The Scottish Gallery Book Club - August 2021: Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott Moncrieff

It's our pleasure to be working in collaboration with The Scottish Gallery to help run The Scottish Gallery Book Club, a literary companion for their monthly event programming.

Each month, the accompanying book will be a complimentary selection for themes and ideas explored within the new exhibition. We invite you, as readers and appreciators of the arts, to read the book and feedback your thoughts to The Scottish Gallery in a direct message on Instagram. They will feature reader responses in their highlights or stories.

This month we have selected titles to accompany The Scottish Gallery's major exhibition of Joan Eardley for the Edinburgh Art Festival to mark the centenary of her birth. Joan Eardley Centenary exhibition includes her most celebrated subjects: the streets and children of Townhead, Glasgow and her wild, spiritual home at Catterline on the Kincardineshire coast. Joan Eardley Centenary sets out to highlight her as one of Scotland’s greatest talents.

Our selections for the August 2021 Book Club are Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott Moncrieff.

Auntie Robbo by Ann Scott Moncrieff

Originally refused publication in London because it was deemed critical of the English, this fabulous YA novel tells the story of Hector, an 11-year-old boy living near Edinburgh with his great auntie Robbo who is in her eighties. A woman calling herself his step-mother arrives from England and Hector and Auntie Robbo realise that they have to run away. The chase leads all over the north of Scotland, narrowly escaping police and the authorities (while adopting three homeless children on the way). An anarchic Scottish classic!

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (this title can be purchased here):

Faced with a choice between a harsh farming life and the world of books and learning, Chris Guthrie chooses to remain in her rural community, bound by her intense love of the land. But everything changes with the arrival of the First World War and Chris finds her land altered beyond recognition. One of the greatest and most heartbreaking love stories ever told, Sunset Song offers a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil.