Saltire Society Literary Awards should not be confused with Saltire Prize.
Scotland's National Book Awards, formerly known as the Saltire Society Literary Awards, are made annually by the Saltire Society. First awarded in 1937, they are awarded for books by Scottish authors or about Scotland, and are awarded in several categories.
The first Saltire Society Book Award was given in 1937, the year after the Saltire Society was established. No awards were given after 1939 due to the Second World War, and the next award was made 1956. The History Book of the Year award was inaugurated in 1965. In 1982 sponsorship was obtained and since then the awards have been made annually. First books have been recognised since 1988, and in 1998 the award for Scottish Research Book of the Year was established.[1]
Until around 2021, the awards were known as the Saltire Society Literary Awards, subtitled Scotland's National Book Awards,[2] but then took on the subtitle as the name covering all of the literary awards that the society awards: Scotland's National Book Awards, and are known by this name .[3]
The awards seek to recognise books which are either by "living authors of Scottish descent or residing in Scotland," or which deal with "the work or life of a Scot or with a Scottish question, event or situation".[4]
, the winner in each category receives an award created by artist Simon Baker of Evergreen Studios, based in Inverness; the winners of each literary award receive a cash prize of £2,000, while the winner of the Saltire Society Book of the Year is given a further £4,000.
A one-off Homecoming Book of the Year award was made in 2009 to celebrate the "Year of homecoming": the award was presented to American professor Donald Worster for his biography of John Muir, A Passion for Nature.[5]
In 2014, the Scottish Literary Book of the Year was awarded,[6] but was replaced after only one year by separate awards for Fiction Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Book of the Year
, the Saltire Society presents awards in the seven following categories:[7]
In 2019, a Lifetime Achievement Award was introduced, the inaugural prize going to Alasdair Gray.[9] [10] [11]
Subsequent winners of the lifetime achievement have been:
In addition, an annual student travel bursary is awarded to a creative writing graduate, and the Ross Roy Medal is awarded for the best PhD thesis on a subject related to Scottish literature.[12]
The Scottish Book of the Year award was established in 1937,[1] and has been given annually since 1982. The award is open to novels, poetry and plays as well as non-fiction works on Scottish subjects.[12]
| Year | Work | Author | Ref(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Highland River | Neil M. Gunn | ||
| 1937 | The Lord Bothwell | Robert Gore-Browne | ||
| 1939 | Three Plays | |||
| 1956 | One Foot in Eden | |||
| 1958 | Scotland Before History | |||
| 1982 | [13] | |||
| 1983 | Collected Poems | |||
| Poems of Thirty Years | ||||
| 1984 | God and the Poets: The Gifford Lectures | |||
| Intimate Voices: Selected Works | ||||
| 1985 | Collected Poems | |||
| 1986 | A Storm from Paradise | |||
| 1987 | The Stories of Muriel Spark | |||
| 1988 | Games with Shadows | |||
| The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy | ||||
| 1989 | A Question of Loyalties | |||
| 1990 | O Choille gu Bearradh / From Wood to Ridge | |||
| 1991 | Scottish Art 1460–1990 | |||
| 1992 | Collected Poems | |||
| 1993 | Robert Burns – A Biography | James A. Mackay | ||
| 1994 | Beside the Ocean of Time | |||
| 1995 | Black Sea | |||
| 1996 | The Kiln | |||
| 1997 | Grace Notes | |||
| 1998 | The Sopranos | |||
| 1999 | Pursuits | |||
| 2000 | The Lantern Bearers | |||
| 2001 | Medea | |||
| 2002 | Clara | [14] | ||
| 2003 | Joseph Knight | James Robertson | ||
| 2004 | In Another Light | [15] | ||
| 2005 | Case Histories | [16] | ||
| 2006 | A Lie About My Father | |||
| 2007 | Day | |||
| 2008 | Kieron Smith, Boy | [17] | ||
| 2009 | The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography | [18] | ||
| 2010 | And the Land Lay Still | |||
| 2011 | A Life in Pictures | |||
| 2012 | Mo Said She Was Quirky | |||
| 2013 | Something Like Happy | [19] | ||
| 2014 | The Scottish Town in the Age of Enlightenment 1740–1820 | [20] [21] | ||
| 2015 | The Book of Strange New Things | [22] | ||
| 2016 | The Bonniest Companie | Kathleen Jamie | [23] | |
| 2017 | Kapka Kassabova | [24] | ||
| 2018 | All That Remains | Sue Black | [25] | |
| 2019 | Working Verse in Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community | Kirstie Blair | [26] | |
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | Duck Feet | Ely Percy | [27] | |
| 2022 | Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean | David Alston | ||
| 2023 | Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began | Leah Hazard | [28] | |
The award for Literary Book of the Year was introduced in 2014, and was open to fiction, non-fiction or plays .The award only existed for one year before being replaced by separate awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | How To Be Both | Ali Smith | Winner | [29] |
| All The Rage | A L Kennedy | Shortlist | [30] | |
| Gone Are The Leaves | Anne Donovan | |||
| Where Memories Go | Sally Magnusson | |||
| Cala Bendita | Martin MacIntyre | |||
| The James Plays | Rona Munro |
The fiction book of the year award was inaugurated in 2015.
