Sunset Song is Scotland's favourite book, poll finds

Dr Carole Jones of the University of Edinburgh, lecturer in Scottish literature, said the list was marked by books that project an ambiguity about identity and offer kinds of opposition to the status quo, be it the rural setting of Sunset Song, the urban characters in Lanark and Trainspotting, and even the unique qualities of Rankin's famous detective Inspector Rebus.

The results of a public vote conducted by BBC Scotland, with the Scottish Book Trust and the Scottish Library and Information Council, was announced last night in a programme presented by Kirsty Wark.

The top ten also included, in order, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, Lanark by Alasdair Gray, The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling, Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.

The top ten was compiled after online votes were cast from a list of 30 novels by authors born or based in Scotland.

Dr Jones, who noted there were only two woman authors on the list, said: "The list is very interesting, it goes a long way to show that Scotland's readers perhaps identify with ambiguity.

"Even Rankin's character [Rebus] is something of an ambivalent character.

"Sunset Song is an interesting choice, an old book and one you might think is based on an idealised past, but if you read it is not idealised at all, there is an ambivalence and ambiguity to it."

She added: "Perhaps this list reflects a time when we are thinking about Scotland and Scottishness and what that means."

Championing Sunset Song as her favourite novel in the programme was First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said: “I first read Sunset Song when I was in my early teens so maybe 13 or 14.

"And it resonated with me firstly because it is a wonderful story, beautifully written, but it also said something about the history of the country I grew up in and it resonated with me very strongly as a young Scottish woman and I think its themes are timeless to this day.”

Published in 1932, Sunset Song is the first part of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s trilogy A Scots Quair.

It tells the story of a young woman Chris Guthrie growing up on a farm in the fictional estate of Kinraddie in the North East of Scotland, and was recently made into a film starring Agyness Deyn as Chris Guthrie, directed by Terence Davies.

Other advocates in the programme included Tam Dean Burn for Lanark, Evelyn Glennie for The Thirty-Nine Steps, Susan Calman for Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, Sanjeev Kohli for Trainspotting, and Gary Lewis for The Private Memories and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Pauline Law, executive producer of arts, said: "The list of 30 books spanned such an amazingly diverse and rich catalogue of terrific writing across generations of great Scottish writers, it was interesting to see that the Top 10 included James Hogg’s ‘Justified Sinner’ published in 1824 through to Muriel Spark’s thirties set The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which was actually published as a novel in the early sixties, to the modern resonances of Ian Rankin’s Rebus in Knots & Crosses and the contemporary classic that is Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting.

"Within the top 10, there are many great classics of Scottish literature and they range, from crime-writing to social commentary, from fantasy to gritty realism, and from the historical to the contemporary.

"From the feedback we’ve had, the poll certainly seems to have provoked discussion about Scottish literature."

The 30 books on the original list were selected by a literary panel curated by the Scottish Book Trust.