Remembering Robert Burns with SCOTLAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Rosemary Goring

Tonight is Burns Night, the annual celebration of Robert Burns, Scotland's favorite son, who was born on this day in 1757. Also known as the Ploughman Poet, the Bard of Ayrshire and in Scotland as simply The Bard, Burns) is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and his birthday is celebrated worldwide.

Just released in paperback, Rosemary Goring's Scotland: The Autobiography is a vivid, wide-ranging, and engrossing account of Scotland s history, composed of timeless stories by those who experienced it first-hand. From the battlefield to the sports field, this is living, accessible history told by crofters, criminals, servants, housewives, poets, journalists, nurses, politicians, prisoners, comedians, sportsmen, and many more. There several excerpts about Robert Burns, including a fascinating review by Henry Mackenzie in 1786.

Celebrate ROBERT BURNS Birthday with Rosemary Goring's SCOTLAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Early birthday greetings go out to the great Scottish poet Robert Burns, who turns 250 on Sunday, January 25. In Rosemary Goring's recent account of Scottish history, Scotland: The Autobiography, she includes both the famous review by Henri Mackenzie of Burns's first collection of poems in 1786, and Sir Walter Scott's account of his meeting with Burns in 1787.

Rosemary Goring's SCOTLAND: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY in The New York Review of Books

In a wide-ranging survey of recent books on Scotland in The New York Review of Books, Andrew O'Hagan notes that "Rosemary Goring's Scotland: An Autobiography is a spirited collection of witnessing from all periods of Scotland. The choices she makes are quite exquisite and collectively the book fulfills the very needful function of telling the Scottish story itself . . There are two hundred witnessings and it is hard to imagine many countries near Scotland's size being able to provide such a gigantic vision of human progress, ingress, regress, and finesse."

FINDING MERLIN Reviewed in Kirkus

Adam Ardrey's new book, Finding Merlin, which exposes the true history of the legendary Arthurian wizard, is reviewed today in Kirkus:

This important addition to Arthurian scholarship traces the origins of Merlin, unearthing consequential new material.

The Merlin of myth was a legendary magician and prophet in the court of King Arthur. Ardrey uses etymology, newly discovered historical documents and a fair dose of logical thinking to trace the roots of this forgotten man to sixth- and seventh-century Scotland, a radical discovery given that scholars have long proposed the real Merlin lived a century earlier in England and/or Wales. "If I am right," writes the author, "British history for the period from the late fifth to the early seventh century stands to be rewritten..." The discoveries of the real birthplace, battlefields and final resting place of Merlin, the man, as well as the many intriguing riffs into the lives and bitter rivalries of other important figures of that time, provide enough fodder to maintain reader interest...

A significant book for die-hard Merlin fans and skeptical scholars.