Read Scotland 2018 discussion

May include history and biography this time around.

I'm reading Tales of Terror and Wonder by M. G. Lewis to learn a bit more about the Scottish legend of "second sight." Quite different from what I expected. Really a concatenated string of brief narratives summarizing events (or supposed events) from Scotland's past. Not sure I'll make it all the way through this one.

Read and reviewed Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers. Not a disappointment!

Finished The 39 Steps. Droll humor, intrigue, and Scottish landscape.

I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but....

Mrs. C. wrote: "I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but...."

Good luck! It can be daunting when they're so long, I'd love to read some Walter Scott, but no idea where to start.

Ellen wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but...."

Good luck! It can be daunting when they..."

I'd start with Waverley or Rob Roy. All the Waverley novels are great, IMHO.

Ellen wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but...."

Good luck! It can be daunting when they..."

Once you get used to the writing style they are very good reads. I read 3 of them over the last few years although I had first started The Heart of Midlothian about 15 years ago and just couldn't get started. Kept plugging away this time and really enjoyed it so moved on to Redgauntlet and then Old Mortality which was my favourite. Picked these to start with as they all have a connection to the Dumfries area but would like to read Rob Roy at some time. Will be keen to see how Mrs C. gets on with The Fair Maid of Perth.

Susan wrote: "Ellen wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but...."

Good luck! It can be daun..."

Mrs. C. wrote: "Ellen wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "I've started The Fair Maid of Perth by Sir Walter Scott. Enjoying so far, but it is 532 pages long! I hope to finish, but...."

Good luck! It can be daun..."

Thanks guys, I've made a note. My Scottish TBR list is growing fast :)

I'd been meaning to read Scott for years - I'm not even sure why he hadn't appealed to me in the past. I finally read Rob Roy and Ivanhoe last year, and enjoyed them both. Of the two I preferred Ivanhoe - maybe because it brought back memories of watching the TV series as a child.

Like Ellen's TBR pile, mine for this year needs a Scott novel added.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Read and reviewed Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers. Not a disappointment!"

I love this one, went to Dumfries last summer and stayed close to Gatehouses and that was no accident let me tell you :)

Finished The Fair Maid of Perth: or St. Valentine's Day and have written a review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Now, on to Castle Dangerous, which I started once but never finished. Wish me luck this time around!

Finished Castle Dangerous by Sir Walter Scott and have written a review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have started Scott's *The Black Dwarf*, another of the Tales of My Landlord.

Finished The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott and have written a review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5.... Not sure what's next but may continue awhile in Scott.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished The Black Dwarf by Sir Walter Scott and have written a review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5.... Not sure what's next but may continue awhile in Scott."

Great review, sounds a bit different than what I would expect. Intriguing :)

Came across a new (to me ) author this week--Angus MacVicar, and read his novel The Screaming Gull. Wrote a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... Now comes the question: back to Scott or one more by MacVicar?

Mrs. C. wrote: "Came across a new (to me ) author this week--Angus MacVicar, and read his novel The Screaming Gull. Wrote a review at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2......"
I also came across him very recently and thought the books sounded very interesting. Looking forward to starting them.

Thanks for your review Mrs. C. I was able to sign up for newsletters from the publishing company.

Ellen wrote: "Thanks for your review Mrs. C. I was able to sign up for newsletters from the publishing company."

How do you do that?

I've started Sir Walter Scott's Red Gauntlet, which, I've discovered, is an epistolary novel, a genre I love but which is not overflowing with offerings. So far, so good.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Ellen wrote: "Thanks for your review Mrs. C. I was able to sign up for newsletters from the publishing company."

How do you do that?"
They have a website to click on when I looked up your review.

Ellen wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Ellen wrote: "Thanks for your review Mrs. C. I was able to sign up for newsletters from the publishing company."

How do you do that?"
They have a website to click on when I looked ..."

Thanks!

Just finished Volume 1 of Red Gauntlet by Sir Walter Scott. I am totally enjoying this book and cannot imagine why I have never heard of it before. The plot revolves around a young Englishman who was raised by a Scottish family and has no idea who his real parents are. It is set some years after the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and the characters in the main plot and subplot keep coming in contact with each other but all still a mystery at this point. Started out as an epistolary novel, then switched to narrative, and at this point is presented in the form of a diary. Can be read online for free at Internet Archive or Google Books.

Finished Volume 2 of Red Gauntlet by Sir Walter Scott. Somehow this two-volume book managed to keep me reading, though, like some of Dickens' novels, could have been reduced by half. The story tells the tale of a group of aging Jacobites who are considering one last stand for their king-in-exile, Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie). One aspect that piqued my interest was the addition of a Quaker character inasmuch as my genealogical research has shown a number of Quakers on my tree. It was interesting to see how Scott would handle a character from what was then a detested group. All in all, I liked the novel, though probably not as much as some of the other Waverley novels, especially Rob Roy.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished Volume 2 of Red Gauntlet by Sir Walter Scott. Somehow this two-volume book managed to keep me reading, though, like some of Dickens' novels, could have been reduced by half..."

Your successful run of Scott novels is inspiring me to go back and read some more of them!

