Author and Director of The Saltire Society Mairi Kidd on the best book she’s read this year, her childhood memories of reading and the authors who inspired her.
The first book I remember reading:
I remember reading a Topsy and Tim book in church – I imagine the idea was to keep me quiet. In my memory, one of them gets stuck in a chest freezer, but I hope that’s wrong. I still have many of my childhood books, and indeed many of my mum’s childhood books, but not that one, so sadly I can’t check.
A book I recommend to everyone:
I’m going to cheat and tell you my go-to fiction and non-fiction recommends. In fiction, I tell everyone to read The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone. It’s the ‘saga’ of Gudrid of Iceland, daughter-in-law of Erik the Red and mother of the first European child born in North America. It’s just glorious. For non-fiction, a friend recommended to me The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory by Deborah Alun-Jones and now I pay the favour forward whenever I can. It’s a beautiful collection of essays on literary figures who grew up or lived in rectories, from Sydney Smith to Dorothy L. Sayers and is funny, moving and fascinating.
The best book I have read this year:
I loved Columba’s Bones by David Greig, in which a Viking raider is left for dead after his crew sack Iona – really he’s just very, very drunk – and must reach an uneasy truce with the only two survivors of the massacre to remain on the island, Brother Martin and Una, the widow of the smith. It’s brutal, funny and has much to say about faith and human nature. I wasn’t excited by it until I heard Greig speak about it, and then I couldn’t wait to read it. I have always loved George MacKay Brown’s viking stories, and this is a brilliant contrast.
The book I am most looking forward to:
Story of a Murder by Hallie Rubenhold which is about the women in the Crippen case. I was inspired by Rubenhold’s brilliant The Five to write my novel The Specimens. In fiction, I’m looking forward to Mere by Danielle Giles. I heard Danielle speak alongside Lucy Ribchester, Alex Howard and Mary Paulson-Ellis at a brilliant event in Edinburgh, and have been excited for the book ever since. It’s set in Norfolk in 990 AD in an order of sisters eking out a living on the Fens.
A book I didn’t finish:
I generally finish books. Rather sentimentally, I didn’t finish Terry Pratchett’s last book The Shepherd’s Crown, because I couldn’t bear the thought that then there would be no more.
An author that has inspired me:
Too many to list. I took a lot of inspiration from The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill. I love writing about objects as well as people, and Hill had a masterful way with that. I only realised quite recently that Hill died in 2023 at the age of just 53 and was so sorry to hear it, his was an amazing voice.
The book I am reading now:
I’m just about to read Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen. I’ve been deep in writing – my new book Poor Creatures is out in October – and can’t wait to surface again and get reading for pleasure rather than research and fact-checking.
Mairi’s new book Poor Creatures is out in October. She will also be at this year’s Borders Book Festival in June.
Read more of The Good Books here.
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