Review of Without A Backward Glance: New and Selected Poems, a selection of poetry by Ron Butlin. …

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From the Scottish Book Collector archives. A 1990 interview with BERT BARROTT, owner of Edinburgh’s West Port Books, in which he tells the tale of how he came into the second hand book trade. He specialises in art, photography and books on India. When interviewed in 1990, Bert had recently started publishing under the West Port Books imprint. …

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Why do we pay the council money for bin rental? Only to have them put roadworks immediately outside our favourite shops, barring entry? And what on earth do you put on the blurb of the first edition of a book, given it hasn’t actually been reviewed yet? …

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This interview with folk singer and bookseller ADAM MCNAUGHTAN was conducted in 1997 by Jennie Renton. …

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Alex Frizzell interviewed in 1990. With his wife Marion, he ran a bookselling business and the Castlelaw Press from their home in West Linton. They were close friends of Chris (Hugh McDiarmid) and Valda Grieve. …

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Upon his return from Paris, MARTIN BELK unpacks his perceptions of cultural tensions in France, the UK and the US and questions if we are right to compare ourselves so favourably against each other. …

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YANN MARTEL was interviewed by textualities.net editor Jennie Renton a few months before his debut novel Life of Pi won the Man Booker Prize. …

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Jennie Renton interviews GLYN MAXWELL at Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2005. They discuss his poetry collection, The Sugar Mile, which comprises a series of narrative voices comparing the attack on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 with the first daylight raid of the London Blitz in September 1940. …

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Scottish Trade Unionist Helen Lister had many interests, books being only one of them. Next to gardening, she loved to read. Here she is remembered by her son MICHAEL LISTER. …

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Review by Geoff Chandler of Chess for Zebras by JONATHAN ROWSON. …

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September is a busy month at the Quarto, says MARGARET SQUIRES. It’s out with the golfing journals – as the last Member swings his last club of the year – and in with the text books – as St Andrews students return from their holidays to a new university term. Oh, and new life springs forth as well. …

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MIKE NICHOLSON’s book Catscape won the 2005 Kelpies Prize, offered annually by Floris Books for new and outstanding works of Scottish children’s fiction. Here the author describes how he came to write his novel. …

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Review by Michael Lister of Scotland: A Hstory, edited by JENNY WORMALD. …

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Review of A Scottish Family: The Story of Eight Generations by Betty Willsher. …

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Review by Michael Lister of What Good are the Arts? by JOHN CAREY. …

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