Luath's 100 Books That Shaped Us

The BBC recently shared their picks of ‘100 Books That Shaped Our World’. Inspired by this, here at Luath Press we’ve compiled an exclusive list of 100 books that have shaped who we are as a publisher today. Many of our chosen books are set in Scotland, by Scottish writers or have a unique connection to Scotland. Have you read all of these books? Which 100 books have shaped you?

  1. Lanark, Alasdair Gray (Canongate Books)

  2. A Gray Play Book, Alasdair Gray (Luath Press)

  3. How Late it Was, How Late, James Kelman (Vintage)

  4. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (Macmillan)

  5. Waverley, Sir Walter Scott (Penguin)

  6. 1984, George Orwell (Penguin)

  7. Barnhill: A Novel, Norman Bissell (Luath Press)

  8. Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass, Darren McGarvey (Picador/Luath Press)

  9. The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, John McGrath (Bloomsbury)

  10. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (Penguin)

  11. Knots and Crosses, Ian Rankin (Orion)

  12. Death of a Chief, Douglas Watt (Luath Press)

  13. Cities in Evolution, Patrick Geddes

  14. The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism and Carbon Footprint, Ellie Harrison (Luath Press)

  15. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin)

  16. Poor Things, Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury)

  17. A Doric Dictionary, Douglas Kynoch (Luath Press)

  18. The Magic Flute, Alan Spence (Phoenix)

  19. The Poems of Ossian, James Macpherson (Book on Demand)

  20. Blind Ossian’s Fingal: Fragments and Controversy, James Macpherson, Allan Burnett & Linda Burnett Anderson (Luath Press)

  21. But n Ben A-Go-Go, Matthew Fitt (Luath Press)

  22. A Disaffection, James Kelman (Vintage)

  23. Stramash, Daniel Gray (Luath Press)

  24. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin)

  25. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (Vintage)

  26. Choose Life. Choose Leith: Trainspotting on Location, Tim Bell (Luath Press)

  27. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (Penguin)

  28. Mrs Jekyll and Cousin Hyde: The True Story Behind RLS’s Gothic Masterpiece, Jeremy Hodges (Luath Press)

  29. Filth, Irvine Welsh (Vintage)

  30. What Would Keir Hardie Say?, Pauline Bryan (Luath Press)

  31. Consider the Lilies, Iain Crichton Smith (Orion)

  32. The Highland Clearances Trail, Rob Gibson (Luath Press)

  33. Dear Green Place, Archie Hind (Polygon)

  34. Greenvoe, George Mackay Brown (Birlinn)

  35. Poems, Chiefly in the Scots Dialect, Robert Burns

  36. The Luath Burns Companion, John Cairney (Luath Press)

  37. The Cone Gatherers, Robin Jenkins (Canongate)

  38. Oor Big Braw Cosmos, John Brown & Rab Wilson (Luath Press)

  39. Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K Rowling (Bloomsbury)

  40. Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stane (Scots Language Edition), Matthew Fitt & J.K Rowling (Black and White)

  41. Heartland, John Mackay (Luath Press)

  42. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Birlinn)

  43. The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, Nan Shepherd (Canongate)

  44. The Ultimate Guide to the Munros, Ralph Storer (Luath Press)

  45. How to be Both, Ali Smith (Penguin)

  46. Trumpet, Jackie Kay (Pan Macmillan)

  47. Blossom: What Scotland Needs to Flourish, Lesley Riddoch (Luath Press)

  48. Dirt Road, James Kelman (Canongate)

  49. Radical Renfrew, Tom Leonard (Edinburgh University Press)

  50. Scotland the Brave? Twenty Years of Change and the Future of the Nation, Gerry Hassan & Simon Barrow (Luath Press)

  51. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, James Hogg (Penguin)

  52. The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Janice Galloway (Vintage)

  53. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks (Little, Brown)

  54. I Ran with the Gang: My Life In and Out of the Bay City Rollers, Allan Longmuir (Luath Press)

  55. Outside the Narrative: Poems 1965-2009, Tom Leonard (Word Power Books)

  56. Peter Pan, J.M Barrie (Penguin)

  57. A Good Night Out: Popular Theatre, Audience, Class and Form, John McGrath (Nick Hern Books)

  58. Janine, 1982, Alasdair Gray (Canongate)

  59. The Lions of Lisbon: A Play of Two Halves, Willy Maley and Iain Auld (Luath Press)

  60. 100 Favourite Scots Words, Pauline Cairns Speitel (Luath Press)

  61. The Comforters, Muriel Spark (Birlinn)

  62. Autumn, Ali Smith (Penguin)

  63. A Nation Changed? : The SNP and Scotland Ten Years On, Gerry Hassan and Simon Barrow (Luath Press)

  64. A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, Hugh MacDiarmid (Birlinn)

  65. Washing Hugh MacDiarmid’s Socks, Magi Gibson (Luath Press)

  66. Katie Morag’s Island Stories, Mairi Hedderwick (Random House Children’s)

  67. Macbeth, William Shakespeare (Oxford University Press)

  68. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (Penguin)

  69. No Problem Here: Understanding Racism in Scotland, Neil Davidson (Luath Press)

  70. Journey to the Hebrides, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell (Penguin)

  71. Isle of Rust: A Portrait of Lewis and Harris, Alex Boyd (Luath Press)

  72. The Luath Guides Series, Tom Atkinson (Luath Press)

  73. The Quarry Wood, Nan Shepherd (Canongate)

  74. Trackman, Catriona Child (Luath Press)

  75. Standing Female Nude, Carol Ann Duffy (Pan Macmillan)

  76. Taking Flight, Aileen Ballantyne (Luath Press)

  77. Young Adam, Alexander Trocchi (Alma Books)

  78. Buddha Da, Anne Donovan (Canongate)

  79. Scotland the Dreich, Alan McCredie (Luath Press)

  80. The Scottish Nation: A Modern History, Tom Devine (Penguin)

  81. Whisky Galore, Compton Mackenzie (Birlinn)

  82. Scotch on the Rocks: The True Story Behind Whisky Galore, Arthur Swinson (Luath Press)

  83. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neonationalism, Tom Nairn (Verso Books)

  84. Old Nations, Auld Enemies, New Times, Tom Nairn (Luath Press)

  85. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (Penguin)

  86. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (Penguin)

  87. Mollycoddling the Feckless: A Social Work Memoir, Alastair Findlay (Luath Press)

  88. Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott (Oxford University Press)

  89. Oo an Feddirs, Christie Williamson (Luath Press)

  90. Hamish Henderson: Collected Poems, Corey Gibson (Birlinn)

  91. The Second Life, Edwin Morgan

  92. Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, David Hume

  93. David Hume on God, David W Purdie & Peter S Fosl (Luath Press)

  94. The Adoption Papers, Jackie Kay (Bloodaxe Books)

  95. The Slab Boys, John Byrne (Faber & Faber)

  96. Far Cry, Norman MacCaig

  97. Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Liz Lochhead (Nick Hern Books)

  98. On the Trail of Mary Queen of Scots, J. Keith Cheetham (Luath Press)

  99. All the Little Animals, Walker Hamilton (Freight Books)

  100. The Mermaids Singing, Val McDermid (HarperCollins)

Gavin MacDougall