john of john

Wowza. I feel like I just got home from Scotland! I was so immersed in this book, when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. Now I’m sad it’s over. It’s about so many things, life in Scotland, set in a remote farmland island. It’s about love, sexuality, family, faith, and secrets. All the while explaining the colors of things in the most poetic way. I also enjoyed the dialect, he was able to activate all my senses. I never read shuggie Bain or young mungo, I’m so curious about them now. Did you read his other books?

Books

4 months ago

Comments

Melinda

@crimpyJun 29, 2026

Mindy, same! I was so immersed in the landscape and the island. I went immediately on to Shuggie Bain and possibly loved it even more; even though it’s more bleak, it’s also full of love.

Across Rec League

John of John

Sarah Bohl

“Let me just be another person to recommend this book to you. BUT! As I purchased this in Hatchards’s in London, it has NO book club stickers on it (yay). I have dog eared this book up somethin awful. The writing is outstanding. And heartbreaking. Reminds me of a cross between The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyle and A River Runs Through It by Norman McLean.”

Sterling Graves

“An incredible book. Couldn’t put it down. Slow, but in the way a good story should be slow, giving you time to sit with the people and the place. A father and son on a small island in the Outer Hebrides, each trying to make sense of a life that feels both small and enormous. Told from both perspectives, the story gets into family, faith, masculinity, love, and all the things fathers and sons strug”