Scots authors written off in survey of favourite childhood books

A Shortlist of novels said to have had the greatest influence on Scots as children has been criticised for containing no Scottish authors. The Herald Reports In a straw poll, drawn up by a PR agency working for the Scottish Executive, 50 adults were asked to name their favourite book from schooldays. From these a shortlist of 12 was compiled by Consolidated Scotland and given to 1016 adults to rate their preference.

But the findings, which coincide with the first week of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, sponsored by The Herald and Sunday Herald, were branded “worthless” by Rosemary Goring, literary editor of The Herald.