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | The Book of Strange New Things | Winner | |||
| The Illuminations | Andrew O'Hagan | Shortlist | [31] | ||
| A Decent Ride | Irvine Welsh | ||||
| Jellyfish | Janice Galloway | ||||
| An Dosan | Norma Nicleod | ||||
| God in Ruins | Kate Atkinson | ||||
| 2016 | His Bloody Project | Graeme Macrae Burnet | Winner | ||
| The Blade Artists | Irvine Welsh | Shortlist | [32] | ||
| Dirt Road | James Kelman | ||||
| The Sunlight Pilgrims | Jenni Fagan | ||||
| This Must Be the Place | Maggie O'Farrell | ||||
| The Brilliant and Forever | Kevin MacNeil | ||||
| 2017 | Memory and Straw | Angus Peter Campbell | Winner | ||
| Midwinter Break | Bernard MacLaverty | Shortlist | [33] | ||
| The Long Drop | Denise Mina | ||||
| That Was a Shiver | James Kelman | ||||
| Dalila | Jason Donald | ||||
| Ashland and Vine | John Burnside | ||||
| 2018 | Elsewhere, Home | Leila Aboulela | Winner | [34] | |
| A Treachery of Spies | Manda Scott | Shortlist | |||
| Dead Men's Trousers | Irvine Welsh | ||||
| The Growing Season | Helen Sedgwick | ||||
| The Great Chain of Unbeing | Andrew Crumey | ||||
| The Sealwoman's Gift | Sally Magnusson | ||||
| 2019 | Nina X | Ewan Morrison | Winner | [35] | |
| Bird Summons | Leila Aboulela | Shortlist | [36] | ||
| You Will Be Safe Here | Damian Barr | ||||
| Tiger | Polly Clark | ||||
| Ducks, Newburyport | Lucy Ellmann | ||||
| Còig Duilleagan na Seamraig (Five Leaves of the Shamrock) | Ruairidh MacIlleathain (Roddy MacLean) | ||||
| 2020 | No award given | ||||
| 2021 | Duck Feet | Ely Percy | Winner | [37] | |
| Scabby Queen | Kirstin Innes | Shortlist | [38] | ||
| Shuggie Bain | Douglas Stuart | ||||
| Luckenbooth | Jenni Fagan | ||||
| There's Only One Danny Garvey | David F. Ross | ||||
| 2022 | Blood & Gold: A Journey of Shadows | Mara Menzies | Winner | ||
| Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy | Emma Grae | Shortlist | [39] | ||
| Cwen | Alice Albinia | ||||
| News of the Dead | James Robertson | ||||
| The Pharmacist | Rachelle Atalla | ||||
| Young Mungo | Douglas Stuart | ||||
| 2023 | In Ascension | Martin MacInnes | Winner | [40] | |
| crann-fie/Fig Tree | Duncan Gillies | Shortlist | [41] | ||
| Electricity | Andrew Peter Campbell | ||||
| Hell Sans | Ever Dundas | ||||
| Mother Sea | Lorraine Wilson | ||||
| Orpheus Builds a Girl | Heather Parry | ||||
The first book of the year award was inaugurated in 1988 and recognises an author who has not previously published a book. As with the book of the year, the award is open to novels, plays, poems and non-fiction.[12]
| Year | Work | Author | Ref(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | The Richt Noise | Raymond Vettese | ||
| 1989 | Cells of Knowledge | Sian Hayton | ||
| 1990 | The Ballad of Sawney Bain | Harry Tait | ||
| 1991 | Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains | |||
| 1992 | Adoption Papers | |||
| Uirsgeul/Myth | Christopher Whyte | |||
| 1993 | Robert Louis Stevenson: Dreams of Exile | Ian Bell | [42] | |
| 1994 | Music, in a Foreign Language | Andrew Crumey | [43] | |
| 1995 | Free Love and Other Stories | |||
| 1996 | Slattern | |||
| 1997 | A Painted Field | |||
| 1998 | The Pied Piper's Poison | Christopher Wallace | ||
| Two Clocks Ticking | Dennis O'Donnell | |||
| 1999 | Some Rain Must Fall | |||
| 2000 | The Rising Sun | |||
| 2001 | In the Blue House | |||
| 2002 | Burns the Radical | |||
| The Cutting Room | ||||
| 2003 | Ath – Aithne | Martainn Mac an t-Saoir | ||
