Scottish Books of 2025 supplement - e-mag

To read the Scottish Books of 2025 supplement, click here

This year has been notable both for the number of new books from superstar Scottish authors, and for the fact that the big hitters all seem to be on form. The latest Karen Pirie adventure from Val McDermid? “Fiendishly plotted,” according to David Robinson. Irvine Welsh’s latest outing with the Trainspotting gang? “His paciest, funniest book in years,” according to Malcolm Jack. The new Cormoran Strike novel from Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)? “Extraordinary,” according to Allan Massie.

And it isn’t just the big name writers who have been impressing our critics. Debut novels from Krystelle Bamford, Emma Cowing, Michael Pedersen and Alessandra Thom have all picked up glowing reviews, as have non-fiction debuts from Marianne Brown, Sam Dalrymple and Katie Goh. Long story short: if you’re planning to give books as Christmas presents this year, you’re spoiled for choice.

To read the Scottish Books of 2025 supplement, click here

This supplement contains a selection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry reviews which have appeared in The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday since the start of the year. The books covered in these pages are either the work of Scottish authors or on subjects which should be of particular interest to Scottish readers. Even with 24 pages, we don’t have enough space to revisit every review that meets these criteria, so we have had to set ourselves some rules. Firstly, only broadly positive reviews have been considered. While this supplement isn’t intended to be anything as reductive as a “best Scottish books of the year” list, its goal is to draw attention to the books we believe it is worth investing some time in. Our second rule is only one review per author. We have run reviews of multiple books this year by some prolific writers, but it would seem unfair to include reviews of two books by one author while another misses out. Where two reviews by the same author have received positive reviews, we have selected either the book which has received the more positive review or the book which seems the most significant in the context of that writer’s career.

If we’d wanted to, we could have squeezed many more reviews into these pages, but if we’d gone too far down that route we wouldn’t have ended up with much more than a glorified list, and we think our readers might appreciate a more considered view. So, while a few trims have been necessary here and there, as far as possible we have tried to reproduce the original reviews in full. We hope you enjoy reading them, we hope some of them inspire you to seek out the books, and if possible, please try to buy from your local bookseller this Christmas, whether in person or online.

The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today

Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here.