tour options and then help you plan your route with exact directions, distances, and driving times. You’ll enjoy all the top sights and then have the flexibility to enjoy the hidden pleasures of each destination our suggested tours include scenic detours and stops for spectacular views, easy walks, shopping, dining, and fun breaks for travelers with kids.
Blasted Heaths and Blessed Greens : A Golfer’s Pilgrimage to the Courses of Scotland
by James W. Finegan
Book Description
Every golfer alive knows that he or she has two ancestral homes: one’s own, and Scotland. On her rolling shores the game of golf had its origins, and to walk the links of St. Andrews is to feel at one with the shepherd who decided one day to see how far he could whack a stone with his crook. Most serious golfers will make the pilgrimage to Scotland, to try to hit the Postage Stamp green at Troon, to trace the footsteps of Ben Hogan at Carnoustie, and to brave the challenge of the Road hole at St. Andrews; all golfers dream of taking such a trip. For the tourist or the dreamer, there can be no better guide than James W. Finegan. A passionate advocate of the game that’s played on the links between land and sea, Finegan combines a writer’s eye, a historian’s knowledge, and a golfer’s sense of wonder and apprehension to provide an impossibly ambitious grand tour of golf’s native land.
Fodor’s Scotland 2014
by Fodor’s (Editor)
Book Description
“Fodor’s guides are always a pleasure.” – The Chicago Tribune
“Teeming with maps and loaded with addresses, phone numbers, and directions.” – Newsday
Experienced and first-time travelers alike rely on Fodor’s Gold Guides for rich, reliable coverage the world over. Updated each year and containing a foldout Rand McNally map, a Fodor’s Gold Guide is an essential tool for any kind of traveler. If you can only take one guide, this is the guide for you.
Portrait of Scotland : Photographs
by Colin Baxter (Photographer)
Book Description:
See Scotland up close and personal.
Castles of England, Scotland and Wales (Country Series)
by Paul Johnson
Book Description:
From Edinburgh to Tintagel, this is a pictorially stunning tour of Britain’s many castles. Featuring 130 color photos. Together, England, Scotland, and Wales possess one of the largest and most impressive collections of castles anywhere in the world. Castles have had a key role in Britain’s history, and the names of many of them, Kenilworth, Edinburgh, Bodiam, Stirling, Harlech, Tintagel, Berkeley, and Warwick–are synonymous with romance, battle, and intrigue. This handsome pictorial survey traces each stage in their development: Norman times through Plantagenet and Edwardian expansion, Tudor strengthening of the coastal defenses, the appalling devastation of the Civil War, the castle’s gradual decline, on to fantastic mock castles, like Castle Drogo. Among Paul Johnson’s many books are a History of the Jews, British Cathedrals, Civilizations and the Holy Land,
Intellectuals, and To Hell with Picasso and Other Essays. 216 pp 10 x 7 1/2 130 color photos
Eminent Dogs Dangerous Men
by Donald McCaig
Book Description:
When the author of Nop’s Trials, one of America’s best-loved dog books, searches Scotland for a Border Collie, the result is both a vivid history of an astonishing breed and an exploration of the ancient, extraordinary pact between man and dog.
Now available in paperback. Illustrated. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Michelin Green Guide: Scotland (4th Ed)
Book Description:
Used by the Scotish Tourist Board as a study reference tool. Covers Scotland well, easy to use, and recommended for
independent travelers.
The Best Hill Walking in Scotland
by Cameron McNeish
Book Description:
The author, editor of The Great Outdoors magazine, has expertly drawn on his experience to compile this detailed, informative, and beautifully illustrated guide to the cream of Scottish hill walking.
Lady MacDonald’s Scotland: The Best of Scottish Food and Drink
by John Ferro Sims (Photographer), Lady Claire MacDonald
Book Discription
Lady MacDonald lives in an isolated white house set on a sea loch at the foot of a hill in the south of the Isle of Skye. Her home, Kinloch Lodge, is also a small hotel, which she runs with her husband. In this book. Lady MacDonald takes us to ten of the best hotels and restaurants in Scotland, shares with us 60 of her favorite recipes, and introduces some of the people who are helping to sustain the Scottish culinary tradition. Color photos.
