Glasgow: the legendary John Smith & Son Bookshop …
Discover the story of John Smith & Son, Glasgow’s legendary bookshop, and its lasting place in the city’s literary and cultural history.
Continue reading →Category Archives: Bookshops & Librairies
From Loch Croispol to Nova Scotia’s Gaelic Shores
Follow the journey from Loch Croispol to Nova Scotia’s Gaelic shores, exploring the enduring connections between Scotland’s Highlands and the Gaelic communities of Canada.
Continue reading →Scotland’s Highland Mobile Libraries
While touring the Isle of Skye, in the magnificent Highlands of Scotland, we simply could not resist to stop and glance inside the mobile library bus that was parked away on an empty lot. It reminded me of the delightful and vibrant moments experienced, as a child, on the days the library bus showed up with lots and lots of … Continue reading →
Ann Cleeves launches 60th Ann “Family Box Service” in Orkney
Novel Orkney Book Scheme Marks a 60th Anniversary Back in 1954 began a service of distributing books to avid readers in some of Orkney’s most far-flung islands by ways of library vans boarding and unboarding ferries. “…it is thought that it was the very first example of this type of service anywhere in the world” …” says Orkney library and … Continue reading →
Books from the croft at Two Ravens Press on the Isle of Lewis
Hi everybody, Before resuming our virtual ‘Journey around Scotland‘, let me tell you a few words about the titles I’ve just added to my summer reading list for whether we are going to take our favourite books with us on the beach, on a bench in the garden or in a comfortable armchair inside the house, it’s summer time … Continue reading →
Innerpeffray, the first public lending library in Scotland..
Hi everybody, Yesterday we received this lovely message from Lara Haggerty, Library Manager & Keeper of Books at the Innerpeffray Library, in Perthshire: Hello Janice, Mairiuna and Jean-Claude I enjoyed reading your website and the journeys through literary Scotland and I wanted to invite you to visit The Library of Innerpeffray – perhaps when you are next travelling here … Continue reading →
Welcome to Wigtown – Scotland’s National Book Town
Gosh…Mairiuna….we’ll miss the 2009 Edition of Wigtown Book Festival, but let us not forget to include this major event inside our 2010 itinerary. It’s a must! Very welcoming sign board indeed. Let’s see if I can guess which nationality lies behind each “Welcome”… Willkommen … gotta be German. Failte … for sure it is Gaelic. Bienvenue … can’t miss this … Continue reading →
Wigtown: “A Mind Amongst Books, Like Fire In The Heather”
The Wigtown Ploughman Hotel On our next Scottish itinerary, we’ll certainly not leave Scotland without spending a day or two in Wigtown. That’s really a nice little town and of course, as we’ve already mentioned it, a fabulous place to buy books, especially the old ones we are looking for desperately and which have been out of print since a … Continue reading →
From Mitchell Library to Loch Croispol Bookshop
Books books books! What insatiable bookworms we are, Janice, “de vrais rats de bibliothèque” as we would say in France. Are we going to become like Inspector Rebus? Remember what Ian Rankin has written about him in Knots & Crosses? Rebus collected unread books. Once upon a time, he had actually read the books that he bought, but these days he … Continue reading →
A Glasgow Landmark: The Mitchell Library
As you mentioned in your last post Mairiuna, Glasgow was chosen as the European City of Culture and I would like to emphasis a bit more on this “European” cover by telling you that since the extension was given to the building in the 70′-80’s, The Mitchell Library, one of Glasgow’s landmarks, now houses Europe’s largest public reference library with … Continue reading →