Post-Scotland Reading list

Not sure if anyone’s interested, but after living in a city that has seen so many of the world’s leading authors, and a country which also inspired so many famous novels, I just created a little reading list and why not sharing it… Considering my current reading speed (= super slow, I blame my dissertation, but maybe I’ve simply become a slow reader…) it will take ages to read them all…

# The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson – The authors is one of Scotlands most renowned writers, the novel was apparently inspired by the contrast of Edinburgh’s dark, medieval Old Town and its chic and modern New Town. I haven’t bought it yet, but I’m really looking forward to this one.

# Train Spotting – Irvine Welsh – The hopelessness of life in Edinburgh’s impovered suburb Leith during the late 1980s.

# Macbeth – William Shakespeare – As the “Mac” indicates, this obviously plays in Scotland, and I’ve been driving around Birnam Wood (the one that starts moving) in Perthshire.

# 1984 – George Orwell – Written in his remote farm house on the remote island of Jura, overlooking the third biggest natural whirlpool of this planet, which (the farm house) we could not visit when we were on Jura three weeks ago, because it is just so remote that you’d need a jeep to get there. But it’s definitely on my “places to go in Scotland” list. I really liked the island a lot and you get a strong idea of real, unaltered nature and what it means to be living in such an isolated place, even in Europe; there isn’t even a ferry connection to the mainland…

# The adventures of Tintin – The Black Castle – Hergé – This is connected to another destination of our Island Hopping trip. Apparently the “Black Castle” was inspired by Lochranza Castle on Arran Island. Another beautiful place and I just like Tintin and Milou, now need to see if the Castle really looks like the one in Lochranza!

# The Dubliners – James Joyce - Not really Edinburgh/Scotland, obviously, but I bought it on my trip to Dublin and now can’t wait to read it again, after we read some of the short stories at school already.

# Finnegan’s Wake – James Joyce – Joyce again, this time because of all the nights I spent at the identically named Irish pub in Edinburgh. This will be a much more difficult reading than the Dubliners, tough.

# “Something” about Scotland and its history. In Edinburgh and during my travels I heard and read so much about Bonnie Prince Charlie, Robert the Bruce, Maria Stuart, the MacDonalds, etc etc and I still feel I don’t know anything.

# A biography of Maria Stuart. Same as above, at every place that played a role, you get some pieces of her dramtic life but I need some context, and want to know more! Schiller’s Maria Stuart in the picture is just there for decorative reasons… I read and liked it many years ago, but for now I want to read a biography.

# Edinburgh, a history of the city – Michael Fry – Same same, I heard all those stories (never sure what’s actually true…), know the places, now I want to read something more extensive.

# “Something” about the Romans in Britain, because I just loooove ancient, especially Roman history, but didn’t really take the chance to learn much about them in Britain, while I lived there….

# Waverley – Sir Walter Scott – because he is one of, if not THE leading Scottish author and this book THE leading, historic novel, playing in Scotland and Edinburgh during the Jacobite rising of 1745. And a bit because I used to live so close to Waverley train station and kind of liked it…

#  James Bond – Ian Fleming– I haven’t decided which one I want to buy, yet, and I’m afraid I will be disappointed, because I quite like (many of) the movies. Fleming comes from a wealthy family that owns the land close to the places in the Western Highlands, where Skyfall was shot. The area is among my favourite places in Scotland, so rough and beautiful, and I already wrote about it here. Fleming, as well as “Bond” went to the school in Edinburgh, that also Tony Blair attended. And Fleming’s life must have been almost as exciting as James Bond’s. Argh, maybe I should read his biography, too…

# “Something” by Robert Burns. I’m normally not really into poetry, but since he’s kind of a national hero, and I could see this monument from my room’s window, I think I should get a small collection of some of his works.

# Knots and Crosses – Ian Rankin – Rankin’s from Edinburgh, his crime novels play there and are full of local colour (I can’t believe the German word “Lokalkolorit” exists literally in English…). I started Knots and Crosses last fall, didn’t really fall in love and put it aside. Now it shall get a second try, and by now I also know Edinburgh better and might understand more of this “local colour”.

(# Harry Potter – whatshername? – written in and inspired by Edinburgh and its graveyards. I started one of them last year in Italian and I made it up to page 8. Which has to do with my very poor knowledge of the Italian language, but it’s not just that….)

* still no spelling programme, sorry!!