Started The Grey Shepherds by Angus MacVicar. Enjoying so far. I like this writer's style.

Finished The Grey Shepherds a couple of days ago. Gave it 4 stars. Hero saves Britain (and the rest of us) from a sinister plot to take over the world. Yeah, I know. Not the first book of that type, but at least it was not goofy.

Began reading The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. Hooray, Walter! This one clips along at a pretty good pace and involves characters that are not cardboard cut-outs of gallant men and damsels in distress. Some will dislike the expressed colonial attitudes of some characters toward India, but it's always useful to keep in mind that literature always reflects the culture of its time, which, in this case, is the period of the British Empire.

Finished The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. A good plot and some flawed characters. The only criticism I have is that in the last part of the book when the scene shifts from Scotland to India, Scott seems to have been writing in a hurry. There were characters with two names--one European and one Indian--and several with Indian names whose relationship to the plot was not always clear. Even the true aims of the main character were unclear. Still, I enjoyed the book. It held me to the end, and I never thought about just stopping mid-book.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. A good plot and some flawed characters. The only criticism I have is that in the last part of the book when the scene shifts from..."

Mrs C, I'm in awe at how you're storming through the works of Scott. Your enjoyment of them will hopefully inspire more of us, me included, to read some Scott this year.

John wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. A good plot and some flawed characters. The only criticism I have is that in the last part of the book when the s..."

Ditto - it's impressive and very inspiring!

Mrs. C. wrote: "Read and reviewed Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers. Not a disappointment!"

I've wanted to read a Dorothy L. Sayers book for a while, but haven't tried it yet. Are most of her books Scottish-themed, or was it just this one?

Began reading The Black Book by Ian Rankin. Already into the story, so enjoy Rankin's style of writing and Rebus.

Tarissa wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Read and reviewed Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers. Not a disappointment!"

I've wanted to read a Dorothy L. Sayers book for a while, but haven't tried it yet. A..."

I believe this is the only one.

John wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. A good plot and some flawed characters. The only criticism I have is that in the last part of the book when the s..."

It's funny because I thought I had read all of the Waverley novels, but discovered a number of lesser known works on Goodreads. I have never read one of his most famous novels, Ivanhoe, however. Maybe I'll get to it this year.

Have started reading A Scottish Murder by Jimmy Powdrell Campbell from the true crime genre. Halfway through. The sub-tritle is "Re-writing the Madeline Smith Story." Not sure why Campbell calls it a "re-writing" of the Madeline story but hope to know by the end.

Mrs. C. wrote: "John wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Finished The Surgeon's Daughter by Sir Walter Scott. A good plot and some flawed characters. The only criticism I have is that in the last part of the bo..."

I read Ivanhoe last year, and really enjoyed it.

Mrs. C. wrote: "Have started reading A Scottish Murder by Jimmy Powdrell Campbell from the true crime genre. Halfway through. The sub-tritle is "Re-writing the Madeline Smith Story." Not sure why Ca..."

Coincidentally, I'd just ordered from our library Murder and Morality in Victorian Britain: The Story of Madeleine Smith. I used to pass every day the house where she lived at the time of the murder.

John wrote: "Mrs. C. wrote: "Have started reading A Scottish Murder by Jimmy Powdrell Campbell from the true crime genre. Halfway through. The sub-tritle is "Re-writing the Madeline Smith Story."..."

Oh, let's compare notes when we're finished. I'm about halfway through.

Finished A Scottish Murder by Jimmy Powdrell Campbell. I believed he proved his case! Next up will probably be Dramas: Witchcraft: A Tragedy in Prose. in Five Acts. Vol. III by Joanna Baillie, a Scottish playwright of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of her work was written while living in England, but this one is set in Scotland and is said to have influences from Shakespeare's Macbeth.

I've begun Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. Set in England, of course, but definitely written by a Scot!

It took me a month, but I did finally finish Ivanhoe. I didn't get bored with it; it was just that other things kept demanding my attention. Don't know why it has taken me so long to get to this Walter Scott book, as it is more famous than many I have read, but I truly enjoyed the Romantic atmosphere it created in this tale set in Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest. The tensions between Norman and Saxon, Christian/Jew /and Muslim, King Richard and his brother John, women and the men who managed them--all highlight the sad truth that regardless of what generation we live in, there will be clash and faction amongst the various peoples confined within a country's borders. But Scott does a good job of showing that in each of the groups there are persons who are capable not only of evil, but of great good.

Mrs. C. wrote: "It took me a month, but I did finally finish Ivanhoe. I didn't get bored with it; it was just that other things kept demanding my attention. Don't know why it has taken me so long to ge..."

I also read Ivanhoe this year, and it was a very enjoyable read. I particularly enjoyed Gurth and Wamba.

Yeah, I especially liked the Valor and Folly exchange!

Has anyone read The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne by Ann Radcliffe? I see it hasn't gotten great reviews, but I'm tempted to read it as soon as I finish (sorry, it's English) *Pamela*.

Just finished The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey, a nicely done mystery set mostly in Scotland. I came across this title quite by accident, but when I saw that it was Scottish-themed, I knew I had to give it a go.