As Though We Were Flying

Andrew Greig is one of the leading Scottish writers of his generation. He has published eight collections of poetry, most of these with Bloodaxe, including The Order of the Day (Poetry Book Society Choice), This Life, This Life: New & Selected Poems 1970-2006 and now As Though We Were Flying (2011). Known as 'the poet laureate of climbing', he publishes his collected poems of mountain adventures real and metaphorical as Getting Higher with Birlinn in 2011. Two books on his Himalayan expeditions have become classics in their field, as have Preferred Lies (a meditation on golf, self-recovery, Scotland) and At the Loch of the Green Corrie (fishing for Norman MacCaig, catching much else besides). His six novels include That Summer (Faber, 2000), The Return of John Macnab (Headline, 1996) and its late sequel Romanno Bridge (Quercus, 2008), and In Another Light (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004), which was Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. He lives in Edinburgh and Orkney with his wife, novelist Lesley Glaister.

'Andrew Greig is a Scottish poet of sensitivity and resilience. He deals with high-risk situations - from mountaineering to love - and is particularly good at presenting the gamut of feelings involved in rites of passage: high endeavour, commitment, holding back, drift, release' - Edwin Morgan. 'When I first read the poems, I started writing down the ones I was really impressed by, but I gave that up after I'd written down 4 of the first 5. I doubt if there is a weak one in the collection. They interest me for their subject-matter and use of it - very subtle, often very unexpected, always on a nicely serious level, not without wit' - Norman MacCaig. 'You could easily make the case that Andrew Greig has the greatest range of any living Scottish writer' - The Scotsman