Scottish writing talent still as strong as ever in 2009

Published on Saturday 26 December 2009 10:08

Ian Rankin brought out his first graphic novel, Dark Entries, James Kelman won Book of the Year for his novel Kieron Smith, boy, the Edinburgh International Book Festival gained a new chief in Nick Barley, and The Lost World, celebrating Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Darwin, was the focus of this year's City of Literature campaign.

It's been a varied year for books in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland with a wealth of talent published by companies big and small.

Over the next two weeks, the books page will be taking a look back at the best of 2009. This week, ANDREW BENTLEY-STEED, manager of The Edinburgh Bookshop, on Bruntsfield Place, one of the city's best for promoting Scottish talent, chooses his favourite Scottish fiction and non-fiction books of the year.

NON-FICTION

Richard Furness, Poster to Poster: Railway Journeys in Art (Vol.1 Scotland), published by JDF & Associates Ltd, priced 35

Some books just sell themselves and none more so perhaps than Richard Furness's Poster to Poster: Railway Journeys in Art. It's a big full-colour indulgence in the world of yesteryear, lavishly reproducing those posters that many of us - especially in our parents' and grandparents' generations - grew to love on long railway journeys. These posters didn't just sell a destination but also the dream of travel.

Many of the classic poster designs collected appeared at a time when trains became more affordable and the idea of getting away from it all was extended to a whole class of society who would have known nothing but the hustle of the cities and towns of industrial Scotland, especially in the years immediately before and after the Second World War.

The posters are collected from The National Railway Museum at York and this is the first in a series of seven which will appear in the coming years. Though railway posters first appeared over 100 years ago, this is the very first book to cover the whole of the 20th century. Scotland was chosen as the starting point for the series because of its rich history, landscape and culture which have formed a powerful basis for these superb works of art.

The beauty of this book is that you don't have to be a railway enthusiast to appreciate the passion which created this art. Nor do you have to be an academic to appreciate how our art – particularly the poster – has helped shape our views of our own country.

In a period of publishing history when hardback books barely qualify for the format let alone the price, it is reassuring that at least one publisher has endeavoured to bring a high-quality landscape book that recovers some of the brightest moments in our history from the walls of carriages and stations – perhaps long gone – to our coffee table where the past can be cherished in hands that have always enjoyed great beauty and craftsmanship.

FICTION

Ruth Thomas, Super Girl, published by Faber, priced 12.99

If one word will encapsulate the year 2009 more than any other for the historians of the future, it will be "change".

In the realm of fiction, novels are supposed to be the heavyweight champions in telling the stories of change but few novelists are ever truly successful at portraying this drama: their novels will be talked about, possibly read and then forgotten.

It is a mystery, then, why the short story does not enjoy more success in this country than it does, especially when among the best of the very best short-story writers is Edinburgh author Ruth Thomas. Her latest collection, Super Girl, published only in November this year, was a definite highlight of my reading year.

The endless fascination of human life, the follies and the rages, the drama and the confusion, the melancholy and joy are captured here, sometimes effortlessly in the same story. The collection ranges from the story featured in the title where a sensible young woman has her reputation thrown into jeopardy by an unexpected caller at her babysitting job to a grandfather sharing the pain and pleasure of his 80th birthday with his baby granddaughter.

While some publishers may be in disarray over the collapse in sales of so-called celebrity 'autobiographies', it is encouraging that Faber continue to support what is not only a very difficult form of writing to master but a very difficult form of writing to encourage people to try to read.

Thomas's stories are a lesson to other writers: where some may waffle their way to a Booker-prize nomination, ruminating on their navel-gazing aspirations, Ruth packs more in a paragraph than most can mumble into a chapter.

This is Scottish writing at its very best: we are not a nation of foul-mouthed junkie football hooligans as lesser writers have characterised us but real people with hopes, dreams and loves, and while the reality of our days sometimes refuses to match the heart-felt aspirations or survive the turmoil of daily grind, we are living lives every bit as richly-imagined as any South American magical realist and every bit as energetic and as surprising as a New York night.

This is polished, practised, perfected writing as it should be written – and read and, better still, enjoyed.

The Edinburgh Bookshop, 181 Bruntsfield Place, 0131-229 9207