Blood on the Thistle is an examination of the life and times of a remarkable Scottish family, the Cranstons of Haddington, East Lothian. It focuses on a period from about 1880, when the young, hard-working parents, Alec and Lizzie Cranston, arrived in Haddington, through to 1920, when the family they had produced, torn apart by the effects of the Great War, broke up as its surviving members pursued separate lives around the globe.Out of seven sons who served in the First World War, four died and two more were horrifically wounded; only one, the youngest, returned home physically unscathed. This book explores the effects of this extreme sacrifice on the sons themselves as well as the loved ones they left behind, particularly their mother, Lizzie, who mourned them for the rest of her days.This is the tale of how a once proud and aspirational Scottish family was devastated by war, and how the effects continued to ripple through time and generations. Until, a century later, the threads of this remarkable family finally begin to be drawn together again, in a book that is at once a superb documentary account and a moving tribute to a generation.

Blood on the Thistle is an examination of the life and times of a remarkable Scottish family, the Cranstons of Haddington, East Lothian. It focuses on a period from about 1880, when the young, hard - working parents, Alec and Lizzie Cranston, arrived in Haddington, through to 1920, when the family they had produced, torn apart by the Great War, broke up as its surviving members pursued separate lives around the globe. Of seven sons who served in the First World War, four died and two more were horrifically wounded; only one, the youngest, returned home physically unscathed. This book explores the effects of this extreme sacrifi ce on the sons themselves as well as the loved ones they left behind, particularly their mother, Lizzie, who mourned them for the rest of her days. This is the tale of how a once proud and aspirational Scottish family was devastated by war, and how the effects continued to ripple through time and generations. Until, a century later, the threads of this remarkable family are finally drawn together again, in a book that is at once a superb documentary account and a moving tribute to a generation.

The police are calling them accidents. They say young men are simply drinking too much and meeting a tragic end in icy lakes and rivers. But the public thinks something else has been going on in America's northland since 1997. They're calling the sudden disappearances of hundreds of college-age men mysterious. They're calling the drownings murder. [Special Black & White Illustrated Discounted Edition]

This book purports to be a manuscript dictated by a strange being named I-Am-The-Man to a man named Llewyllyn Drury. Drury's adventure culminates in a trek through a cave in Kentucky into the core of the earth. It blends passages on the nature of physical phenomena, such as gravity and volcanoes, with spiritualist speculation and adventure-story elements (like traversing a landscape of giant mushrooms).

"The Staff at Simson's" is Frederick Niven's most famous Scottish novel. It tells an absorbing story of class-divided Glasgow life. Filled with entertaining characters and a gripping plot, this book makes a delightful read.