“What are the best Scottish Fiction Books Of All-Time?” We looked at 491 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 35 books, all appearing on 4 or more “Best Scottish Fiction” book lists, are ranked by how many times they appear. The remaining 450+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

Top 35 Best Fiction Books From Scotland

35 .) Docherty by William McIlvanney

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2

Newborn Conn Docherty, raw as a fresh wound, lies between his parents in their tenement room, with no birthright but a life’s labour in the pits of his small town. But the world is changing, and, lying next to him, Conn’s father Tam has decided that his son’s life will be different from his own.

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34 .) Electric Brae by Andrew Greig

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• The List 2
• The Culture Trip

At the centre of Electric Brae is the crumbling sea-stack of the Old Man of Hoy and the consuming relationship between a young artist, Kim, coldly passionate, talented, secretive, and Jimmy, a North Sea roughneck, engineer and climber. Acclaimed on publication for marking a brave new direction in the course of Scottish fiction, Electric Brae is a story of love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, and fathers and children.

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33 .) Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2

The award-winning Grace Notes is a compact and altogether masterful portrait of a woman composer and the complex interplay between her life and her art. With superb artistry and startling intimacy, it brings us into the life of Catherine McKenna ― estranged daughter, vexed lover, new mother, and musician making her mark in a male-dominated field. It is a book that the Virginia Woolf of A Room of One’s Own would instantly understand.

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32 .) Joseph Knight by James Robertson

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2

Exiled to Jamaica after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Sir John Wedderburn made a fortune, alongside his three brothers, as a faux surgeon and sugar planter. In the 1770s, he returned to Scotland to marry and re-establish the family name. He brought with him Joseph Knight, a black slave and a token of his years in the Caribbean.Now, in 1802, Sir John Wedderburn is settling his estate, and has hired a solicitor’s agent, Archibald Jamieson, to search for his former slave. The past has haunted Wedderburn ever since Culloden, and ever since he last saw Knight, in court twenty-four years ago, in a case that went to the heart of Scottish society, pitting master against slave, white against black, and rich against poor.

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31 .) Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Lists It Appears On:

• The Scotsman
• A Mother Far From Home
• The Culture Trip
• Goodreads

The young orphan David Balfour is sent to live with his Uncle Ebenezer. When he discovers that he may be the rightful heir to his uncle’s estate, he finds himself kidnapped and cast away on a desert isle. A historical adventure novel originally intended for a young-adult audience, “Kidnapped” deals with true historical events relating to the Jacobite Rising, and has won the admiration of an adult audience.

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30 .) Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

Lists It Appears On:

• Rick Steves
• The Guardian
• The Scotsman
• Goodreads

Inspector John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders…and he’s tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain’s elite SAS. Now he’s an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn’t just one cop trying to catch a killer, he’s the man who’s got all the pieces to the puzzle..

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29 .) One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2

Like a highball mix of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Brookmyre hits you hard and fast. Now Brookmyre is back with his most lethal book yet: One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night. Gavin Hutchinson had it all planned out. A unique “floating holiday experience” on a converted North Sea oil rig, a haven for tourists who want a vacation but without the hassle of actually going anywhere. And what better way to test out his venture than to host a fifteenth-year high school reunion, the biggest social event of his life, except no one remembers who Gavin is. That, and his wife has discovered his philandering ways and plans to leave him with a very public announcement in front of his assembled guests. Throw in a band of mercenaries who crash the party even though they aren’t on the guest list, and you have a wicked farce of a thriller from one of the most original voices in mystery fiction.

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28 .) Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• Rick Steves
• Goodreads
• A Mother Far From Home

“Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.

Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.”

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27 .) Paradise by A.L. Kennedy

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• The List 2
• The List

Hannah Luckraft sells cardboard boxes for a living. Her family is so frustrated by her behavior they can barely stand to keep in touch with her. Each day is fueled by the promise of annihilation, the promise of a reprieve, the paradise that can only be found in a bottle. When Hannah meets Robert, a kindred spirit, the two become constant companions. Together and alone Hannah and Robert spiral through the beauty and depravity of a love affair with alcohol. Paradise is a spectacular novel of desire and oblivion.

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26 .) Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Irish Times
• The List 2

Following Tam Clay around the Gorbals slums of 1960s Glasgow, Torrington combines lyrical verve with dark comedy in this modern odyssey of self-discovery. Direct, aggressive, with an eye for a witty pun and an ear for Glaswegian dialect, Torrington bends language to his uncompromising will. A riotous urban picaresque, Jeff Torrington’s comic novel marked a milestone in Scottish literature.

