From the bookshelves 9

I was made aware of the work of Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell) through a wonderful television adaptation of Sunset Song (Sorry, there's not much information on IMDb). A Penguin edition of the book is available on Amazon. This copy of A Scots Quair was published by Schocken in 1977 with a foreword by Ivor Brown. Canongate published a new edition of the trilogy last year. A few years ago Roger Lyall made this account of the past rural life in the Mearns. Mitchell managed to write sixteen books in a seven year period of a life that lasted just thirty-five years. The writing flows wonderfully with rhythms of Scottish speech. The hardness of life on the land in that part of the world at that time, the turn of the twentieth century to the Great War and after, is unflinchingly described through the life and thoughts of Chris Guthrie, Chae Strachan, Rob of the Mill and Chris's love, Ewan.