| 2004 | Stargazing | |||
| 2005 | Amande's Bed | John Aberdein | ||
| 2006 | George Mackay Brown: The Life | Maggie Fergusson | ||
| 2007 | Fresh | Mark McNay | ||
| 2008 | The Good Mayor | Andrew Nicoll | ||
| 2009 | The Tin-Kin | |||
| 2010 | The History of Orkney Literature | Simon W. Hall | [44] | |
| The Death of Lomond Friel | Sue Peebles | |||
| 2011 | The Echo Chamber | |||
| 2012 | The Last Highlander |
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Air Cuan Dubh Drilseach | Tim Armstrong | Winner | |
| As Far As I Can See | Eunice Buchanan | |||
| The Necessary Death Of Lewis Winter | Malcolm Mackay | Shortlist | [45] | |
| Nothing Is Heavy | Vicky Jarrett | |||
| Kaleb's List | Kellan MacInnnes | |||
| 2014 | Moontide | Niall Campbell | Winner | |
| Any Other Mouth | Anneliese Mackintosh | Shortlist | [46] | |
| The Legacy Of Elizabeth Pringle | Kirsty Wark | |||
| The Monster's Wife | Kate Horsley | |||
| The Last Pair Of Ears | Mary F McDonough | |||
| The Rental Heart | Kirsty Logan | |||
| 2015 | On the Edges of Vision | Helen McClory | [47] | |
| 60 Degrees North | Mallachy Tallack | Shortlist | [48] | |
| Airstream | Audrey Henderson | |||
| Lie Of The Land | Michael F Russell | |||
| The Liepzig Affair | Fiona Rintoul | |||
| The Peoples Referendum | Peter Geogheghan | |||
| 2016 | Trials on Death Row | Isabel Buchanan | Winner | |
| Expecting | Chitra Ramaswamy | |||
| Infinite Ground | Martin McInnes | Shortlist | ||
| This Changes Things | Claire Askew | |||
| 2017 | Goblin | Ever Dundas | Winner | |
| The Case Room | Kate Hunter | Shortlist | ||
| Language of my Choosing: The candid life-memoir of an Italian Scot | Anne Pia | |||
| Beneath The Skin | Sandra Ireland | |||
| Mary's The Name | Ross Sayers | |||
| Fallow | Daniel Shand | |||
| 2018 | Sal | Mick Kitson | Winner | [49] |
| Amphibian | Christina Neuwirth | Shortlist | [50] | |
| St Kilda: The Silent Islands | Alex Boyd | |||
| A' Togail an t-Srùbain | Calum L. MacLeòid | |||
| 2019 | Threads of Life | Clare Hunter | Winner | [51] |
| Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds | Stephen Rutt | |||
| Overlander: Bikepacking Coast to coast across the Heart of the Highlands | Alan Brown | Shortlist | ||
| Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket | Fraser MacDonald | |||
| A Superior Spectre | Angela Meyer | |||
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | Bleak: The Mundane Comedy | Roddy Murray | Winner | |
| Vanessa Harryhausen | Shortlist | |||
| The Young Team | Graeme Armstrong | |||
| A Kind of Spark | Elle McNicoll | |||
| Mother, Nature | Aoife Lyall | |||
| If Rivers Could Sing | Keith Broomfield | |||
| 2022 | In: The Graphic Novel | Will McPhail | Winner | |
| A Sky Full of Kites | Tom Bowser | Shortlist | ||
| I Am Not Your Eve | Devika Ponnambalam | |||
| Limbo | Georgi Gill | |||
| The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley | Sean Lusk | |||
| The Voids | Ryan O’Connor | |||
| 2023 | For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain | Viktoria MacKenzie | Winner | |
| Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer | Tony Davidson | Shortlist | ||
| Ginger and Me | Elissa Soave | |||
| My Margaret, Your Toshie | Keith Adamson | |||
| The Maiden | Kate Foster | |||
| The Two-Headed Whale | Sandy Winterbottom | |||
The award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year was introduced in 2015
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Adventures In Human Being | Gavin Francis | Winner | |