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25 .) The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett

Lists It Appears On:

• Bookbub
• Library Thing
• The List 2
• Goodreads

It is 1547 and Scotland has been humiliated by an English invasion and is threatened by machinations elsewhere beyond its borders, but it is still free. Paradoxically, her freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapgrace nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, posessed of a scholar’s erudition and a tongue as wicked as a rapier. In The Game of Kings, this extraordinary antihero returns to the country that has outlawed him to redeem his reputations even at the risk of his life.

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24 .) The White Bird Passes by Jessie Kesson

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• The Guardian
• The List 2

Set in the backstreets of a Scottish city in the 1920’s, this is the story of a young girl growing up in ‘the Lane.’ Poor, crowded and dirty–but full of life and excitement–the Lane is the only home Janie MacVean has ever known. It is a place where, despite everything, Janie is happy. But when the Cruelty Man arrives, bringing with him the threat of the dreaded ‘home’–the orphanage that is every child’s nightmare–Janie’s contented childhood seems to be at an end.

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23 .) Trumpet by Jackie Kay

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The List 2

“In her starkly beautiful and wholly unexpected tale, Jackie Kay delves into the most intimate workings of the human heart and mind and offers a triumphant tale of loving deception and lasting devotion.

The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret, one that enrages his adopted son, Colman, leading him to collude with a tabloid journalist. Besieged by the press, his widow Millie flees to a remote Scottish village, where she seeks solace in memories of their marriage. The reminiscences of those who knew Joss Moody render a moving portrait of a shared life founded on an intricate lie, one that preserved a rare, unconditional love.”

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22 .) Waverley by Sir Walter Scott

Lists It Appears On:

• Rick Steves
• The Scotsman
• Goodreads
• The Culture Trip

Sir Walter Scott was one of the bestselling novelists of the nineteenth century and is credited with establishing the historical novel. His first novel, Waverley (1814), tells the story of Edward Waverley, a naïve young man who is posted to Scotland with his regiment. Edward must decide whether he will follow the civilization he has always known, or be drawn into an older world of honor. This edition is based on the authoritative Edinburgh version edited by Peter Garside.

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21 .) Black and Blue by Ian Rankin

Lists It Appears On:

• Scottish Book Trust
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• Goodreads
• Library Thing

“Bible John killed three women, and took three souvenirs. Johnny Bible killed to steal his namesake’s glory. Oilman Allan Mitchelson died for his principles. And convict Lenny Spaven died just to prove a point. “”Bible John”” terrorized Glasgow in the sixties and seventies, murdering three women he met in a local ballroom–and he was never caught. Now a copycat is at work. Nicknamed “”Bible Johnny”” by the media, he is a new menace with violent ambitions.

The Bible Johnny case would be perfect for Inspector John Rebus, but after a run-in with a crooked senior officer, he’s been shunted aside to one of Edinburgh’s toughest suburbs, where he investigates the murder of an off-duty oilman. His investigation takes him north to the oil rigs of Aberdeen, where he meets the Bible Johnny media circus head-on. Suddenly caught in the glare of the television cameras and in the middle of more than one investigation, Rebus must proceed with caution: One mistake could mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death, or, worse still, losing his job.”

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20 .) Garnethill by Denise Mina

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• Goodreads

Maureen O’Donnell wakes up one morning to find her therapist boyfriend murdered in the middle of her living room and herself a prime suspect in a murder case. Desperate to clear her name and to get at the truth, Maureen traces rumors about a similar murder at a local psychiatric hospital, uncovering a trail of deception and repressed scandal that could exonerate her – or make her the next victim.

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19 .) Greenvoe by George Mackay Brown

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The List 2
• The Scotsman

Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations. However, a sinister military/industrial project, Operation Black Star, requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the islanders’ way of life. In this, his first novel (1972), George Mackay Brown recreates a week in the life of the island community as they come to terms with the destructiveness of Operation Black Star. A whole host of characters – The Skarf, failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster – are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and poetry.

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18 .) Hotel World by Ali Smith

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2

“Woooooooo-hooooooo.

Five people: four are living; three are strangers; two are sisters; one, a teenage hotel chambermaid, has fallen to her death in a dumbwaiter. But her spirit lingers in the world, straining to recall things she never knew. And one night all five women find themselves in the smooth plush environs of the Global Hotel, where the intersection of their very different fates make for this playful, defiant, and richly inventive novel.

Forget room service: this is a riotous elegy, a deadpan celebration of colliding worlds, and a spirited defense of love. Blending incisive wit with surprising compassion, Hotel World is a wonderfully invigorating, life-affirming book.”

