The Next Page: Scotland’s Best New Books (Autumn/Winter 2026)

The Next Page is SNACK’s roundup of some of the best books published in recent months, and this time round it includes a literary legend, Icelandic escapades, architectural marvels, failed historical ventures, police and thieves, and more.

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JAMES KELMAN

The Story of the Stone

Can we talk about James Kelman, arguably Scotland’s greatest living writer and our first Booker Prize winner? You may be surprised to know that he has been published more in recent years than possibly any time previously. The fact it has been with American publisher PM Press means that this has gone under the radar of many readers.

The Story of the Stone: Tales, Entreaties & Incantations is a collection of nearly a hundred pieces of short fiction spanning five decades and is full of examples of what many feel he does best. The introduction by Kelman is worth the price alone, but the stories, some only a page long or less, capture the writer’s essence.

James Kelman turned 80 this year and it would be nice to think this landmark would be widely celebrated, but perhaps he would prefer that we concentrate on the writing. If you haven’t read his work for a while (or ever) then The Story of the Stone is a must-read.

The Story of the Stone: Tales, Entreaties & Incantations is published by PM Press

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VAL MCDERMID & JO SHARP

This Door of the Seas

If you know little to nothing of the Darien Scheme – the 17th-century attempt by Scotland to establish a trading colony in Panama – this is a fascinating insight into a venture which changed not only Scotland’s history, but the wider world’s.

Written as a series of letters, the method of storytelling allows readers to experience the initial hope and excitement, then the disappointment, fear, and desperation as events unravel. Val McDermid and Geographer Royal Jo Sharp work beautifully together to once again show that fiction can convey a sense of history beyond mere facts and figures.

This Door of the Seas is published by Polygon Books

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GABRIELLA BENNETT

How to Build a City

How to Build a City is one of the most ambitious, thought-provoking, and endlessly fascinating books of the year – or in many a year. It mixes travel writing and urban planning with personal experience and memoir.

The various case studies are all incredible and will leave you wanting to know more, but it is Gabriella Bennett’s reminiscences of the places she has lived and visited, and the people she encountered, that bring a relatable human element.

How to Build a City will make you reflect not only on the places you have lived but your relationships with them, and how they in turn have shaped you.

How to Build a City is published by Headline

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COLIN BURNETT

Family Man: The Third Book of Aldo

This third entry in the Aldo series of novels is the most thrilling to date. It opens with a scene of everyday domesticity before everything quickly goes to pot. With new players in town, Leith-based crime boss Aldo has to fight hard and dirty to protect what he has, which leads to lying down with strange bedfellows and former enemies.

The first two books detailed the tumultuous rise of Aldo to be top dog. This time round it is the potential fall, a classic tale told in a new and identifiable way. Imagine The Godfather Part II set near Granton and you have some idea as to the story. And with a real cliffhanger ending, this is a series which feels like it will run and run.

Family Man: The Third Book of Aldo is published by Tippermuir Books Limited

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KATE FOSTER

The Repentants

The finest historical fiction informs and educates as it entertains, and that’s the case with The Repentants. Few will be aware of the attempt by some Scottish merchants to annex Iceland as a prison for British use in the 18th century, a true story which provides the backdrop to the novel.

But while this is an unusual and atmospheric setting, it is secondary to the central stories of the women who are suppressed and oppressed by the men in their lives, and who come to work together to try and survive on their own terms.

This is a novel driven by characters, and in Florrie, Eliza, and Icelandic native Hallgerd, Kate Foster has created three memorable narrators whose journeys, both literal and personal, are where the drama and humanity are to be found.

The Repentants is published by Mantle

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CALLUM MCSORLEY

Rat Race

The Alison McCoist series of thrillers is simply one of the best around. Rat Race is the third book after Squeaky Clean and Paperboy, which also come with the highest recommendation.

You would hope crime thrillers are thrilling, which these undoubtedly are, but the quality of the writing is of the highest order. Setting, character, and particularly dialogue are spot on, with McSorley’s ear for how people speak, and speak to each other, acute and entertainingly accurate.

Few writers make you laugh out loud as he manages to, and few have captured life in Glasgow in such gloriously messy, magnificent, and riotous detail.

Rat Race is published by Pushkin Vertigo

Photo credit: Angus Bremner