Many travellers have had their imaginations captured by the beautiful Hebridean island of Islay and have been moved to write about it, among them the renowned Thomas Pennant and Martin Martin. But Ileachs - the natives of Islay - have also been inspired to record their experience.
The story of tea is extraordinary - it caused wars, boosted the trade in slaves and hard drugs, and it's no exaggeration to say it was one of the great engines that drove the globalisation of the world economy. In this book award- winning author Les Wilson tells the dramatic and colourful story of how Scots brought tea to Britain and made it our national drink.
A revealing account of George Orwell's late years, spent on the Scottish island of Jura, where he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four--the novel that defined the twentieth century. Revered across the globe for his incisive vision, Orwell wrote compelling literature that denounced totalitarian regimes and exposed the insidious nature of propaganda. His works are as influential and relevant today as they were decades ago. And yet this great writer was, even so, prone to irrational prejudice himself. Orwell spent the last years of his life on the small Hebridean island of Jura, off Scotland's West coast, where he wrote his tour de force of political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was one of the most significant and prescient novels of the twentieth century. And here he finally confronted his own demons. No previous biography has revealed so much about Orwell's later years or his time on Jura, despite this being where he created Big Brother, Thought Police and Room 101--creations still in common currency today.
Based on the harrowing personal recollection of survivors and rescuers, newspaper reports and original research, Les Wilson tells the story of two terrible maritime disasters in Islay's memory, paying tribute to the astonishing bravery of the islanders, who risked their lives pulling men from the sea, caring for survivors and burying the dead.