| Young Eliot | Robert Crawford | Shortlist | ||
| Lifeblood | Gill Fyfe | |||
| This Is Scotland | Daniel Gray & Alan McCredie | |||
| 2016 | Other People's Money | John Kay | Winner | |
| A Little History Of Religion | Richard Holloway | Shortlist | ||
| Fallen Glory | James Crawford | |||
| Glasgow: Mapping The City | John Moore | |||
| The Outrun | Amy Liptro | |||
| 2017 | Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe | Kapka Kassabova | Winner | |
| Al Britannia, My Country: A Journey Through Muslim Britain | James Ferguson | Shortlist | ||
| Scotland: Mapping the Islands | edited by Christopher Fleet, Charles W.J. Withers, and Margaret Wilkes | |||
| Love of Country | Madeleine Bunting | |||
| Waypoints: Seascapes and Stories of Scotland's West Coast | Ian Stephen | |||
| The Passion of Harry Bingo: Further Dispatches from Unreported Scotland | Peter Ross | |||
| 2018 | All That Remains: A Life in Death | Professor Sue Black | Winner | |
| Appointment in Arezzo | Alan Taylor | Shortlist | [52] | |
| Moscow Calling | Angus Roxburgh | |||
| Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa | Joseph Farrell | |||
| The Story Of Looking | Mark Cousins | |||
| Waiting For The Last Bus | Richard Holloway | |||
| 2019 | The World I Fell Out Of | Melanie Reid | Winner | |
| Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me | Kate Clanchy | Shortlist | [53] | |
| Lowborn: Growing up, getting away and returning to Britain's poorest towns | Kerry Hudson | |||
| Seòl Mo Bheatha (My Life Journey) | DòmhnallEachann Meek (Donald E. Meek) | |||
| Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage | Mary Miller | |||
| My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men | Dr David Wilson | |||
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | A Tomb With A View | Peter Ross | Winner | [54] |
| Native: Life in a Vanishing Landscape | Patrick Laurie | Shortlist | ||
| Islands Of Abandonment | Cal Flyn | |||
| Ruxton: The First Modern Murder | Tom Wood | |||
| The See-Through House: My Father in Full Colour | Shelley Klein | |||
| Checkpoint | Joe Donnelley | |||
| 2022 | Homelands: The History of a Friendship | Chitra Ramaswamy | Winner | [55] |
| Alison Watt: A Portrait without Likeness | Alison Watt | Shortlist | [56] | |
| Alternatives To Valium | Alistair McKay | |||
| One Body | Catherine Simpson | |||
| The Eternal Season: A Journey Through Our Changing British Summer | Stephen Rutt | |||
| Seven Ways To Change The World | Gordon Brown | |||
| 2023 | Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began | Leah Hazard | Winner | |
| A Pebble In The Throat: Growing Up Between Two Continents | Aasmah Mir | Shortlist | ||
| Boy Friends | Michael Pederson | |||
| Avacado Anxiety | Loiuse Gray | |||
| The Edge Of The Plain | James Crawford | |||
The award for Poetry Book of the Year was introduced in 2014
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Bones And Breath | Alexander Hutchison | Winner | |
| All In One Breath | John Burnside | Shortlist | [57] | |
| Byssus | Jen Hadfield | |||
| The Cartographer Tries To Map A Way To Zion | Kei Miller | |||
| At Maldon | J O Morgan | |||
| Locust And Marlin | J L Williams | |||
| 2015 | Killochries | Jim Carruth | Winner | |
| Cream Of The Well | Valerie Gillies | Shortlist | ||
| Not All Honey | Roddy Lumsden | |||
| The Good Dark | Ryan Van Winkle | |||
| 2016 | The The Bonniest Companie | Kathleen Jamie | Winner | |