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17 .) Rob Roy by Walter Scott

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• A Mother Far From Home

When young Francis Osbaldistone discovers that his vicious and scheming cousin Rashleigh has designs both on his father’s business and his beloved Diana Vernon, he turns in desperation to Rob Roy for help. Chieftain of the MacGregor clan, Rob Roy is a brave and fearless man, able and cunning. But he is also an outlaw with a price on his head, and as he and Francis join forces to pursue Rashleigh, he is constantly aware that he, too, is being pursued—and could be captured at any moment. Set on the eve of the 1715 Jacobite uprising, Rob Roy brilliantly evokes a Scotland on the verge of rebellion, blending historical fact and a novelist’s imagination to create an incomparable portrait of intrigue, rivalry and romance.

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16 .) The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

Lists It Appears On:

• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• The List

When Rilke, a dissolute auctioneer, comes upon a hidden collection of violent and highly disturbing photographs, he feels compelled to discover more about the deceased owner who coveted them. Soon he finds himself sucked into an underworld of crime, depravity and secret desire, fighting for his life.

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15 .) The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The Guardian
• The List 2

One of the supreme masterpieces of Romantic fiction and Scottish literature, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a terrifying tale of murder and amorality, and of one man’s descent into madness and despair. James Hogg’s sardonic novel follows a young man who, falling under the spell of a mysterious stranger who bears an uncanny likeness to himself, embarks on a career as a serial murderer. The memoirs are presented by a narrator whose attempts to explain the story only succeed in intensifying its more baffling and bizarre aspects. Is the young man the victim of a psychotic delusion, or has he been tempted by the devil to wage war against God’s enemies? The authoritative and lively introduction by Ian Duncan covers the full range of historical and religious themes and contexts, offers a richer and more accurate consideration of the novel’s relation to Romantic fiction than found elsewhere, and sheds new light on the novel’s treatment of fanaticism. Copious notes identify the novel’s historical, biblical, theological, and literary allusions.

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14 .) The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Lists It Appears On:

• The Guardian
• The List 2
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Rick Steves

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often spuriously called “split personality”, referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In this case, there are two personalities within Dr Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil. The novella’s impact is such that it has become a part of the language, with the very phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” coming to mean a person who is vastly different in moral character from one situation to the next.

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13 .) The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• A Mother Far From Home

An effortless adventure classic spanning the void between dime shocker and quality literature, John Buchan’s “The 39 Steps” still satisfies after many reads. Richard Hannay returned to England, after making his fortune in South Africa, is unwillingly ensnared in a tortured plot to assassinate Karolides the Greek premier and so plunge Europe into war. Scudder, an American journalist turned spy has coded information relating to the plot but is murdered in Hannay’s luxurious flat before he can pass on the code. Hannay, with all fingers pointing to him as the murderer escapes by Scottish express and with Scudder’s coded notebook

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12 .) 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Rick Steves
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Scotsman
• Goodreads
• A Mother Far From Home

“Welcome to 44 Scotland Street, home to some of Edinburgh’s most colorful characters. There’s Pat, a twenty-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbor, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below are Irene and her appealing son Bertie, who is the victim of his mother’s desire for him to learn the saxophone and italian–all at the tender age of five.

Love triangles, a lost painting, intriguing new friends, and an encounter with a famous Scottish crime writer are just a few of the ingredients that add to this delightful and witty portrait of Edinburgh society, which was first published as a serial in The Scotsman newspaper.”

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11 .) The Cone-Gatherers by Robin Jenkins

Lists It Appears On:

• The List 2
• Rick Steves
• The Scotsman
• What Should I read Next?
• Library Thing
• The Guardian

“In the shadow of a war that rages through Europe, brothers Calum and Neil work to gather pine cones in the grounds of a Scottish estate. When Calum releases two mutilated rabbits from a snare, he comes face to face with Duror, the gamekeeper. In retaliation, in the depths of the wood, Duror lays a trap for the cone-gatherers.

Neil prophesises that forces of evil will encroach upon the harmony of their lives. It is a prophesy that comes true when Duror commits an act so brutal it destroys all sense of humanity in the once thriving wood. Powerful and unforgettable, Robin Jenkins’ masterpiece is a haunting story of love and violence, and an investigation of class-conflict, war and envy.”

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10 .) The Trick Is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The Irish Times
• The List 2

“Janice Galloway’s inventive first novel is about the breakdown of a 27-year-old drama teacher named Joy Stone.

The problems of everyday living accumulate and begin to torture Joy, who blames her problems not on her work or on the accidental drowning of her illicit lover but on herself.

While painful and deeply serious, this audiobook holds great warmth and energy: it’s the wit and irony found in moments of despair that prove to be Joy’s salvation.”

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9 .) Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The List 2
• The Scotsman
• A Mother Far From Home
• The Culture Trip

World War II has brought rationing to the Hebridean islands of Great and Little Todday. When food is in short supply, it is bad enough, but when the whisky runs out, it looks as though the end of the world has come. George Campbell needs the courage to stand up to his mother and marry Catriona. The priest, the doctor and, of course, the inn’s landlord are also victims of the low morale. There’s no conversation, no jollity, and no fun until a shipwreck off the coast brings a piece of extraordinary good fortune. Originally published in 1947 and adapted to film in 1949, this novel is based on a true event in the Scottish Hebrides and continues to be an entertaining insight into island culture through its lively characters.

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8 .) Buddha Da by Anne Donovan

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The List 2
• The Scotsman
• The List

“In her hugely acclaimed debut Anne Donovan tells an endearing, humorous yet unsentimental story of a working-class Glaswegian man who discovers Buddhism, rejects old habits and seeks a life more meaningful, only to alienate his immediate family in the process.

Moving seamlessly between three family members, Donovan’s clear-eyed, richly expressive prose sings off the page. Each character’s voice has its own subtle rhythm and the conclusion is a poignant mixture of hope and lingering reservations.”

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7 .) Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Library Thing
• Rick Steves
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• The Scotsman
• Goodreads

Faced with a choice between her harsh farming life and the seductive but distant world of books and learning, Chris Guthrie eventually decides to remain in her rural community, bound by her intense love of the land. However, the intervention of the First World War leaves her choice in tatters. Chris is now a widowed single mother: her farm, and the land it occupies, is altered beyond recognition—trees torn down, people displaced. But although the novel describes a way of life which is in decline, it also presents a strong image of hope. Chris adapts to her new world, displaying an intuitive strength which, like the land which she loves, endures despite everything. Sunset Song is a testament to Scotland’s agricultural past, to the world of crofters and tradition which was destroyed in the First World War. It is a powerful description of life in the first few decades of the century through the evocation of change and the lyrical intensity of its prose.

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6 .) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• The Guardian
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• The Scotsman

“The polarizing literary debut by Scottish author Ian Banks, The Wasp Factory is the bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath.

Meet Frank Cauldhame. Just sixteen, and unconventional to say the least:

Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different and more fundamental reasons than I’d disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim.

That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years, and don’t intend to ever again.

It was just a stage I was going through.”

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5 .) Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The List 2
• The List

In this haunting, entrancing novel, Michel Faber introduces us to Isserley, a female driver who cruises the Scottish Highlands picking up hitchhikers. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she listens to her hitchhikers as they open up to her, revealing clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory—our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.

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4 .) Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• What Should I read Next?

“Morvern Callar, a low-paid employee in the local supermarket in a desolate and beautiful port town in the west of Scotland, wakes one morning in late December to find her strange boyfriend has committed suicide and is dead on the kitchen floor. Morvern’s reaction is both intriguing and immoral. What she does next is even more appalling. Moving across a blurred European landscape-from rural poverty and drunken mayhem of the port to the Mediterranean rave scene-we experience everything from Morvern’s stark, unflinching perspective.

Morvern is utterly hypnotizing from her very first sentence to her last. She rarely goes anywhere without the Walkman left behind as a Christmas present by her dead boyfriend, and as she narrates this strange story, she takes care to tell the reader exactly what music she is listening to, giving the stunning effect of a sound track running behind her voice.”

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3 .) Lanark by Alasdair Gray

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Rick Steves
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• The Culture Trip
• The Guardian

Lanark, a modern vision of hell, is set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, and tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary imagination and wide range, its playful narrative techniques convey a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind’s inability to love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying.

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2 .) Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Lists It Appears On:

• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Scottish Book Trust
• The Guardian
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• The Scotsman
• What Should I read Next?

It accomplished for its own time and place what Hubert Selby, Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn did for his. Rents, Sick Boy, Mother Superior, Swanney, Spuds, and Seeker are as unforgettable a clutch of junkies, rude boys, and psychos as readers will ever encounter.

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1 .) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Lists It Appears On:

• A Mother Far From Home
• Books In Scotland
• Goodreads
• Library Thing
• Rick Steves
• The Guardian
• The Irish Times
• The List 2
• The Scotsman

At the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls, in Edinburgh, Scotland, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and outspokenly, in her prime. She is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods, in her attraction to the married art master, Teddy Lloyd, in her affair with the bachelor music master, Gordon Lowther, and—most important—in her dedication to “her girls,” the students she selects to be her crème de la crème. Fanatically devoted, each member of the Brodie set—Eunice, Jenny, Mary, Monica, Rose, and Sandy—is “famous for something,” and Miss Brodie strives to bring out the best in each one.

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