The Alexander Trocchi papers – manuscripts, journals, notebooks, magazines & ephemera, including material relating to the International Situationist movement – are held at Washington University in St Louis
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The Alexander Trocchi papers – manuscripts, journals, notebooks, magazines & ephemera, including material relating to the International Situationist movement – are held at Washington University in St Louis
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“In an unpublished autobiographical novel… he used the experience of swinging on the trapeze over the pond at the Arlington Baths as a metaphor for childhood adventures around the tenements & streets of the West End”
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https://arlingtonbathshistory.co.uk/2021/02/11/on-the-trapeze-with-alexander-trocchi/
“For Alexander Trocchi as much as for George Mackay Brown, the world is always in need”
—Prof Alan Riach looks at 2 startlingly different 20th-century Scottish writers: Alexander Trocchi & George Mackay Brown
4/6
“There was a lot of wasted potential when it came to Alexander Trocchi. He did write one great book, though. It is called Cain’s Book and it… contains some of the sharpest and most poignant prose writing you’re ever going to encounter.”
—Morgan Meis on Trocchi, Cain, and heroin
3/6
https://slantbooks.org/close-reading/essays/alexander-trocchi-cain-and-heroin/
“I think Trocchi is important, more so now than ever. We’re living in a time when the very ‘uncreative work’ against which he permanently struck is dominating culture…”
—A Moveable Void: Tom McCarthy on Trocchi’s CAIN’S BOOK, in 3AM Magazine
2/6
https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/a-moveable-void-tom-mccarthy-on-alex-trocchis-cains-book/
“The plotless beauty of his writing, and its fearless look at the emptiness of his own life, put ‘the Scottish Beat’ on a par with Kafka and Camus.”
—Tony O’Neill on “The junky genius of Alexander Trocchi (1925–1984)”, born 100 years ago #OTD, 30 July – a
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/aug/23/thejunkygeniusofalexander
Z #NowPlaying At the top of the hour it's the repeat of The Global Classical Hour Presented by Shawn Klein. An hour of western #classical music from around the globe, not limited to the west. https://theglobalvoice.info:8443/broadband #TGVRadio #classicalmusic #baroque #romantic #20thcentury
Both readable and rigorous, this book offers an invaluable overview of how the classification scheme around nuclear technology evolved -- and fruitfully critiques its effectiveness. #History #20thCentury #ColdWar #NuclearWeapon #Secret #UnitedStates #HistoryFact https://whe.to/ci/8-529-en/
Yee-haw, 26 July is #CowboyDay …
Bud Neill’s newspaper comic strips (1949–1956) are one of Scotland’s most notable contributions to cowboy fiction, featuring Lobey Dosser, the sheriff of Calton Creek; his 2-legged horse El Fideldo; & resident masked villain Rank Bajin
New Zealand to celebrate 30 years of ‘sustainable winegrowing’ https://www.diningandcooking.com/2199535/new-zealand-to-celebrate-30-years-of-sustainable-winegrowing/ #20thCentury #century #Five #FiveWineries #new #NewZealand #NewZealandSwnz #NewZealandWine #programme #ProgrammeSpearheaded #spearheaded #sustainable #SustainableWinegrowing #SustainableWinegrowingNew #SWNZ #SwnzProgrammeSpearheaded #Wine #WineFromNewZealand #WineOfNewZealand #winegrowing #WinegrowingNewZealand #wineries #ZealandSwnzProgramme #zealand;
Josephine Tey: Crime Writer and Imagined Detective
Josephine Tey (1896–1952) wrote classic crime fiction. Now she leads a fictional afterlife as the lead character in Nicola Upson’s CWA Dagger-shortlisted series of crime novels, starting with AN EXPERT IN MURDER – published by Faber Books
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https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/josephine-tey-crime-writer-and-imagined-detective/
Celebrating Josephine Tey: Granite Noir 2021
Val McDermid discusses MISS PYM DISPOSES with Andy Miller & John Mitchinson in a collaboration between the Backlisted Podcast & the Granite Noir Festival
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“Questions of identity permeate her novels. […] Masks and the identities they hide run through her work like the unifying thread in a tapestry.”
via CrimeReads – Val McDermid on how Josephine Tey opened up the crime novel for contemporary writers
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Josephine Tey’s Golden Age: how WW2 made this Scottish writer want to write mysteries again
Currently available on BBC Sounds – the Shedunnit Show discusses “Queens of Crime at War” with Josephine Tey’s biographer Jennifer Morag Henderson
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“To study Josephine Tey’s literary connections is to draw out a different picture of the inter-war & post-war Scottish literary scene: one that foregrounds women, & draws out forgotten areas of popularity”
Jennifer Morag Henderson uncovers the mysteries of Golden Age crime queen Josephine Tey
3/7
https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2025/06/josephine-tey-mystery-writer/
“…rather than a locked-room mystery in which the murder is an impossible crime, the detective is in (and becomes) the locked room, using cerebral means to reason his way into a solution to a genuine historical conundrum”
“A Mystery Novel Like No Other Before” – @sarahweinman on the fiction of Josephine Tey
2/7
https://lithub.com/a-mystery-novel-like-no-other-before-on-josephine-teys-the-daughter-of-time/
“In 1990, the UK Crime Writers’ Association issued a list titled ‘The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.’ Number one on the list was THE DAUGHTER OF TIME by Josephine Tey. It was a good call then, it’d still be a good call now.”
Josephine Tey (1896–1952) was born #OTD, 25 July
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https://crimereads.com/josephine-tey-a-crime-readers-guide-to-the-classics/
John Buchan: the master storyteller
4 Sept, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh – free
2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of John Buchan. Ursula Buchan, John Buchan’s granddaughter & biographer, will talk about the range of his fiction & its subject matter
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/john-buchan-the-master-storyteller-tickets-1480628713339
Your carolan’s blythe, bricht bird i the blackthorn bou,
this braw Voar morn, wi trill eftir spirlan trill,
tho you only ken the warld as it liggs the nou,
an nocht but a glisk concerns your chatteran bill…
—Maurice Lindsay, “On Hearin a Merle Singan”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL 2016)
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https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/
Scotland’s a sense of change, an endless
becoming for which there was never a kind
of wholeness or ultimate category.
Scotland’s an attitude of mind.
—“Speaking of Scotland” by Maurice Lindsay (1918–2009) – born #OTD, 21 July
Published in COLLECTED POEMS 1940–1990 (AUP 1990)
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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/speaking-scotland/