| 40 Sonets | Don Paterson | Shortlist | ||
| Galore | Peter MacKay | |||
| Interference Pattern | J O Morgan | |||
| This Far Back Everything Shimmers | Vicki Husband | |||
| The Golden Mean | John Glenday | |||
| 2017 | Bird-Woman | Em Strang | Winner | |
| Still Life With Feeding Snake | John Burnside | Shortlist | ||
| Farm By The Shore | Thomas A Clark | |||
| Twist | Pippa Little | |||
| In Search of Dustie-Fute | David Kinlock | |||
| Moon For Sale | Richard Price | |||
| 2018 | Wristwatch | Jay Whittaker | Winner | [58] |
| Bantam | Jackie Kay | Shortlist | ||
| So Glad I'm Me | Roddy Lumsden | |||
| The Long Take | Robin Robertson | |||
| Who Is Mary Sue? | Sophie Collins | |||
| 2019 | Hand Over Mouth Music | Janette Ayachi | Winner | [59] |
| The Games | Harry Josephine Giles | Shortlist | ||
| I'm A Pretty Circler | Iain Morrison | |||
| Moder Dy | Roseanne Watt | |||
| Ceum air Cheum | Christopher Whyte | |||
| Line Drawings | Ross Wilson | |||
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | Life Without Air | Daisy Lafarge | Winner | |
| Nàdar De (Some Kind Of) | Padraigh Macaoidh (Patrick Mackay) | Shortlist | ||
| The Threadbare Coat | Thomas A Clark | |||
| Clydebuilt | Owen Gallagher | |||
| Ben Dorain | Garry Mackenzie | |||
| Later That Day | Andrew Greig | |||
| 2022 | How to Burn a Woman | Claire Askew | Winner | [60] |
| At Least This I Know | Andrés N Ordorica | Shortlist | ||
| Blood Salt Spring | Hannah Lavery | |||
| Polaris | Marcas Mac an Tuairneir | |||
| The Luna Erratum | Maria Sledmere | |||
| 2023 | Dastram / Delirium | Taylor Strickland | Winner | |
| Another Way to Split Water | Alycia Pirmoham | Shortlist | ||
| Burning Season | Yvonne Reddick | |||
| The Swailing | Patrick James Errington | |||
| Too Hot to Sleep | Elspeth Wilson | |||
The award for History Book of the Year was established in 1965 in honour of the historian Agnes Mure Mackenzie (1891–1955).[61]
| Year | Work | Author | Ref(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1965 | Robert Bruce | G W S Barrow | [62] | |
| 1974 | Kings And Kingship In Early Scotland | Marjorie O Anderson | [63] | |
| 1975 | Scottish Banking: A History 1695-1973 | S G Checkland | [64] | |
| 1977 | Scottish Population History | M Flinn, P T C Smout, Rosalind Mitchison, Judith Gillespie, Nancy Hill, Ailsa Maxwell | [65] | |
| 1982 | Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth | Stewart J. Brown | [66] | |
| 1983 | ||||
| 1984 | ||||
| 1985 | ||||
| 1986 | A Century of the Scottish People 1830–1950 | [67] | ||
| 1987 | ||||
| 1988 | ||||
| 1989 | ||||
| 1990 | ||||
| 1991 | ||||
| 1992 | ||||
| 1993 | ||||
| 1994 | James I | |||
| 1995 | The Great Highland Famine | |||
| 1996 | ||||
| 1997 | The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III 1371–1406 | |||
| 1998 | The Identity of the Scottish Nation | |||
| 1999 | Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction and the Price of Progress | Eric Richards | ||
| 2000 | The Rough Wooings: Mary Queen of Scots 1542–1551 | |||
| 2001 | The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament: Politics and the Three Estates 1424–1488 | Roland Tanner | [68] | |
| 2002 | The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland | Margo Todd | ||
| 2004 | Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus | Marjory Harper | ||
| 2005 | David II | Michael Penman | ||
| 2006 | Native Lordships in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox c.1140–1365 | Cynthia J. Neville | [69] | |
