{"id":70842,"date":"2025-08-15T05:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/70842\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T05:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T05:21:07","slug":"nicola-sturgeons-five-favourite-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/70842\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicola Sturgeon’s five favourite books"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former first minister of Scotland picks five favourites. Nicola Sturgeon’s<\/a> memoir, “Frankly”, is out this week. She will be talking about her life in politics at the Southbank Centre<\/a> on 29 August.<\/p>\n

Sunset Song<\/p>\n

Lewis Grassic Gibbon, 1932
This is the novel that ignited my love of literature. Set in the northeast of Scotland during the First World War, it tells the story of a girl torn between her yearning for education and travel and her loyalty to the rural community she was born into. Rooted in a unique place at a pivotal moment in history, it is also a timeless and universal story about coming of age and the pressures and expectations of womanhood.<\/p>\n

Half of a Yellow Sun<\/p>\n

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2006
Set during the Biafran War, this is both a beautiful love story and an affecting account of the human impact of civil war. It educates, entertains and moves the reader \u2013 all the things a good novel should do.<\/p>\n

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James<\/p>\n

Percival Everett, 2024
A masterful retelling of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”<\/a>, from the perspective of Jim the slave. It will make you cry and laugh, scream with rage \u2013 but, ultimately, dare to feel just a bit hopeful about the future of humanity.<\/p>\n

The Skeleton Road<\/p>\n

Val McDermid, 2014
Part of the Inspector Karen Pirie series, this is a coldcase mystery and historical drama<\/a> rolled into one. It takes the reader from Edinburgh<\/a> to the Balkans, with a detour to the spires of Oxford, and is gripping from the very first page. And just when you think it’s safe to breathe again, it delivers a final twist that will leave you reeling.<\/p>\n

Beloved<\/p>\n

Toni Morrison, 1987
I love everything Morrison wrote, but “Beloved” stands above the rest. It is a searing indictment of the physical and psychological trauma of slavery, and the dehumanisation of those who enforce it and those subject to it. More optimistically, it’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring bonds between mothers and daughters.<\/p>\n

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Nicola Sturgeon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former first minister of Scotland picks five favourites. Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir, “Frankly”, is out this week. She…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-70842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}