Reviews

Trials: On Death Row in Pakistan by Isabel Buchanan

John Sturrock QC enjoys a Poacher's Pilgrimage to the Western Isles and finds this mystical journey is much more than another travel book. The human ecologist, Alastair McIntosh has already established his credentials as one of Scotland’s greatest living authors. Soil and Soul and Hell and High Wa

Long ago I was introduced to the philosophy of David Hume (1711-76) by the late Neil MacCormick lecturing in the Jurisprudence class at Edinburgh University. It was the best of ways to meet another great mind. In the scheme of the course Hume was presented as the harbinger of the end of Natural Law

In Set Adrift Upon the World: The Sutherland Clearances James Hunter masterly weaves together a fascinating account of the Sutherland Clearances. One that takes you from the Strath of Kildonan and other parts of Sutherland to battles in New Orleans via South Africa and onto the foundation of what is

It may surprise some readers that the last Communard of this title is not Jimmy Somerville, the shrill voice of the 1980s, but Adrien Lejeune who as a young free-thinker reluctantly took the side of the Commune revolutionaries when the people of Paris rose up against the reactionary French governmen

The gavel, a device never used in the English courts, features on the cover of Confessions of a Barrister – and is a harbinger of things to come.

Blair's broken vows Tom Bower is a barrister turned investigative journalist, a species that is all but extinct in modern Britain. He has produced a string of debunking biographies of the rich and famous and has successfully defended libel actions from the likes of Richard Branson, Robert Maxwell an

Artists as historians What Paintings Say is a wonderful study of 100 masterpieces, lavishly illustrated and packed with history presented in an accessible and readable way.

Gillian Mawdsley is impressed by Cal Flynn's first novel – inspired by the discovery that one her ancestors was Angus MacMilan, the leader of the notorious Highland Brigade that massacred aborigines in 19th century Australia while Connor Beaton delves into the darker side of the Internet to explor

Danielle Keats Citron's Hate Crimes in Cyberspace makes for uncomfortable but important reading for lawyers in the 21st century. With an excellent understanding of how the Internet functions and how people engage with it, Citron is placed well to dissect increasingly common (and continuously under-r

My first realisation that Britain was in the grip of gin mania came via my fashionable young niece. Then signs announcing the arrival of 'Gin Bars' began to sprout everywhere – including one near my home in the leafy West End of Dundee. And so, it was to this establishment that I repaired to revie

Book of revelations It was revealed last week that Scottish police had access to GCHQ’s project MILKWHITE in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, reminding us, in the words of Chelsea Manning, that "information should be free".

Rediscovering Scotland's tragic High Priestess of the Grotesque She called herself the High Priestess of the Grotesque and she never shied away from subjects other artists would have regarded as untouchable, but since her death 14 years ago, the work of Pat Douthwaite has fallen into the shadows.

Welcome to SLN's new book review feature where we review some of the latest non-fiction books that may be of interest to our readers. In our first feature Graham Ogilvy finds the war-time memoir of a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution both timely and moving while Flora Edgar enjoys a biography

George Wyllie and the Glasgow arts revival George Wyllie is remembered as a bunnet-wearing, boiler-suited artist in late middle age who burst onto the contemporary art scene in the late 1980s with two major performance-based installation works, The Straw Locomotive (1987) and The Paper Boat (1989).