“Nasty Women will showcase a wide array of female voices, many of them new writers, focusing on intolerance and inequality to cover everything from Trump’s America to pregnancy. Like Freight, the arrival of 404 Ink is a sign that when we talk about cutting-edge Scottish publishing, the small publishers are increasingly defining the scene.”
Books & Poetry
2017 and the idea of utopia
Billed as a year of imagination and possibility to mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia, 2016 didn’t quite work out that way. 2017, the centenary of the Russian Revolution, offers another opportunity to consider the meaning and value of the idea of utopia.
Discerning the light: a sceptic explores the history of religion
Former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, whose complex relationship with his own Christian tradition makes him perhaps the quintessential sceptical Scot, explores the history of religion in a new book.
Brace yourself for Burns mit Beethoven
“But we are being untrue to the great man if we don’t acknowledge that his songs first appeared to his own public in this (posh) way. We ought to pause and appreciate them for what they are.” How Rabbie wrote for the Scottish 1% of his day.
Boston in the company of Carlotta Carlyle, Private Investigator
‘Exploring the city of Boston, I have enlisted the help of a private eye. A six-foot-one ass-kicking redhead who moonlights as a part-time cabbie and roams the city night and day, rooting out the corruption which constantly reappears, always in a different form.’ Jackie Kemp interviews author Linda Barnes.
Roch Winds and the illusions of Civic Nationalism
A review of a fine new book by three young writers that offers a much needed razor-sharp critique of Scotland’s emerging political monoculture.