| 2006 | Scotland's Historic Heraldry | Bruce A. McAndrew | [70] | |
| 2007 | The Scots and the Union | [71] | ||
| 2008 | From Pictland to Alba 789–1070 | [72] | ||
| 2009 | A History of Scottish Philosophy | [73] | ||
| 2010 | Whaur Extremes Meet: Scotland's Twentieth Century | Catriona M. M. MacDonald | [74] | |
| 2011 | The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth Century History | [75] | ||
| 2012 | A Military History of Scotland | E. Spiers, J. Crang and M. Strickland (editors) |
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | An Enlightened Duke: The Life of Archibald Campbell (1682–1761), Earl of Ilay, 3rd Duke of Argyll | Roger L. Emerson | Winner | |
| Death,Life and Religious Change in Scottish Towns, C. 1350 – 1560 | Mairi Cowan | Shortlist | [76] | |
| Scotland No More? The Scots who left Scotland in the Twentieth Century | Marjory Harper | |||
| The Firth of the Forth: An Environmental History | T C Smout and Mairi Stewart | |||
| Annie’s Loo: the Govan origins of Scotland’s Community Based Housing Associations | Raymond Young | |||
| 2014 | Scottish Gods, Religion in the Modern Scotland 1900–2012 | Steve Bruce | Winner | |
| Cosmo Innes and the Defence of Scotland’s Past | Richard A Marsden | Shortlist | [77] | |
| Governing Gaeldom:The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1600-1688 | Allan Kennedy | |||
| A New Race Of Men | Michael Fry | |||
| Painting the Town: Scottish Urban History in Art | E P Dennison, S Eydmann, A Lyell, M Lynch & S Stronach | |||
| 2015 | A Chasm in Time – Scottish War Art and Artists in the Twentieth Century | Patricia R. Andrew | Winner | [78] |
| 2016 | Set Adrift Upon the World | James Hunter | Winner | |
| A Tale Of Three Cities | Bob Harris | Shortlist | ||
| Castles In The Mist | Robin Noble | |||
| Oil Strike North Sea | Mike Stephen | |||
| Shetland And The Great War | James Hunter | |||
| St Kilda | A Gannon Geddes | |||
| 2017 | No award given | |||
| 2018 | The Drowned and the Saved | Les Wilson | Winner | [79] |
| Sir David Nairne. The Life of a Scottish Jacobite at the Court of the Exiled Stuarts | Edward Corp | Shortlist | ||
| Scotland's Populations from the 1850s to Today | Michael Anderson | |||
| Scots & Catalans: Union And Disunion | J H Elliott | |||
| Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics: Empire of Dissent | Valerie Wallace | |||
| 2019 | Alexander III, 1249–1286: First Among Equals | Norman Reid | Winner | [80] |
| John Law, A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century | James Buchan | Shortlist | [81] | |
| The Sea Kings: The Late Norse Kingdoms of Man and the Isles, c.1066-1275 | R Andrew Macdonald | |||
| The Darkest Dawn: The Story of the Iolaire | Malcolm Macdonald and Donald John MacLeod | |||
| Lord Seaforth, Highland Landowner, Caribbean Governor | Finlay McKichan | |||
| Frederick Douglass and Scotland: Living an Antislavery Life | Alasdair Pettinger | |||
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite | Maria Hayward | Winner | |
| History with Heart and Soul | Ness Historical Society Editorial Team with Rachel Barrowman | Shortlist | ||
| Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland | Ewan Biggs | |||
| Union and Revolution: Scotland and Beyond 1625 – 1745 | Laura Stewart and Janay Nugent | |||
| David I: King of Scots 1124 – 1153 | Richard Oram | |||
| Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: The Golden Age and the Viking Age | Fiona Edmonds | |||
