Books and Movies before Scotland trip

Here's a couple of movie suggestions to get you started

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2725962/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4194108/

I highly recommend a series of historical fiction books by Susanna Kearsley. She is a Canadian author but her family came from Scotland and she has written a number of books that are based in Scotland that I absolutely love. If you go to her website, you can see each of the books there, and she offers up the first chapter for free so you can see if you like it.

The Winter Sea it takes place along the east coast, north of Edinburgh at Cruden Bay and Slains Castle. The book has two different time periods in it; present day and the late 1700s. The character of John Moray was from the Perth area. Read this one first—it's one of my favorites and was the reason I first became interested in Scotland.

The Vanished Days takes place in Edinburgh; more particular in the Leith area ,and it's a wonderful book that takes place in the early 1700s. Gladstone's Land is featured a lot in the book and that is still in Edinburgh to this day. You can visit the museum with the old rooms there that people used to live in.

And here is a thread from a couple of years ago with lots and lots of ideas for movies about Scotland.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/scotland/movies-and-or-tv-shows-to-watch-before-visiting-scotland

ETA: actually I also found Rick's list that he posts on the Scotland page. That has a lot of options: https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/scotland/books-movies

I loved Clear by Carys Davis, having known nothing about the Clearances and their lasting impact on Scotland. Highly recommend!
Peter May's mystery series (but I only read the first) was also so good, but partly because I spent time in The Hebrides, so not sure about Iona.

Lewis Grassick-Gibbons - A Scots Quair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scots_Quair

Edited to add after reading the Wikipedia entry: Yes, if you read one book it has to be Sunset Song. It's definitely the most highly regarded. It's years since I read it, but from what I remember you get a good feel of the land, the soil, the sky; quite a descriptive book in that sort of way if I remember correctly.

Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trainspotting_(novel)

Speaking of Trainspotting: I visited Scotland for the first time in 2003 on a library themed group tour, and several of the participants had read romance novels set in the Highlands like Outlander, so they had quite romantic expectations for the country. Meanwhile I was a huge fan of Irvine Welsh's books and could not wait to see Edinburgh with my own eyes. I met up with a friend's brother for dinner one night, and he took me to a bougie restaurant in Leith--how disappointing! I was ready for football hooligans and problematic substance use, but all I found was gentrification.

Anyhow, I think Leith might be even more fancy these days, but I would still recommend Welsh's books as a snapshot in time. I love Ecstasy but I cannot remember if it was set in Edinburgh? You could also read Ian Rankin's mysteries featuring Inspector Rebus, and then visit the Oxford Bar in the New Town. I think Douglas Stuart and Ali Smith are brilliant Scottish writers, but their books' settings might be outside your itinerary.

We loved watching Outlaw King which focuses on Robert the Bruce (played by Chris Pine). Beautiful scenery & castles from all around Scotland, and while not 100% historically accurate, the movie gave us a good overview of this historical era of Scotland's history.

I'm not the biggest fan of all of Irvine Welsh's work, but Trainspotting was an important book.

I brought him up in another thread because I already sort of recognised him from around town when he started getting well known. Never had a conversation as such, but he was a Pure member around same time I was and would be out in Glasgow sometimes too. I saw him do a reading at John Smith's in Byres Road many years ago, one of the books after Trainspotting. He is quite an entertaining speaker.

Edinburgh in Trainspotting is more an Edinburgh of the late eighties. It was absolutely ravaged by heroin in the 80's. I remember it in the 90's when the city centre nightlife was under much tighter control by the casuals than Glasgow was at that time. It steadily cleaned up until where it is now with such a large tourist economy. What you see in the city centre anyway. Even Leith is getting a bit posher.

I enjoyed the crime novels of Christopher Brookmyre.

GerryM, are you a Scottish musician? Wow!

Trainspotting, kinda depressing, no? But impactful.

Happy travels

P.S. Oh and Sean Connery in anything. That guy made we want to move to Scotland! (Until I went there-- and I gotta say I don't think I saw the sun and it was in July...but I digress. Beautiful still, despite the soggy weather!)

GerryM, are you a Scottish musician? Wow!
Trainspotting, kinda depressing, no? But impactful.

I'm not a musician as such, no. Pure was an Edinburgh nightclub that was members only to keep the hooligans out.

Depressing? I dunno. Nihilistic? I like a bit of nihilism sometimes. It's a tough read in the dialect it's written in until you get into the swing of it. It's a different dialect to mine even, being set in the east.

Local Hero (a film from the 80s)