The McKernan Literary Agency & Consultancy Edinburgh
Alan Taylor
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Featured Title The Scots Being Scottish has never been easy. Nor have the Scots ever sought to make it look as though it was. Following devolution in 1999, and the election of a Nationalist administration in 2007, Scotland's relationship with the rest of the UK has become ever more fraught. Meanwhile prominent Scots continue to infiltrate all aspects of British life. Down the decades many books have been written about the Scots, some by Scots, some not. Myths and cliches abound. Now, with a Scottish prime minister in London, the situation seems, paradoxically, to be getting even more difficult. This book is a journey, alighting at places and events which reflect on aspects of Scotland and Scottish life now, en route toppling some totems and slaughtering a few sacred cows. It is provocative, but not wilfully so. It is serious, but not po-faced. It pokes fun, but not mercilessly. The aim is to illuminate, stimulate and entertain, in the sure knowledge that everything may be taken down and used in evidence. |
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Rights US and Serial: contact Viking Penguin |
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Alan Taylor is Associate and Literary Editor of the Sunday Herald. He was Deputy and Managing Editor of the Scotsman. He writes regular columns for the Melbourne Age and Life and Work, the magazine of the Church of Scotland. With his wife Irene, he co-edited two bestselling anthologies of diarists, The Assassin’s Cloak and The Secret Annexe. In 1994, he judged the Booker Prize, coincidentally the only year there has been a Scottish winner. He is one half of the Scottish team on Radio Four’s Round Britain Quiz. In another existence, he was a reference librarian. 