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The referendum in Scotland in September has inspired several releases on the subjects of Scottish independence, history and culture.
Leading the charge is Luath Press with a new series called Open Scotland. The independent Scottish publisher aims to provide short, accessible books from leading voices in the field, commissioning and publishing new titles as issues arise.
“This is the nature of guerilla political publishing. We have authors with their finger on the button who can move quickly and get books into the hands of readers,” said Gavin MacDougall, director at Luath.
Luath’s first title in the series, Caledonian Dreaming by Gerry Hassan (£11.99), launched last week at the Glasgow AyeWrite festival, provides an overview of the Scottish political situation. Lead titles for the summer include The Glass Half Full by Eleanor Yule and David Manderson (June, £7.99) and Generation Scot Y by Kate Higgins (July, £7.99). Yule and Manderson focus on the generation who have grown up knowing only a Scottish Parliament, while Higgins considers how Scotland defines itself and the prominence of what she terms “cultural miserablism”.
“There’s a growing interest within Scotland, and internationally, about what’s happening. The UK has comparatively recently woken up to the implications of Scotland becoming independent,” said MacDougall.
Oxford University Press and Yale University Press are also releasing titles in the summer. June sees Yale publishing a new hardback biography, Robert the Bruce: King of the Scots, by Michael Penman (£25), as well as reissuing Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History as a paperback (July, £9.99) with a new jacket. OUP is publishing a commentary, The Scottish Question by James Mitchell (June, £25), aiming to challenge the misconceptions and myths that have grown up around Scottish politics and its relationship with the rest of the UK.
In July, Edinburgh-based Canongate releases Alasdair Gray’s controversial new non-fiction book, Independence (£10.99), in which he puts forward his case for an independent Scotland. Meanwhile, May sees the release of Aurum Press’ Bannockburn: Scotland’s Greatest Battle for Independence (£18.99).
The end of 2014 will also see a fiction release from Orion in the form of Ian Rankin’s new Inspector Rebus book, Saints of the Shadow Bible (November, £18.99) which is set just before the referendum and features Rebus as a “No” voter.