Combining pressing geopolitical urgency with a subtle and gentle lyricism, as we have come to expect from Gerry Loose, his new book ranges wide, broad and deep, to settle back at home in the Scotland reinhabited by Sweeney the king, deranged and fleeing humanity, and a lilting nine-day walk from coast to coast across Scotland’s heartland.

Gerry Loose’s sixth collection maps the fault line dividing man from his environment. His territory is the Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, its outstanding beauty at odds with the Faslane submarine base on its eastern shore, home of the UK’s nuclear arsenal.

Drawing on the oldest vernacular literature in western Europe, The Great Book of the Woods presents poem versions of the rune-like ‘ogham’ stone inscriptions, unique to Ireland and Scotland.

In her Muslim hijab, with her down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich London families whose houses she cleans. But twenty years earlier, it was a different story.

Set in 1950s Sudan, Lyrics Alley is the story of the powerful and sprawling Abuzeid dynasty.

‘BIRD SUMMONS is a magic carpet ride into the forest of history and the lives of women. Deep and wild’ Lucy Ellmann, Booker-shortlisted author of DUCKS, NEWBURYPORT

In her new collection of stories, award-winning New York Times Notable author Leila Aboulela offers us a rich tableau of life as an immigrant abroad, and the challenges of navigating assimilation and difference.

Sammar, a young Sudanese widow, works as a translator in Aberdeen. As she falls in love with a Scottish academic, she faces his lack of
faith in everything she holds sacred.