To celebrate #LàAbairtNaGàidhlig
#SayAGaelicPhraseDay
from ‘The Sound of Many Waters’:
….flicking through a copy of Perthshire Gaelic in the clearance box in a local bookshop I come across a warning: ‘tàlaidhidh am biadh fiadh na beinne’ – ‘hunger makes the wolf come out of the woods’.
Bheil thu deiseil airson Là Abairt na Gàidhlig a-màireach?
//
Are you ready for Say a Gaelic Phrase Day tomorrow?
#SeachdainNaGàidhlig2026 #LàAbairtNaGàidhlig #SayAGaelicPhraseDay
Preorder ‘The Sound of Many Waters’ paperback edition at Waterstones and receive 25% off
enter “FEB26” at the checkout to redeem the offer to receive 25% off RRP
www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb... #WPreorder
Frontispiece illustration from my book 'Into The Peatlands' showing human footprints -shod and unshod- over time preserved at the foot of a stratified peat bank.
Fascinating conference yesterday discussing peatland restoration in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Éire. Delighted to be invited to take part in panel discussion and venture out again into the peatlands. Footprints- human, carbon, corncrake preserved out on the moor.
A conference room with an opening slide for the Peatlands Restoration Conference, co-organised by the Consulate General of Ireland, the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, the University of Edinburgh, and the Centre for Cross Border Cooperation.
Weekly dose of inspiration from yesterday’s conference on #peatlands, co-hosted by the Consulate General for Ireland, UoE, ECCI, and @crossborder.bsky.social - highlighting amazing and ongoing collaborations across the arts/humanities and sciences, and the impact of research across borders
Happy Birthday!
Painting by Dundee artist James Macintosh Patrick 1940. View towards Blackness from his window with Monday washing on line in November garden. Apple tree still fruiting. Little girl in picture now 87
Thank you to everyone who came along yesterday, lovely to share Tay stories with you. Thank you for buying so many copies if my book! And a huge thank you to Fiona and the Blackness librarians for organising and making me so welcome.
A poster advertising Book Week Scotland with the slogan 'friendship woven through words'. The dates are 17–23 November.
Book Week Scotland is friendship woven through words. ❤📚
Whatever you are doing to celebrate, from going along to one of hundreds of events to reading a brilliant book at home, we wish you a happy Book Week Scotland! 📚🥳
Wee 50 word piece on friendship published for @scottishbooktrust.bsky.social #BookWeekScotland
It’s the one beginning “Friends are the ones that you enjoy the bitterest of arguments with.”
My friend is delighted with the “contains strong language” warning!
www.scottishbooktrust.com/scotlands-st...
Delighted to be talking about my journey along the River Tay at Blackness, my local library when I lived on Windsor Street. #bookweekscotland #bookweekscotland25 #dundee #bookevent
Book places here:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/robin-craw...
We're delighted to announce that we'll be publishing 'predominant nature writer' Jim Crumley's latest book, Symphonic: Harmony in Nature and Why It Matters ✨
Read more here:
saraband.net/2025/09/17/s...
#Booksky
📚💙
Thank you to Frazer and everyone who came along to the reading last night. It was a lovely evening. I particularly liked the cross, small schoolboy who came in during the talk to say to his mum in the audience ”You’ve got the key of the house!”
Event at the Birnam Reader Bookshop, 7:30 pm on Thursday 11th September. Station Rd, Birnam, Dunkeld PH8 0DS
A tryst/a ceilidh. “On the bridge over the Inchewan Burn that separates Little Dunkeld from Birnam a plaque marks the traditional boundary of the Highland Gaelic and Lowland Scots languages: allt/burn, Uisge Tatha/River Tay.“ Be braw to meet you at The Birnam Reader Bookshop next Thursday. #BookSky
Thank you to readers, supporters, browsers and friends who came on Thursday evening and made the evening so special not least my bookselling colleagues. Extremely touched.
Audience at event in Toppings bookshop, St Andrews, Scotland for launch of ‘The Sound of Many Waters’ raise their hands to map the river Tay and its main tributaries.
Waving not drowning. “Hold up your hand… if the Tay is the index finger, imagine your thumb as the Isla, flowing in from the east, your middle finger the rivers Garry and Tummel from the north, and from the west the ring finger represents the Braan and the Almond, your pinkie the Earn.” #booksky
Having introduced so many authors as a bookseller I’m looking forward to the official launch of my own book #TheSoundOfManyWaters in the bookshop on Thursday. Do join me if you can. 7:30pm
www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/st-an...
The reviewer does not only inform the reader but can inspire further creativity:-
“I am browsing the weekend papers, the ‘Culture’ pages,
reading the reviews…
Thank you @blackwells.bsky.social #Edinburgh for your -double- support of #TheSoundOfManyWaters much appreciated. My dad and I used to love discovering wonderful books in all the neuks of the old James Thin’s and it was a real pleasure revisit the South Bridge bookshop with my own son today.
Reviews for ‘The Sound of Many Waters’
Travel through time and space along Scotland's longest river Robin A Crawford's account of walking the Tay from source to sea is like having a local show you around their home river. In 2019, the historian and long-distance kayaker David Gange wrote a book…
Thank you to Roger Cox for his kind and understanding review of #TheSoundofManyWaters in @scotsman.com on Saturday. Thank you for getting it! Extremely touched for my book to be mentioned in the exalted company of #DavidGange and @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social
www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/ou...
Do please join me at @waterstones.bsky.social #Dundee on 21st August. “Under Waterstones on Commercial Street… a tide line five feet from the floor encircles the basement offices and storerooms, marking a Tay flood 15 years ago.” Wellies optional.
www.waterstones.com/events/in-co...
…have your heartstrings tugged by the emotional stories of peoples sufferings, soar with the reading of the beautiful poem but when the anti-semitic chants start that is when you leave.
…you had not considered or challenges one you thought you were firm on, ponder on those who make a counter-argument to your pre-conceived ideas, forebear the trite, the trendy, the populist, greet with a wry smile the old saws rehashed from the demos of your youth- “hello pal, awright?”-…
…you most agree with, clap (or if one hand is holding a placard you shoogle it up and down) to show your approval of pertinent points, nod if someone makes a good argument for a view you had not considered or challenges one you thought you were firm on, ponder on those who make a counter-argument…
Of course by attending such a demo you are at the mercy of your fellow demonstrators. Yes, you are anti-Trump but we are each against him in our own individual ways. You admire the banners: that’s a good one, yes, very funny, ouch, naw that’s just rude, that apostrophe! You cheer the speakers that…
From the introduction
Roaster definition from Trump’s 2018 Scotland trip
The source of the placard from my book ‘Cauld Blasts and Clishmaclavers’
Went to the Anti-Trump demo in Aberdeen last Saturday
@aliciabruce.bsky.social taking portraits of all of today’s placard and banner makers- continuing her work photographic reportage of Trumps impact on Aberdeenshire started in her brilliant book I Burn But Am Not Consumed. Available here: www.toppingbooks.co.uk/books/alicia...
@ukstoptrump.bsky.social in Aberdeen
Thank you to booksellers Euan, Nick and Richard @waterstones.bsky.social #Perth for your kind welcome and continued warm support of ‘The Sound of Many Waters’, very much appreciated.
