Best known for her masterpiece of mountain literature The Living Mountain, (first published in 1977) Nan Shepherd, who died in 1981 has been in the news recently. Her image now graces the new Scottish £5 note; The Living Mountain (about her experiences in the Cairngorms) has become a classic and sells in its thousands. Nan Shepherd lived all her life in Deeside, yet few people, even in Scotland, seem to have heard of her until recently. Now a new biography “Into the Mountain” by Charlotte Peacock unravels some of the mysteries, dispels some of the rumours and gives insight into…

Today ‘The Hidden Ways: Scotland’s forgotten Drove Roads’ – a new book by Scottish historian Alistair Moffat – is published by Canongate Press, and we have an exclusive extract below. The Hidden Ways wanders Scotland’s forgotten paths to tell an alternative history of Scotland and our place within its landscape. The Hidden Ways will spearhead Alistair Moffat’s campaign to reopen Scotland’s forgotten roads, starting in 2017 and culminating in 2020. The project will be the largestcommunity enterprise ever undertaken in Scotland, and has the support of Creative Scotland, VisitScotland, BBC Radio Scotland and DC Thomson. Born in Kelso in 1950,…