THE RED COCKATOO: JAMES KELMAN AND THE ART OF COMMITMENT
by Mitch Miller and Johnny Rodger
The Red Cockatoo is the first full length study of the work of James Kelman to take full cognisance of the author's political commitments and activism throughout his career. This book is published in partnership with The Drouth Magazine and traces the history and details of Kelman's political writing and activism. Besides numerous novels Kelman has published two volumes of literary, social, historical and political criticism. He has also been unceasingly involved in political and human rights campaigns, manifestoes and demonstrations throughout his life. What exactly are Kelman's politics: why are some readers still baffled and shocked by his standpoint? His stance on social and political issues has been widely criticised not only by ordinary readers, but by the Establishment in the form of Booker Prize judges, and others.
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http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/the-red-cockatoo-I9781905207688/
TARTAN PIMPS
by Mitch Miller, Johnny Rodger & Owen Dudley Edwards
Tartan Pimps examines the writers, thinkers and analysts that have fed, nurtured or scorched a distinct, if subsumed, Scottish political identity. The idea began in The Drouth magazine in the Suns of Scotland series with an analysis of Gordon Brown’s literary career. Brown’s books are plotted from the Red Paper on Scotland in the seventies to the transatlantic prudences of his chancellorship, before the weight of the world was plonked on his slightly hunched shoulders.
So who is the Tartan Pimp? He – or she – is that member of the political class who sees Scotland as a source of political capital. In the face of indifference from London and the deference shown by its political elites, was it Scotland’s writers who reignited native democracy through creating a virtual ‘parliament of letters’? If so, what were the books that set the stage for devolution? How did this exchange of ideas play into the daily, civil life of the country? Racy, irreverent, informative, thoughtful and polemical, Tartan Pimps examines how the Scottish political system was written into being, and how this ‘bookish’ heritage has led to an at times, exciting, frequently unpredictable new politics.
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http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/tartan-pimps-I9781906134501/
FICKLE MAN: ROBERT BURNS IN THE 21st CENTURY
by Johnny Rodger & Gerard Carruthers
21st century Burns scholarship is making some unexpected and exciting discoveries about the poet and his work. Robert Burns has also become an inspiration for a new generation of artists - not only poets and literary artists, but visual and installation artists, sculptors, and architects. Fickle Man is a new volume of essays by top international writers and scholars published to mark the 250th anniversary of the poet s birth, bringing fresh and vigorous insights into the significance of Burns - peasant, poet, Enlightenment genius, revolutionary and lover, to the new century. The book will contain 16 pages of full colour plates, will have line drawings throughout and will feature a previously unseen image of the bard.
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http://www.word-power.co.uk/books/fickle-man-I9781905207275/
