Throw a stone in Edinburgh or Glasgow today and you'll hit a poet. The Scottish spoken word scene has exploded, reaching a level of popularity last seen in the late 1970s, another era, coincidentally, when the issue of Scottish self-determination was in the air. A generation of poets has emerged who have grown up in an age of change, political and technological, with the internet providing them not only with new ways of sharing writing - through their websites, podcasts, Twitter - but also in some cases with a subject too. The Sound of Youngish Scotland is the first attempt to capture the spirit of a diverse scene where every poet is their own movement - from McGuire's hilarious, Beat-inflected deconstructions of sexuality to MacGillivray's mystic tales of Scottish cowboys, equal parts MacDiarmid and McCarthy; from William Letford's building-site tales to Russell Jones' sci-fi poetry. It's a scene where you are just as liable to encounter ancient gods as you are video game characters. The Sound of Youngish Scotland features forty poets, mostly under-forty who have made Scotland their home. It's a survey, a yearbook, a celebration and a promise of things to come.

Family, local and general historians all rely heavily upon dates as they pursue their individual research. But one frequent difficulty concerns documents or accounts that mention Saints' days or other holidays, without giving an actual date according to the calendar. Such days meant a great deal to our ancestors in their daily lives and were referred to in everything from legal documents and newspaper accounts, to private letters and diaries. Unless you know that St Dismas' Day is 25th March, and Collop Monday is the Monday before Shrove Tuesday, you may spend several hours of research finding the answer. To avoid the time and frustration of such puzzles, Colin Waters has compiled this easy to use reference book. It is a handy guide to dating the many special days on which celebrations or annual customs took place, setting them briefly in a historic, religious or social context. The entries are taken from a variety of sources, from individual family documents to learned encyclopedias, and have been collected over many years. They cover a period from Roman times to the present, and are set out alphabetically and in calendar form. There is also a history of the British Calendar.

This fascinating volume celebrates every aspect of Whitby's Gothic past. With a detailed exploration of the town's connection with Dracula (including historical events such as the beaching of the Dmitri and a visit to many of the book's most famous sites), it will delight all lovers of Gothic fiction. Featuring a complete tour of attractions including the abbey and the churchyard - and full details of the gargoyles, tombstones and many other strange carvings to be found there - it evokes Whitby as it was when Stoker visited. However, Dracula is not the only strange tale told in Whitby, and this volume also collects together many other local ghost stories and legends to make this a volume that no bookshelf in Whitby and far beyond will be complete without.