The Charles Low Book Club
2026 Selections
February 9, 2026
Now We Shall Be Free by Andrew Miller (421 p.) FIC
The Low Library Book Club’s choice for our February meeting is Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller.
Our discussion will take place on February 9, 2026, at 5:30 pm (EST) via Zoom. All are welcome.
Email Cathy McCullough Les at library@detroitscots.com for the Zoom invitation or if you have any questions.
Here is a description of the story:
A stunning historical novel with the grip of a thriller, written in richly evocative, luminous prose. One rain-swept February night in 1809, an unconscious man is carried into a house in Somerset. He is Captain John Lacroix, home from Britain’s disastrous campaign against Napoleon’s forces in Spain. Gradually Lacroix recovers his health, but not his peace of mind – he cannot talk about the war or face the memory of what happened in a village on the gruelling retreat to Corunna. After the command comes to return to his regiment, he sets out instead for the Hebrides, with the vague intent of reviving his musical interests and collecting local folksongs. Lacroix sails north incognito, unaware that he has far worse to fear than being dragged back to the army: a vicious English corporal and a Spanish officer are on his trail, with orders to kill. The haven he finds on a remote island with a family of free-thinkers and the sister he falls for are not safe, at all. Winner of the Highland Book Prize, 2018.
2025 Selections
November 10, 2025
How to Kill a Witch: the patriarchy’s guide to silencing women by Claire Mitchell (320 p.) HIST
Scotland, 1563: Crops failed. People starved. And the Devil’s influence was stronger than ever—at least, that’s what everyone believed. If you were a woman living in Scotland during this turbulent time, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch.
During the chaos of the Reformation, violence against women was codified for the first time in the Witchcraft Act—a tool of theocratic control with one chilling to root out witches and rid the land of evil. What followed was a dark and misogynistic chapter in history that fanned the flames of witch hunts across the globe, including in the United States and beyond.
In How to Kill a Witch, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell, hosts of the popular Witches of Scotland podcast, unravel the grim yet absurdly bureaucratic process of identifying, accusing, trying, and executing women as witches. With sharp wit and keen feminist insight, they reveal the inner workings of a patriarchal system designed to weaponize fear and oppress women.
This captivating (and often infuriating) account, which weaves a rich tapestry of trial transcripts, witness accounts, and the documents that set the legal grounds for the witch hunts, exposes how this violent period of history mirrors today’s struggles for justice and equality. How to Kill a Witch is a powerful, darkly humorous reminder of the dangers of superstition, bias, and ignorance, and a warning to never forget the past… while raising the question of whether it could ever happen again.
September 15, 2025
White Nights (Shetland #2) and Red Bones (Shetland #3) by Ann Cleeves (392 p., 340 p.) MYS
White Nights:
It’s midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate party to launch an exhibition of her work at The Herring House, a gallery on the beach. The party ends in farce when one the guests, a mysterious Englishman, bursts into tears and claims not to know who he is or where he’s come from. The following day the Englishman is found hanging from a rafter, and Detective Jimmy Perez is convinced that the man has been murdered. He is reinforced in this belief when Roddy, Bella’s musician nephew, is murdered, too. But the detective’s relationship with Fran Hunter may have clouded his judgment, for this is a crazy time of the year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems.
Red Bones:
An island shrouded in mist and a community with secrets buried in the past . . .
When a young archaeologist studying on a site at Whalsay discovers a set of human remains, the island settlers are intrigued. Is it an ancient find – or a more contemporary mystery?
Then an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident in the middle of the night. Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called in by her grandson – his own colleague, Sandy Wilson.
The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. Mima Wilson was a recluse. She had her land, her pride and her family. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.
Surrounded by people he doesn’t know and in unfamiliar territory, Jimmy finds himself out of his depth. Then there’s another death and, as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again.
Past Years’ Books
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06/09/2025 – To Be Continued by James Robertson (324 p.) FIC 04/14/2025 – Set Adrift Upon the World: the Sutherland Clearances by James Hunter ( 416 p.) 02/10/2025 –Lost Lights of St Kilda by Elisabeth Gifford (279 p.) FIC 11/18/2024 – News of the Dead by James Robertson (384 p.) FIC 9/16/2024 – The Salt and the Flame by Donald S. Murray. (288 p.) FIC 6/10/2024 – The Art of Dying (Raven & Fisher, #2) by Ambrose Parry (409 p.) MYS 4/8/2024 – The Way of All Flesh (Raven & Fisher, #1) by Ambrose Parry (409 p) MYS 2/12.2024 – Home by John Mackay (256 p.) FIC 11/13/2023 – The Bookseller of Inverness by S.G. Maclean (416 p.) MYS 9/18/2023 – Of Stone and Sky by Merryn Glover (376 p.) FIC 6/12/2023 – Laidlaw by William McIlvanney (224 p.) MYS 4/10/2023 – Kidnapped (David Balfour, #1) by Robert Louis Stevenson. (288 p.) FIC 2/13/2023 – Death of a Chief (John MacKenzie, #1) by Douglas Watt. (183 p.) MYS 11/14/2022 – Croft in the Hills by Katherine Stewart. (159 p.) MEMOIR 9/19/2022 – Two Closes and a Referendum by Mary McCabe. (369 p.) FIC 6/13/2022 – As the Women Lay Dreaming by Donald S. Murray. (288 p.) FIC 4/11/2022 – The Royal Stuarts: a History of the Family that Shaped Britain by Allan Massie. (370 p.) HIST 2/14/2022 – The Sopranos by Alan Warner. (336 p.) FIC |
11/8/2021 – The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir. (256 p.) BIO 9/20/2021 – The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy, book #1) by Peter May. (386 p.) MYS 6/14/2021 – Clanlands by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish. (297 p.) TRAVEL/MEMOIR 4/12/2021 – Sunset Song ( Scots Quair, #1) by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. (269 p.) FIC 2/8/2021 – The Game of Kings (Lymond chronicles, #1) by Dorothy Dunnett. (568 p.) FIC 12/14/2020 – The Mermaids Singing (Tony Hill, #1) by Val McDermid. (464 p.) MYS 10/12/2020 – 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street series, #1) by Alexander McCall Smith. (325 p.) FIC 6/1/2020 – Shetland Bus: a WWII Epic of Escape, Survival, and Adventure by David Howarth. (248 p.) HIST 3/2/2020 – White Rose Rebel by Janet Paisley. (391 p.) FIC 1/6/2020 – Entry Island by Peter May. (448 p.) MYS 11/4/2019 – Raven Black (Shetland series, #1) by Ann Cleeves. (384 p.) MYS 9/9/2019 – Whisky Galore by Compton MacKenzie. (304 p.) FIC 6/3/2019 – Waverley, Or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since (Waverley novels, #1) by Walter Scott. (491 p.) FIC 4/1/2019 – Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan. (304 p.) FIC 2/42019 – Witch Hunt by Jack Harvey ( pseud. of Ian Rankin). (451 p.) MYS
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