100 books like Concise English-Scots Dictionary

By Scottish Language Dictionaries,

Here are 100 books that Concise English-Scots Dictionary fans have personally recommended if you like Concise English-Scots Dictionary. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Sunset Song

Billy Kay Author Of Scots: The Mither Tongue

From my list on celebrating the Scots language.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a strong Scots–speaking environment just before the advent of television, so very much a Scottish village rather than the global village. Speaking several foreign languages and being able to study Scots language and literature at Edinburgh University gave me confidence and the realisation of how special Scots was, and how closely it is tied to the identity of the people and the land. The book is local, national, and international in outlook and is written from the heart and soul, with a strong influence of the Democratic Intellect thrown in to balance the passion. You can also hear me reading the book on Audible.

Billy's book list on celebrating the Scots language

Billy Kay Why did Billy love this book?

I received this as a prize at school when I was fifteen and passages like this spoke to me: “...you wanted the words they'd known and used, forgotten in the far‑off youngness of their lives, Scots words to tell to your heart, how they wrung it and held it.” My Ayrshire community spoke Scots so it was life changing to read this message by an author from a different time and a different place who was  intensely relevant to my own situation. Being discouraged or even punished for speaking Scots in school, led us to learn English pretty quickly and this bi-lingual tension gave us an advantage learning other languages like French and German which I studied at University. But I will always be grateful to Sunset Song for making me aware of how important the Scots language was to our identity as Scots: “And the next minute that passed…

By Lewis Grassic Gibbon,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Sunset Song as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Twice Voted Scotland's Favourite Book

'Left me scorched' Ali Smith
'Unforgettable' Guardian

Faced with a choice between a harsh farming life and the world of books and learning, Chris Guthrie chooses to remain in her rural community, bound by her intense love of the land. But everything changes with the arrival of the First World War and Chris finds her land altered beyond recognition.

One of the greatest and most heartbreaking love stories ever told,, Sunset Song offers a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil.


Book cover of A Tongue in Yer Heid

Billy Kay Author Of Scots: The Mither Tongue

From my list on celebrating the Scots language.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a strong Scots–speaking environment just before the advent of television, so very much a Scottish village rather than the global village. Speaking several foreign languages and being able to study Scots language and literature at Edinburgh University gave me confidence and the realisation of how special Scots was, and how closely it is tied to the identity of the people and the land. The book is local, national, and international in outlook and is written from the heart and soul, with a strong influence of the Democratic Intellect thrown in to balance the passion. You can also hear me reading the book on Audible.

Billy's book list on celebrating the Scots language

Billy Kay Why did Billy love this book?

This is a great anthology of contemporary Scots writing ranging from more classical Scots like my own short story Inrush at Nummer Fower to racy urban Scots like Irvine Welsh’s A Soft Touch. I love it because it showed me that our language is vital, contemporary, and alive today as well as being a brilliant historic literary language. It was like a revelation to me, and it stayed with me too.

I first discovered the author of Trainspotting in this book. James is also a brilliant Scots writer and shows that in novels like The Fanatic and The Land Lay Still. He and Matthew Fitt, also a fine poet and novelist in Scots, also produced the imprint Itchy Coo which has published excellent children's books in Scots, some from new authors, others with Scots translations of famous European collectors of Fairy Tales such as Hans Christian Andersen…

By James Robertson (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Tongue in Yer Heid as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This anthology brings together 28 stories by living writers, from traditional folktales to stories dealing with domestic violence and poverty. The book's introduction defines Scots in the widest possible terms, and argues that this anthology is a sign of the vigour of the language.


Book cover of Docherty

Billy Kay Author Of Scots: The Mither Tongue

From my list on celebrating the Scots language.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a strong Scots–speaking environment just before the advent of television, so very much a Scottish village rather than the global village. Speaking several foreign languages and being able to study Scots language and literature at Edinburgh University gave me confidence and the realisation of how special Scots was, and how closely it is tied to the identity of the people and the land. The book is local, national, and international in outlook and is written from the heart and soul, with a strong influence of the Democratic Intellect thrown in to balance the passion. You can also hear me reading the book on Audible.

Billy's book list on celebrating the Scots language

Billy Kay Why did Billy love this book?