| 2022 | Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean | David Alston | Winner | |
| Blood Legacy: Reckoning With A Family's History of Slavery | Alex Renton | Shortlist | ||
| Mael Coluim III, Canmore | Neil McGuigan | |||
| R.B. Cunninghame Graham and Scotland: Party, Prose, and Political Aesthetic | Lachlan Gow Munro | |||
| Embroidering Her Truth | Clare Hunter | |||
| Putting the Tea in Britain | Les Wilson | |||
| 2023 | The People Are Not There: The Transformation of Badenoch 1800–1863 | David Taylor | Winner | [82] |
| The Material Landscapes of Scotland’s Jewellery Craft, 1780-1914 | Sarah Laurenson | Shortlist | ||
| Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger | Charles Withers | |||
| One Mans Legacy: Tom Patey | Mike Dixon | |||
| The Whalers of Harris | Ian Hart | |||
| The Early Life of James VI: A Long Apprenticeship, 1566–1585 | Stephen J Reid | |||
This award was initiated in 1998, and is made jointly by the Saltire Society and the National Library of Scotland. It aims to recognise books which "represent a significant body of research and offer new insight or dimension to the subject".[12]
| Year | Work | Author | Ref(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language | Charles Jones | ||
| 1999 | The Poems of William Dunbar (Volumes I & II) | Priscilla Bawcutt | ||
| 2000 | Jessie Kesson Writing her Life | Isobel Murray | ||
| The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society | William Donaldson | |||
| 2001 | The Scottish Book Trade 1500−1720 | Alastair J. Mann | ||
| 2002 | Sorley MacLean, Poems to Eimhir | Christopher Whyte (editor) | ||
| Public Sculpture of Glasgow | Ray McKenzie | |||
| 2003 | The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection | Emily B. Lyle and Katherine Campbell | ||
| 2004 | The Last of England? | Randall Stevenson | ||
| Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William MacKinnon and his Business Network 1823–1893 | J. Forbes Munro | |||
| 2005 | Weights and Measures in Scotland | |||
| 2006 | Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes | Michael Newton | ||
| 2007 | Scotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature | |||
| 2008 | Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh | Ian Duncan | ||
| 2009 | Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary | Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon | ||
| 2010 | Robert Burns & Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland | Nigel Leask | ||
| Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life | Nicholas Phillipson | |||
| 2011 | Beyond the Last Dragon | James McGonigal | ||
| 2012 | Scotland: Mapping the Nation | C. Fleet, C. Withers and M. Wilkes |
| Year | Work | Author | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | The Sunlit Summit: The Life of W. H. Murray | Robin Lloyd-Jones | Winner | |
| A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable | Ain Crofton | Shortlist | ||
| Visions of Britain, 1730-1830 | Sebastian Mitchell | |||
| Nancy Brysson Morrison: A Literary Life | Mary Seenan | |||
| 2014 | The Scottish Town in the Age of Enlightenment 1740–1820 | Winner | ||
| The Eagles Way | Jim Crumley | Shortlist | [83] | |
| The K2 Man (and his Molluscs) | Catherine Moorehead | |||
| Material Culture and Sedition 1688—1760 | Murray Pittock | |||
| Lexical Variation and Attrition in the Scottish Fishing Communities | Robert McColl Millar, William Barras & Lisa Maria Bonnici | |||
