Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Repeatedly named as among the best Scottish novels, often appearing at the top of polls and acknowledged as one of the most important novels of the 20th century. Set in a farming community in the north-east of Scotland, Sunset Song charts Chris Guthrie’s struggle to adapt to her new world as a widow and single mother in the aftermath of World War I. The survival of her fragile family hangs on her belief that beyond the sunset, there lies hope. The book forms a moving elegy to the rural communities who suffered so much damage in the aftermath of WWI and, ultimately, lost their way of life.

 

Ayrshire Idylls by Neil Munro
A collection of short stories by Neil Munro describing Ayrshire characters and scenes. Featuring the last stand of Richard Cameron, the famous religious reformer, and Alexander Peden, another Covenanter leader. The collection  includes four episodes from the life of Robert Burns, and shows the creation of his famous poem Tam o’ Shanter. A great success on its first publication in 1912, Ayrshire Idylls deserves a renaissance.

 

The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown
Set in mid-19th century Ayrshire, the novel describes how businessman John Gourlay struggles against the scheming of the envious villagers, an ambitious competitor, and the arrival of the railway. Brown’s ‘truthful’ plot was welcomed as an antidote to the ‘Kailyard’ school of writing. The House with the Green Shutters is an unsentimental examination of Scottish village life and was hugely influential on authors of the Scottish Renaissance, including Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Hugh MacDiarmid.