Another fine novel by a great writer who, like me, hailed from Ayrshire. I quote from it in my book. I became aware of William McIlvanney when I attended Kilmarnock Academy between 1967 and 1969 and his first novel Remedy is None was passed around the students in their final year at the school, before heading for University. Having a living, breathing novelist living in the town was really something, and it made us all think that perhaps we could become writers too! All of his books are excellent but Docherty touched me personally because it describes a mining community, similar to the town I grew up in, Galston. It also explores the linguistic tension between Scots and English which is the experience of most people growing up in the Lowlands of Scotland.

By William McIlvanney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Docherty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'His face made a fist at the world. The twined remnant of umbilicus projected vulnerably. Hands, feet and prick. He had come equipped for the job.'

Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies between his parents in their tenement room, with no birthright but a life's labour in the pits of his small town. But the world is changing, and, lying next to him, Conn's father Tam has decided that his son's life will be different from his own.

Gritty, dark and tender, McIlvanney's Docherty is a modern classic.


Book cover of The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature, 1375-1707

Billy Kay Author Of Scots: The Mither Tongue

From my list on celebrating the Scots language.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up in a strong Scots–speaking environment just before the advent of television, so very much a Scottish village rather than the global village. Speaking several foreign languages and being able to study Scots language and literature at Edinburgh University gave me confidence and the realisation of how special Scots was, and how closely it is tied to the identity of the people and the land. The book is local, national, and international in outlook and is written from the heart and soul, with a strong influence of the Democratic Intellect thrown in to balance the passion. You can also hear me reading the book on Audible.

Billy's book list on celebrating the Scots language

Billy Kay Why did Billy love this book?

I want to reveal to people the superb achievement of the medieval Scots Makars who produced arguably the greatest poetry anywhere in Europe or Britain between roughly 1450 to 1550. John Barbour, William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas, and Sir David Lyndsay are the greatest of them but there are more excellent exponents of Scots in this, one of its golden ages, and they are all represented here. I quote many of them in my book.

By R.D.S. Jack,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature, 1375-1707 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This anthology is intended to answer the need for a large-scale anthology of early Scottish Literature, which is felt particularly acutely in the academic field. It has been designed as a teaching text suitable for use by students and at advanced level in schools. Longer works are either presented complete - e.g. James I, 'Kingis Quair'; or by sections which sum up the main themes and concerns of the text - e.g Barbour's 'Bruce' Book I. There are full critical and linguistic introductions; brief biographical and bibliographic introductions for each author or subsection; the texts have all been re-edited; every…


Book cover of Scottish Ethnicity and the Making of New Zealand Society, 1850-1930

Rebecca Lenihan Author Of From Alba to Aotearoa: Profiling New Zealand's Scots Migrants 1840-1920

From my list on British and Irish migration to Aotearoa New Zealand.

Why am I passionate about this?

Understanding the demographic, technological, and cultural pressures that prompt migration fascinates me. What makes a person leave behind everything they have ever known to go somewhere they have never seen, knowing the move is probably permanent? What features of individual and group identity are most important when you are on the other side of the world from everything that previously formed that identity? Examining such questions makes me reflect on my life and what makes me me. For example, visiting Scotland for my PhD research made me realize that I was not ‘New Zealand European’ but a New Zealander, which is a distinct identity. 

Rebecca's book list on British and Irish migration to Aotearoa New Zealand

Rebecca Lenihan Why did Rebecca love this book?

There is a lot to love about this book. The level of detail about every element of Scottish ethnicity under consideration is extraordinary. Bueltmann seems to leave no stone unturned in her examination of Scottish associations. I am always a big fan of historical databases, so the analysis based on the database compiled for this research of society members, based on extant sources, is a big selling point for me.

Many society membership lists have been lost to history, and the New Zealand census returns were systematically destroyed, so compiling such a database was no mean feat. What has always most strongly stuck with me, though, is how the stories of individual migrants are woven throughout, not just thrown in as examples but integral to understanding the phenomena she is exploring. John Jack and family, for example, turn up at different points in their lives at different points in the…

By Tanja Bueltmann,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scottish Ethnicity and the Making of New Zealand Society, 1850-1930 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Scots accounted for around a quarter of all UK-born immigrants to New Zealand between 1861 and 1945, but have only been accorded scant attention in New Zealand histories, specialist immigration histories and Scottish Diaspora Studies. This is all the more peculiar because the flow of Scots to New Zealand, although relatively unimportant to Scotland, constituted a sizable element to the country's much smaller population. Seen as adaptable, integrating relatively more quickly than other ethnic migrant groups in New Zealand, the Scots' presence was obscured by a fixation on the romanticised shortbread tin facade of Scottish identity overseas. Uncovering Scottish…


Book cover of Morvern Callar

Iain Hood Author Of This Good Book

From my list on Scottish reads about moments of madness.

Why am I passionate about this?

Scotland’s greatest poet since Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid, said that there were no traditions in writing, only precedents. He was thinking that, were traditions followed, adhered to, applauded, and praised, and prized too highly, then the danger of slavish repetition rather than creative divergence was too high. We need the mad moments, when all bets are off and something truly unpredictable will happen. I write with Scots modernist, postmodernist, and experimental precedents in mind. I want there to be Scots literature that reflects a divergent, creative nation, willing to experiment with words and life, and, in Alasdair Gray’s formulation, “work as though in the early days of a better nation.”

Iain's book list on Scottish reads about moments of madness

Iain Hood Why did Iain love this book?

Ah, were you ever going to shout the famous question, “Why’d you do it!?”, at a character, it would have to be at Morvern.

Another book that grabbed the filmic imagination, this time of Lynne Ramsay, Morvern has the quietest moment of madness on this list. She finds her boyfriend, whom she never names but gives him a Godlike uppercase H whenever He is mentioned, dead by his own hand on the floor of their flat and coolly accepts the fact.

Then, as a sort of civic duty and not to cause a fuss, she chops him up and buries the pieces of him in a suitably empty Scottish landscape. As you do. The draft novel she steals from him seems obviously hers, as all her actions seem obviously Morvern.

By Alan Warner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Morvern Callar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An utterly unforgettable novel that portrays a vast internal emptiness by using the cool, haunting voice of a young woman in Scotland lost in the profound anomie of her generation—from “one of the most talented, original and interesting voices around” (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting). 

Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket in a desolate and beautiful port town in the west of Scotland, wakes one morning in late December to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on the kitchen floor. Morvern's reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even…


Book cover of The Only Gaijin in the Village

Suzanne Kamata Author Of Squeaky Wheels: Travels with My Daughter by Train, Plane, Metro, Tuk-tuk and Wheelchair

From my list on memoirs by foreigners in Japan.

Why am I passionate about this?

Japan is endlessly fascinating. Many foreigners who have spent a year or two engaging with Japanese culture have published memoirs. But there are also many who have lived here longer, perhaps marrying and raising families and retiring in Japan. The stories of long-term foreign residents dig deep into the culture and share unique challenges and triumphs. My own memoir, Squeaky Wheels is about my experience raising a biracial daughter who is deaf and has cerebral palsy in off-the-beaten-track Japan. It also details our mother-daughter travels around Japan, to the United States, and ultimately to Paris. It is ultimately a story of my attempt to open the world to my daughter.

Suzanne's book list on memoirs by foreigners in Japan

Suzanne Kamata Why did Suzanne love this book?

In 2017, Scotsman Iain Maloney and his acerbic Japanese wife Minori decided to buy a house in rural Japan. This was no small decision, as Japan houses begin to depreciate almost as soon as they are built. Nevertheless, the author is resigned to spending the remainder of his days in Japan and is ready to commit. The book is ostensibly about one year in rural Japan, but Maloney veers frequently from the narrative path, flashing back and forth in time, riffing on, among other things, soccer, crowded trains, and tired tropes in memoirs written by foreigners.

While many have written about their experiences in Japan, few have taken readers quite so far off the beaten path – literally. Maloney’s understanding of the Japanese language and his immersion in Japanese culture (he’d first arrived in 2005) add credibility and depth, while his self-deprecation and humor make this an entirely enjoyable read.

By Iain Maloney,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Only Gaijin in the Village as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 2016 Scottish writer Iain Maloney and his Japanese wife Minori moved to a village in rural Japan. This is the story of his attempt to fit in, be accepted and fulfil his duties as a member of the community, despite being the only foreigner in the village.

Even after more than a decade living in Japan and learning the language, life in the countryside was a culture shock. Due to increasing numbers of young people moving to the cities in search of work, there are fewer rural residents under the retirement age - and they have two things in…


Book cover of Español Correcto para Dummies

Patricia Lorente Author Of 100 Entertaining Short Stories to Practice Your Spanish in Present Tense

From my list on improving your Spanish.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer and a Spanish teacher. Creative and a little crazy. I love teaching people who arrive in my city (Madrid) to live for a while. I love writing fiction, specially novels, but also poetry and little stories. Sometimes I mix both skills and create texts as the one below. I dream about winning the lottery but I never buy tickets, and I also love to sing with my guitar when I’m alone. Pleased to meet you.