| Landscapes of Protest in the Scottish Highlands after 1914 | Iain J M Robertson | |||
| 2015 | Clubbing Together: Ethnicity, Civility and Formal Sociability in the Scottish Diaspora to 1930 | Tanja Bueltmann | Winner | [84] |
| Microbes and the Fetlar Man: The Life of Sir William Watson Cheyne | Jane Coutts | Shortlist | ||
| The Voice of the People: Hamish Henderson and Scottish Cultural Politics | Corey Gibson | |||
| The Native Woodlands of Scotland | Scott Wilson | |||
| 2016 | The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland | Sebastiaan Verweij | Winner | |
| Vikings in Islay: The Place Of Names in Hebridean Settlement History | Alan McNiven | Shortlist | ||
| James Hogg and British Romanticism: A Kaleidoscopic Art | Meiko O'Halloran | |||
| Scottish Arctic Whaling 1750-WWI | Chesley Sanger | |||
| The Wild Black Region: Badenock 1750-1800 | David Taylor | |||
| 2017 | The Light Blue Book: 500 Years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse | Peter Mackay & Iain MacPherson | Winner | |
| The Campbells of the Ark: Men of Argyll in 1745 (Vol I and II) | Ronald Black | Shortlist | ||
| Muslims in Scotland: The Making of Community in a Post-9/11 World | Stefano Bonino | |||
| History as Theatrical Metaphor | Ian Brown | |||
| Immortal Memory: Burns and the Scottish People | Christopher Whatley | |||
| 2018 | What the Victorians Made of Romanticism: Material Artifacts, Cultural Practices, and Reception History | Tom Mole | Winner | [85] |
| Early Cinema in Scotland | John Caughie, Trevor Griffiths and María A. Vélez-Serna | Shortlist | ||
| Literature and Union: Scottish Texts, British Contexts | Gerard Carruthers and Colin Kidd | |||
| Tea and Empire: James Taylor in Victorian Ceylon | Angela McCarthy and Sir Tom Devine | |||
| The Chair of Verity: Political Preaching and Pulpit Censure in Eighteenth-century Scotland | Ronald Lyndsay Crawford | |||
| 2019 | Working Verse in Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community | Kirstie Blair | Winner | [86] |
| The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 | T M Devine | Shortlist | [87] | |
| Energy at the End of the World: An Orkney Islands Saga | Laura Watts | |||
| 2020 | No award given | |||
| 2021 | Darkness Visible: The Sculptor’s Cave, Covesa, from the Bronze Age to the Picts | Ian Armit and Lindsey Buster | Winner | |
| Gaelic in Scotland: Politics, Movements, Ideologies | Wilson McLeod | Shortlist | ||
| Stepping Westward | Nigel Leask | |||
| Terrorists, Anarchists and Republicans | Richard Whatmore | |||
| The Changing Outer Hebrides | Frank Rennie | |||
| 2022 | Surveying the Anthropocene: Environment and Photography Now | (ed) Patricia Macdonald | Winner | |
| A Long and Tangled Saga | Bob Chambers | Shortlist | ||
| Ainmean Tuineachaidh Leòdhais /The Settlement Names of Lewis | Richard A v Cox | |||
| Recovering Scottish History: John Hill Burton and Scottish National Identity in the Nineteenth Century | Craig Beveridge | |||
| Scripting the Nation: Court Poetry and the Authority of History in Late Medieval Scotland | Kathernie H Terrell | |||
| 2023 | The Old Red Sandstone, or, New Walks in an Old Field | Hugh Miller | Winner | [88] |
| Mousa to Mackintosh: The Scottishness of Scottish Architecture | Frank Arneil Walker | Shortlist | ||
| Cha Till Mise | Ruaraidh G MacIlleathain | |||
| Politics and the People: Scotland, 1945–1979 | Malcolm Petrie | |||
| Scotland's Lascar Heritage | various | |||
| French Paintings 1500–1900 | Michael Clarke and Frances Fowle | |||