SCOTLAND: HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS, 2ND Edition
by Richenda Miers
Book Discription
A look into the grand Highlands and Western Isles
An Innocent in Scotland: More Curious Rambles and Singular Encounters
by David W. McFadden
Book Discription
McFadden journeys through Scottish terrain as he follows in the footsteps of his spiritual mentor, H. V. Morton, an outstanding travel writer of a half-century ago. He has other purposes for his trip, though, which include learning more about his ancestors and visiting the country of the poet Robert Burns. Along the way, McFadden meets fellow travelers from diverse parts, shopkeepers and innkeepers who feed not only his stomach but his inquisitive mind with anecdotes and tall tales. McFadden, a
Canadian whose works include An Innocent in Ireland (1995), other travel memoirs, fiction, and poetry, revels in meeting all these people, whether it’s around the breakfast table, discussing politics with locals over a pint at the pub, or teasing workers at historic castles as he tests their knowledge of the lore of the lairds and the land. Some of his new acquaintances are the salt of the earth, others the pepper, but his charming reportage will make the reader comfortable and curious about this beautiful part of the British Empire. Ron Kaplan
Ancient Scotland
by Iain Zaczek, David Lyons (Photographer)
Book Description
Ancient Scotland is a scenic excursion through a landscape steeped in history. In four sections the Highlands and Islands, Western Scotland and the Western Isles, the East, and the Borders the book recalls Scotland’s splendid rolling glens, rocky islands, and imposing castles and fortresses. The country’s mountains and lochs provide a powerful setting for its sacred and legendary landmarks, the megalithic alignments at Callanish, the haunting remains of early Christianity on Iona, the strongholds of ancient families. A hundred color photos capture the breathtaking beauty and mystery of these sites, appealing to all who have visited, or hope to visit, this captivating land. Iain Zaczek is the author of The Art of Illuminated Manuscripts, Clans and Tartans of Scotland, Celtic Art and Design, and Chronicles of the Celts.
Scotland : An Intimate Portrait
by Geddes MacGregor
Book Description:
Here is the ideal introduction to Scotland for everyone. In this informative and amusing portrait, Professor MacGregor recounts the history and origins of golf, kilts, bagpipes, and other distinctly Scottish associations, revealing a Scotland lesser known–the rugged and romantic land that retains much of its own ancient tradition and culture.
Clans & Tartans
by Lorna Blackie, Lorna Blackle
Book Description:
Good book to get you started on your Clan research
Scotland : An Oxford Archaeological Guide ( Oxford Archaeological Guides)
by Anna Ritchie, J. N. G. Ritchie, Graham Ritchie
Book Description:
If you consider yourself an archeological traveler, Scotland has much to offer, with its Viking settlements, standing stones, and Roman fortresses. This edition of the Oxford Archeological series will help you distinguish your brochs from your oghams, your mottes from your souterrains–and tell you where to find the best examples of each.
The Nature of Scotland : Landscape, Wildlife and People
by Magnus Magnusson (Editor), Graham White (Editor)
An overview of Scotlands Nature and People
In Search of Ancient Scotland, A Guide for the Independent Traveler
by Gerald M. Ruzicki, Dorothy A. Ruzicki
Book Description:
Walk the moors with Scotland’s prehistoric people, climb its crumbling castle walls, stand on its battlefields alongside its great heroes, feel the presence of its ghosts held tight in images spun by ancient Celts.
This book transports armchair travelers or active explorers of all ages back in time to a Scotland most visitors never see. In this friendly, lively book, the authors guide readers to more than 200 ancient monuments to uncover unusual features, legends and history.
Fun Reading
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series are brilliant fiction placed into historical context. She paints a glorious canvas of history, people, land, culture and characters into these books. Lots of fun to read either before your trip or during your adventure in Scotland. If you select the first book you need to make sure your trip starts in Inverness and you are traveling in the Highlands. Not recommended for children.
Book Description: Outlander
The year is 1945 and Claire Beauchamp Randall, a former British combat nurse, is on holiday in Scotland with her husband, looking forward to becoming reacquainted after the war’s long separation. Like most practical women, Claire hardly expects her curiosity to get the better of her, but an ancient stone circle near her lodgings holds an eerie fascination and when she innocently touches on of the giant boulders, she is hurtled backwards in time more than two hundred years to 1743.
Other books include:
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
An Echo in the Bone
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, released June 10th, 2014
Book Description: The Dragonfly in Amber
A magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland…
For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones, about a love that transcends the boundaries of time, and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his. Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire’s spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart, in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves.
Book Description: Voyager
The story opens in 1746, on the battlefield of Culloden, where Scotland’s dream of winning independence from England has just been brutally crushed. Our hero, gallant Highland laird Jamie Fraser, survives the battle and makes his way to a cave near his estate. There, he goes into hiding for several years, then turns himself in to the English to protect his near-starving dependents–and winds up in prison. Meanwhile, Claire Randall, the love of Jamie’s life whom he had sent back through a charmed circle of stones to the safety of her passionless but companionable 20th-century marriage just before the battle began–is raising her and Jamie’s daughter and working as a doctor in postwar England. Once their daughter is grown, Claire traces Jamie’s fate through historical documents, realizes he survived Culloden, and steps back through the circle for the third and last time to join him in 18th-century Scotland, 20 years after they parted. After a passionate reunion, they’re soon on the run again from the English–and it’s an eventful journey.
Book Discription: Drums of Autumn
The magnificent saga continues….
It began in Scotland, at an ancient stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past or the grave. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice. Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became legend, a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later, brought them together again in frontier America. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century. Their daughter, Brianna….
Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the stone circle and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history…and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong….