Here are 100 books that Ours, Yours and Mines fans have personally recommended if you like
Ours, Yours and Mines.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I am, have always been, and always will be a realist. Therefore I find ‘Faction’ books, biographies, and memoirs more interesting, as I can learn from them and know that some or all of the events are true. They say ‘write what you know’ and so when it came to writing A Rather Unusual Romance I did just that. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer back in 2005, and decided to weave the 15-year journey back to health I undertook into the pages of a fictional romance, with Alan and Erin similarly affected by thyroid cancer. Every procedure they had to endure was true because I had to go through it as well (without the romance)!
This coming-of-age memoir takes me back to my early years living in the East End of London in the 1960s, where people were hard up and renowned for ‘ducking and diving’ and dodgy dealings. Joe’s boss Roy had many such deals going on in the back of his butcher’s shop. Over time Joe became aware that Roy sold much more than just meat, and in fact was raking in more money doing shady deals than selling the usual beef, pork, and lamb. Very entertaining!
Joe is a typical 14 year old growing up in Londons East End. His mum gets him a job as a Saturday boy at the local Butchers shop. His life will never be the same again. A story of friendship, loyalty, violence, crime and betrayal. Imagine Goodfellas set in East London. Welcome to THe East End Butcher Boy.
I am, have always been, and always will be a realist. Therefore I find ‘Faction’ books, biographies, and memoirs more interesting, as I can learn from them and know that some or all of the events are true. They say ‘write what you know’ and so when it came to writing A Rather Unusual Romance I did just that. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer back in 2005, and decided to weave the 15-year journey back to health I undertook into the pages of a fictional romance, with Alan and Erin similarly affected by thyroid cancer. Every procedure they had to endure was true because I had to go through it as well (without the romance)!
If you were a teenager (like I was) at the same time as the book’s main character, John Burton, you will be swept away on a journey of nostalgia back to your youth in the 1970s. Memories will come flooding back about that special time in your life when you were young and finding out about love, sex, loss, and death. Recommended!
John Burton is seventeen, it’s the long hot British summer of 1976 and his life is about to change, in ways he has carefully planned, and ways he cannot yet know, as he embarks on a roller-coaster journey to maturity.
John’s world is populated by those who have helped mould his character. His parents, proof that opposites attract; Penny, his girlfriend, evidence that persistence can sometimes pay off; his grandmother, incorrigible and unshockable; Craig, his best friend, confidant, and sounding board; Alan, who holds a secret only John knows; Katie, object of John’s pubescent fantasies; Deborah, who collects underpants; Graham,…
I am, have always been, and always will be a realist. Therefore I find ‘Faction’ books, biographies, and memoirs more interesting, as I can learn from them and know that some or all of the events are true. They say ‘write what you know’ and so when it came to writing A Rather Unusual Romance I did just that. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer back in 2005, and decided to weave the 15-year journey back to health I undertook into the pages of a fictional romance, with Alan and Erin similarly affected by thyroid cancer. Every procedure they had to endure was true because I had to go through it as well (without the romance)!
Because it is another ‘Faction’ novel. Martha found the inspiration to write this book from dreams, from watching a TV show featuring Oprah Winfrey interviewing various men suffering from an addiction to pornography, and from information given to her by 8 wives whose marriages were affected by their husbands’ addictions. Addiction to porn is a very real problem in these modern times.
Inspired by an episode on Oprah from years ago that dealt with men addicted to porn, a dream, and 8 women's lives, Portrait of Our Marriage, a fictional memoir, is one woman's story you don't want to miss. Nicky, embarks on a journey to find herself and become her own person despite the legacy of a domineering father and an emotionally—and often physically—distant husband. Reminiscing events from her life, she looks at pictures and remembers the romance, falling in love, marriage, and her family. When her husbands interest in pornography becomes an obsession. She wonders how she will compete? Some…
I am, have always been, and always will be a realist. Therefore I find ‘Faction’ books, biographies, and memoirs more interesting, as I can learn from them and know that some or all of the events are true. They say ‘write what you know’ and so when it came to writing A Rather Unusual Romance I did just that. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer back in 2005, and decided to weave the 15-year journey back to health I undertook into the pages of a fictional romance, with Alan and Erin similarly affected by thyroid cancer. Every procedure they had to endure was true because I had to go through it as well (without the romance)!
This book is based on fact and is more of a memoir. Pete Springer takes us, sometimes with humor, through the ups and downs of his 30-year teaching career. In doing so he gives much advice suitable for new recruits to the teaching profession. My son Leon, once labelled by teachers as ‘distracted and distracting’, would have benefited from Pete’s superior teaching skills I’m sure.
Who Will You Inspire Today? Teachers face this challenge and responsibility each day, but in the process, the author discovers that his students can also have a profound influence on him. Pete Springer takes you on his memorable thirty-one-year journey in education as an elementary school teacher and offers the many valuable life and teaching lessons he learned along the way. Get ready to laugh out loud at some of the humorous and memorable experiences that all teachers face, feel inspired by the inherent goodness of children, and appreciate the importance of developing a sense of teamwork among the staff.…
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.
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.
'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.
I’ve been fascinated by social history since childhood, although I didn’t know that was what it was called, back then. When I did a postgraduate Masters in Folk Life Studies, it helped to confirm my love of books that, in skilfully fictionalising historical events, allow us to see them through the eyes of people most closely affected by them: ordinary people leading their lives throughout difficult and dangerous times or finding themselves in extraordinary relationships. It’s what I try to do in my own work, fiction and non-fiction alike. My book recommendations here are the kind of books I wish I had written.
This was another novel I came across while researching a book of my own.
Galt’s novel is written in the voice of the minister (i.e. priest) of a rural kirk. It is observant, moving, and at times hilarious, the story of a lowland parish and its inhabitants from 1760 to 1809, as seen through the eyes of the minister. It is also an account of a life well lived - ‘douce’ would be the Scots word for the sober and sedate narrator - crammed with interesting, gossipy, everyday details.
I’ve lived in a similar village for many years and it made me realise how little has changed here in rural Ayrshire over the 200 years since The Annals was written!
The Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and sixty, was remarkable for three things in the parish of Dalmailing.—First and foremost, there was my placing; then the coming of Mrs Malcolm with her five children to settle among us; and next, my marriage upon my own cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw, by which the account of this year naturally divides itself into three heads or portions.
As a published author, Debra’s passion for fast-paced, unputdownable novels is unquenchable. She can be ruthless in her criticism, applying the rule, “three strikes and you’re out!” A firm believer that life is too short to read mediocre books, if she isn’t grabbed by chapter 3, she puts the book down and moves on. She wants a book to make her life better, she wants to feel excitement at picking it back up again, and burying herself in the characters and moods, twists and turns, of a great story. Her writing reflects this same trait, if her words won’t keep the reader totally engrossed, then she won’t write them.
One of my all-time favourites I’ve read this book 3 times now and, after this review, I’m sure I’ll be tempted to indulge myself for a fourth time. Follett is the master of knife-edge thrillers, if you’ve never read him, start now. Full of treachery and violence, twists and revelations. It’s a scary, but utterly brilliant read.
"Everyone likes a page-turner, and Follett is the best." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A hell of a storyteller" (Entertainment Weekly), #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett reinvents the thriller with each new novel. But nothing matches the intricate knife-edge drama of Whiteout. . . .
A missing canister of a deadly virus. A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Toni Gallo, the security director of a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has problems, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come.
As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people, Toni among them,…
When I stepped off the ferry onto Mainland Orkney, a piece of myself I never knew was missing suddenly slotted into place. Orkney became my geographic soulmate and I knew that The Darkest Court trilogy’s final book—and final battle—would have to take place there. Whenever I find myself longing to return, I pick up one of these books and throw myself back into the stories and histories that caught hold of my imagination all those years ago. I hope they stir your sense of magic and wonder the same way.
The best way to learn a new place is to read its folk tales. Muir’s curated collection not only gives a sense of the community values found throughout the wide spread of Orkney islands, but also of magic and wonder that pervades the place. You can easily take a tour to the specific locations mentioned in the stories, and I can assure you that rereading the stories in those places, with Muir’s charming, poetic prose, makes them come to life in fascinating new ways.
The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom…
I’m an Australian author passionate about history. Alas, not Australian history. That would make my life so much easier. As a child, I loved tales of ancient Greece. That love took me in two directions—Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome—Ancient Rome introduced me to Roman Britain, and the Roman Britain novels of Rosemary Sutcliff. My love of history probably explains why a childhood friend gave me a child’s book of English history for my tenth birthday. One of the book’s chapters told the story of Elizabeth I. As she wont to do in her own times, Elizabeth hooked me, keeping me captured ever since, and enslaved to writing and learning more about Tudors.
This novel reminds the reader that humans have carried certain truths from the dawn of time. It tells the story of Phaedrus, a slave from birth. When he gains his wooden-foil of freedom in the gladiatorial arena, he finds his life suddenly empty, and without purpose. This results in him agreeing to assume another’s identity. Not simply ‘another’s identity’ but to become a ‘king’ of the Dal Riada people of Scotland. Phaedrus, to his surprise, discovers leadership gives his life true purpose, friendship, and love. But the time comes when he must show himself worthy of the Mark of the Horse Lord. Beautifully told, the novel speaks of how sacredness and self-sacrifice intertwine for those who truly rule.
'Take my place, Phaedrus, and with it, take my vengeance . . .'
Phaedrus the gladiator wins his freedom after years of bloody battles in the arena. Soon he finds himself riding north towards the wilds of Caledonia on a strange mission. He is to assume the identity of Midir, Lord of the Horse People, to seek vengeance against the treacherous Liadhan, who has usurped the throne.
Ahead of him lies more adventure and more danger than he had ever known in the arena . . .
I love everything Scottish. My grandfather was Scottish. I never met him, but mom passed the pride of her heritage and culture to me. Mom used to throw out an occasional phrase or poem that I thought was Gaelic. (I later learned it was Scotts but that’s another story.) I decided I wanted to learn the language and found a short course at a small college on the Isle of Skye and it changed my life. After that short course I committed to learning the language and enrolled in the distance learning program. I travel to Skye for the short courses between my semesters and have made lifelong friends.
When Ishabel Stewart’s life falls apart she returns to the tiny island off the west coast of Scotland to recover only she doesn’t plan on meeting Brodie, a sexy American who turns her world upside down.
This is a fun book with quirky secondary characters, lots of romance, and laughter. I could hear the beautiful accent as I read and see the stunning setting of the western isles.
SCOTCH ON THE ROCKSFamily secrets threaten the future of Brodie and Ishabel ISHABEL STUART is at the crossroads of her life.Her wealthy industrialist father has died unexpectedly, leaving her a half-share in a ruined whisky distillery and the task of scattering his ashes on a Munro. After discovering her fiancé playing away from home, she cancels their lavish Christmas wedding at St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh and heads for the only place she feels safe - Eilean na Sgairbh, a windswept island on Scotland’s west coast - where the cormorants outnumber the inhabitants, ten to one. When she arrives at her…
