BACK LIST
almost.
the blackboard jungle.
SCOTTISH BOOK FORTNIGHT
Scottish Book Fortnight continues to 8 Nov. Unless otherwise stated events and exhibitions are hoe. Full information available from Scottish Book Marketing Group.
25a South West Thistle Street Lane, Edinburgh. 031 225 5795.
Exhibitions
0 BOOK TRUST SCOTLAND 15a Lynedoch Street, Glasgow, 041 332 0391. 27 Oct—6 Nov, Mon—Fri 10am—5pm. The Best oi Scottish a display of the books selected for Scottish Book Fortnight. Twentieth Century Scottish Classics 55 Novels selected by Edwin Morgan from 1900 to the present day.
0 Talbot Rice Art Centre, Did College, University ol Edinburgh, 031 6671011 ext 4308. Mon-Sat 10am—5pm. Sun ZpMpm. The Light and the Land Until 31 Oct. Exhibition of photography from Colin Baxter's new book featuring Scotland‘s nature reserves.
JUST PUBLISHED
0 Voices oi Dur Kind Edited by Alexander Scott (Chambers £3.95) The third edition of an anthology much used in schools. There’s guid dollops o’ Scots, a smattering of Gaelic and some queer inclusions (no names, no knee-capping) and even queerer exclusions (Alasdair Reid, Brian McCabe, Tessa Ransford and Ron Butlin).
O The Slab Boys Trilogy John Byrne (Penguin £3.95) As funny on the page as it was on the boards. Well
0 MrAltred MA. George F riel (Canongate £3.95) A teacher of the old school finds himself at odds with his times, misunderstood and frustrated in his poetic aspirations. The saddest story ever told of life in
0 Mary Stewart’s People Margaret H.B. Sanderson (Mercat Press £12.95) Eleven scrupulously researched short biogs of contemporaries and associates of the young queen who lost her head.
0 Espedair Street Iain Banks (MacMillan £10.95) The prolific Banks’ fifth novel and his second this year concerns lanky Danny Weir
touching.
Events
FRIDAY 30 Glasgow
0 Roadworks Carnwadric Community Resource Service Library, St Vincent‘s Primary School. Crebar Street, Carnwadric,041639 2112. 2.15pm. Lyrics and songs from the Wildcat Theatre company’s song book as performed by Dave Anderson and Dave Maclennan.
o Kelpie Readings John Smith (Children‘s Department), 57-61 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, 2217472. 3pm. Readings from Canongate’s children’s series with three of the authors.
0 Neil M. Gunn Evening Hillhead Library, 348 Byres Road, 339 7223. 7-9pm. J. B. Pick explores the writer's life and work as revealed by his letters. 0 The Nature oi the Land Paisley Arts Centre, New Street, Paisley, 887 2468. 7.30pm. Colin Baxter gives an illustrated talk on his new book of
70$ becoming famous as a rock star and the 805 holed up in church in the middle of Glasgow reviewing his career. Very readable and quite
o Edwin Muir: Selected Prose Chosen, introduced and with a memoir by George Mackay Brown (John Murray £15) Much of the material included is from Muir’s Autobiography, his ‘travel’ book Scottish Journey and Scott and Scotland. All are easily and reasonably available and one might cavil at such blatant book-making were he not such a clean and sharp stylist. There’s something to argue with on every page, except Mackay Brown’s dewy-eyed memoir which brought violin down from the shelf.
REVIEWS
0 The Saatchi S Saatchi Story Philip Kleinman (Weidenfeld £12.95) My first job after leaving school was with an advertising agency which was soon to change its name to Saatchi Green Compton, an amalgam of names which dismayed many who heard it. ‘Archie who?’ was a common response. Today Saatchi and Saatchi is a household name and is the biggest ad agency in the world. There has never been a good book
photography.
Edinburgh
0 You’re a Hooker, Then James Thin Penguin Bookshop, Waverley Market, 556 6743. Noon-2pm. Join the scrum to get the autograph of rugby frontliner Colin Deans.
0 Vet in the Vestry Church of Scotland Bookshop, 119 George Street. 4pm. Alexander Cameron signs copies of his memoirs— life, would you believe it, as a clergyman vet!
o The Scottish Thirties Bauermeister Booksellers, 19 George IV Bridge, 226 5561. 6.30pm. Illustrated talk based on his book by Charles McKean.
0 Edinburgh Divided Central Library, George lV Bridge, 225 5584. Tom Gallagher talks about John Cormack and the effects of the No Popery movement in the Thirties.
SATURDAY 31 Glasgow
0 Growing Up in the Gorbals Milngavie Bookshop, 37
section of bookshops.
