Upon learning, last month, that my DNA blesses me with 17 percent Scottish heritage, it was time to do a wee bit of reading from the land of haggis and bagpipes.

Book 1: The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey

This was not the first – nor will it be the last – Josephine Tey mystery to grace the shelves of our Folio Society library.

Discovered after Tey passed away in 1952, the manuscript was published that same year. It is the sixth featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, who is suddenly overcome with debilitating anxiety attacks and claustrophobia. His forced medical leave starts off with a sleepless night in a tiny overnight train compartment, heading to the Scottish countryside for a month of rest. While departing the train, he discovers a dead body. The only clue is a poem, handwritten on a piece of newsprint.

Inspector, heal thyself!

Book 2: The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

If you’ve seen the play or movie, don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s no need to read the book.

When you find a dead body in your London flat and know the killers – and the police – will soon be after you, it’s time to leave town. And where better to flee to than Scotland?

This thriller keeps our protagonist on the run, often literally. He nearly always stays one step ahead of the aforementioned bad guys.

Book 3: Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson

In reading through a list of Scottish authors, I didn’t expect to find Robert Louis Stevenson.

His Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes takes place in France, and is considered a pioneering classic in outdoor literature.

Stevenson took this 12-day journey in 1878 with a cantankerous donkey named Modestine. Published the following year, this travelogue helped launch the idea that travel can simply be about the experience.

Book 4: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Born in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote only four novels about Sherlock Holmes; the remainder of his 60 works about Holmes were short stories.

Although I usually skip the spoiler-packed Introductions in books published by the Folio Society, this one I read in full. If you’re reading this blog post, I’ll assume you already know who Sherlock Holmes is. But did you know his iconic Calabash-style pipe only came about when it was used as a stage prop? Actors playing Holmes struggled to spend so much time on stage gripping a standard pipe between their teeth. American actor William Gillette (who built Gillette Castle in Connecticut) decided to use a Calabash pipe, which was so large, the bowl could rest on his chest. Elementary!

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