Shetland Bus is top-selling book in 2010
Shetland’s wartime links with Norway provided the winner in last year’s Shetland bestsellers. The Shetland Times Bookshop has announced its list of the top 10 bestselling Shetland titles during 2010. Number one spot is claimed by David Howarth’s enduring wartime classic The Shetland Bus which was first published in 1951.
The Shetland Times Ltd produced a new quality paperback edition of The Shetland Bus in 1998 which has now been reprinted five times. Interestingly the book which claimed second spot in the list contains a photo of the launch of The Shetland Bus. Da Wye I Saa It by Scalloway man Robbie Johnson was certainly the fastest selling Shetland book of the year, racking up second place in only three weeks after its late publication in Decem-ber. Laughton Johnston’s production for the Hamefarin celebrations, A Kist of Emigrants, took third spot.
Eight of the top 10 were from The Shetland Times Ltd. Although 2010 was not a bumper year in terms of the number of books making it into print Shetland is full of budding writers and over the years almost every conceivable subject related to the islands has been published.
An innovative experiment this year was the production of a Shetland spell-checker dictionary. Details of this free download went out with Shetland Words by Alastair and Adaline Christie-Johnston. You do not have to buy the book, you can find the spell-checker dictionary at www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/shet landwordsdictionary.
The Shetland Times Ltd is always looking for exciting new book projects and would welcome submissions for books with Shetland connections, particularly non-fiction works – local and natural history, biographies, music, craft and maritime topics. If you have manuscript or a project idea you wish to discuss contact publications manager Charlotte Black (c.black@shetland-times.co.uk).
The top 10 were (unaudited sales figures in brackets): The Shetland Bus, David Howarth (1,741); Da Wye I Saa It, Robert Johnson (1,170); A Kist of Emigrants, Laughton Johnston (952); Shetland Words, A & A Christie-Johnston (806); Shetland Diaries, Simon King (647); Shetland: A Love Story, Wheatcroft & Sinclair (619); Heirloom Knitting, Sharon Miller (497); Water In Burgidale, Charlie Simpson (466); Fair Isle Knitting, Mary Macgregor (418); On the Rocks, Lawrence Tulloch (389).