The answer to how the Saatchis made it big is neither quick nor easy. Flair, creativity, luck, brashness, Chutzpah, all contributed to their freakish success. In the early 605, Charles the elder discovered that he had a talent for copywriting and in 1967 opened a creative consultancy. Brother Maurice, an LSE graduate, worked for Adland’s weekly bible Campaign whose publishing company’s chairman was Michael Heseltine. This was the first of many links the brothers had with the Tories. Despite the welter of facts, figures and names the book is a fascinating insight into advertising success — from the celebrated ‘pregnant man’ contraception campaign to the acquisition of the bluest of blue chip accounts, the Conservative Party and on to the
Saatchi policy of ‘globalisation’.
(Laurie Maguire)
0 Davy Chadwick James Buchan (Hamish Hamilton £9.95) The superficial excuse for this novel is the abduction of Davy, young son of Dawn and John Chadwick but essentially it is a study in psychology. Three separate diaries tell of the quirky sensitivities of a trio of social outcasts who happen to be in close proximity to one another. Dawn and John share with their mutual ‘friend’ William Nelson a staggering capacity
from Ferguslie Park who spends the (Hayden Murphy)
Douglas Street, Glasgow, 956 4752. 2.30pm. Gone but not forgotten, Ralph Glasser talks about the way of life for the son of poor immigrant Russian Jews growing up in the Gorbals.
0 Pages ol Experience Third Eye Centre, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 332 7521 . 2.30pm. Joseph McKenzie , photographer of the Gorbals, Northern Ireland and Dundee whose work — until the Third Eye Centre’s recent exhibition and publication of a collection of his photographs - has been unfairly neglected, talks about his technique and approach.
Edinburgh
0 The Nature oi the Land Kaye’s BookshOp, 390 Morningside Road, Edinburgh, 447 1265. Mam-12.30pm. Colin Baxter signs copies of his new photography book. 0 Croft and Creel James Thin Penguin Bookshop, Waverley Market, 556 6743. Noon-2pm. Anna Blair talks about a century
written about the world of advertising. David Ogilvy’s Confessions of an Adman (recently reprinted by Pan) is certainly not and nor, sadly, is Kleinman’s Saatchi story. The author’s wit is as dry as a lunchtime martini at the Groucho Club and his book is destined for the Business rather than the Biography
of coastal memories of Scotland.
SUNDAY1 Edinburgh
0 Clasical Country Houses Waterstone’s, 114 George Street, 225 3436. 6.30pm. James Macauley gives an illustrated talk based on his book The Classical Country House in Scotland about some of the finest 17th and 18th century buildings.
MONDAY 2 Glasgow
0 Growing Up in the Gorbals John Smith, 57—61 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, 221 7472. 7—9pm. Gone but not forgotten, Ralph Glasser talks about the way of life for the son of poor immigrant Russian Jews growing up in the Gorbals.
o Scotsword Book Trust 15a Lynedoch Street, Glasgow, 332 0391. 7.30pm. An author, an editor and a publisher talk on the use of Scots in every day speech and writing.
for non-communication — henc soliloquies or ‘evidence’. Three
more diametrically opposed accounts of the causes and effects of an abduction would be hard to imagine, for each narrative is coloured with its teller’s own peculiar hang-up.
Buchan uses the unchanging Italian setting to exaggerate the limbo in which the Brits find themselves. The shadowy Villa Crespi, filled with miscellaneous and valuable objets, conspires in the burden of secrets and silence. Finally, after a bellyful of men’s jealousy and neuroses, we find that the apparently fragile Dawn holds a crooked key to a very warped door. A refined thriller without spilled blood. (Kristina Woolnough)
0 An Irrelevant Woman Mary Hocking (Chatto and Windus £10.95) This is a beautifully paced novel. Set in Pym land it escapes the comparison through the author’s tight grasp of syntax and story. The central factor is a nervous breakdown, suffered by middle-aged Janet Saunders. Her novelist husband is pried from between novels. Her family are exposed in their inability to recognise their dependence on their assumed ‘mother’ figure. There is a marvellously sharp vignette as slowly recovering Janet attends a ‘Peace’ meeting in the local village hall. Her strength and their vanity are as divided as the edible and the edified. I had not read this prolific writer before - this is her twentieth novel — maybe I’ll not take time to read the others, but this one was an unexpected and rewarding treat.
0 The Man who played Bolton Burns Paisley Arts Centre, New Street. Paisley, 887 2468. 7.30pm. John Cairney with anecdotes from his years of playing the Scottish bard.
Edinburgh
0 Country Lite in Scotland The Edinburgh Bookshop, 57 George Street, 225 4495. 6.30pm. Dr Alexander Fenton of the National Museums of Scotland offers a picture of country life in Scotland.
TUESDAY 3 Glasgow
0 Who is Santa Claus? Drumchapel Library, 65 Hecle A venue, Drumchapel, 22] 7030, 10L11.30pm and Pollok Library, 100 Peat Road, 221 7030, 2—3.30pm. For eleven year-olds and older, the truth behind the Christmas legends.
o Crott and Creel John Smith, 57—61 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, 22] 7472. 7pm. Anna Blair talks about the farmers and fisherfolk who live by
The List 30 Oct — 12 Nov 43