Patricia's book list on improving your Spanish

Patricia Lorente Why did Patricia love this book?

It says it’s “for dummies, but the truth is, this book is for people with a high level of Spanish who want to complete their learning. 

The book is an extensive review of the Spanish grammar, all explained in Spanish, with more than 400 pages. I see it as a fun and entertaining encyclopedia of this language, because you can find almost every aspect of Spanish grammar in it. If you are a beginner, you can also use it as a reference book which can accompany you through the journey of learning.

By Fernando Ávila,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Español Correcto para Dummies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Una guía indispensable para todos aquellos interesados en aprender a escribir y hablar el castellano correctamente. A diferencia del resto de libros del mercado, Español correcto para Dummies presenta de forma amena y didáctica las reglas básicas de los tiempos verbales, los nombres y los pronombres. Asimismo, ayuda a resolver las dudas más comunes sobre la lengua castellana.


Book cover of The Scottish World: A Journey Into the Scottish Diaspora

Claire R. McDougall Author Of Veil of Time

From my list on to lose yourself in the dream that is Scotland.

Why am I passionate about this?

There is a saying that you can take the girl out of Scotland but not Scotland out of the girl. I am that girl. Born and raised in Scotland, I earned an MA from Edinburgh University and a M.Litt from Oxford. I met my husband during the summer at  Dartmouth College and the rest, as they say, is history. Or, at least it would be, except for the hankering back to Scotland that never leaves. My novel set in Scotland was published by Simon & Schuster.

Claire's book list on to lose yourself in the dream that is Scotland

Claire R. McDougall Why did Claire love this book?

I value this book because, since joining the United Kingdom in 1707, much of Scottish history has been disregarded. Even though I studied history in my Scottish school to a high level, the details of our past were replaced with English history. Well-known radio personality, Billy Kay, brings together a wealth of information about Scotland’s outside influence through the ages. Scotland was one of the first countries to see the benefit of an educated working class, and in the countries to which they emigrated, their learning stood them in good stead. Scottish culture, over hundreds of years before it was incorporated into the United Kingdom, had well-established cultural centers throughout Europe and even as far as Russia.

By Billy Kay,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Scottish World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Thaim wi a guid Scots tongue in their heid are fit tae gang ower the warld'

In The Scottish World, renowned broadcaster Billy Kay takes us on a global journey of discovery, highlighting the extraordinary influence the Scots have had on communities and cultures on almost every continent.

While others have questioned the self-confidence of the Scots, Kay has travelled the world from Bangkok to Brazil, Warsaw to Waikiki and found ringing endorsements for the integrity and intellect, the poetry and passion of the Scottish people in every country he has visited.

He expands people's view of Scotland by relating…


Book cover of Three Junes

Chelsey Philpot Author Of Even in Paradise

From my list on charismatic, yet tragic families.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent most of my childhood running amok and creating imaginary worlds with my three siblings on a small farm in New Hampshire. Because of my large family, I’ve always loved reading about charismatic, complicated families in literature. In fact, I had to struggle to edit this list down from 15 books to five. Before I wrote my first book, I didn’t think of all the family-centric novels I read as anything more than reading. But working on Even in Paradise helped me realize that all my reading was actually research for the first fictional family I would create, the “Great Buchanans.”

Chelsey's book list on charismatic, yet tragic families

Chelsey Philpot Why did Chelsey love this book?

I will always be grateful to Julias Glass because once upon a time, she was gracious enough to let a journalism graduate student make her the subject of a dissertation: a profile about Glass and the tribulations of creating a sophomore novel after your debut is a ginormous success. 

Three Junes, which won the 2002 National Book Award, is that first novel. 

Glass’s story about the members of the McLeod family and the physical and emotional journeys that take its members to Greece, Scotland, and Greenwich Village is as mesmerizing as everyone says. Truly.

By Julia Glass,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Three Junes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this captivating debut novel, Julia Glass depicts the life and loves of the McLeod family during three crucial summers spanning a decade. Paul McLeod, patriarch of a Scottish family and a retired newspaper editor and proprietor, is on a package tour of Greece after the death of his wife. The story of his departure from the family home in Scotland and late gesture towards some sort of freedom gives way to his eldest son's life (Fenno). Fenno protects his heart by putting himself under emotional quarantine throughout his life as a young gay man in Manhattan. When he returns…


Book cover of Sunset Song
Book cover of A Tongue in Yer Heid
Book cover of Docherty

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