Excavations at Old Scatness, Shetland Volume 1: The Pictish Village and Viking Settlement, Stephen J Dockrill, Julie M Bond, Val E Turner, Louise D Brown, Daniel J Bashford, Julia E Cus­sans and Rebecca A Nicholson, Shetland Heritage Publications.

Bright Pebbles, edited by Mary Blance and Laureen Johnson. Hardback published by Shetland Islands Council in partnership with Shetland ForWirds at £14.99.

Fair Isle Through the Seasons by Malachy Tallack and Roger Riddington. Published by ZE Press at £15.

Dir are twa wirds dat immediately spring to my mind when I read or listen tae da late Rhoda Bulter’s poetry – da first een is “unique” and da second een is “irreplaceable”.

A Kist of Emigrants, J Laughton Johnston. Published by The Shetland Times Ltd, £29.

Did you know that novelist John Steinbeck name-checks a Shetland man in his classic Cannery Row or that the fashion event World of Wearable Art in Nelson, New Zealand, has its roots in the Shetland knitting tradition? Were you aware that Captain Sharp of the ill-fated Lancastria, which saw the biggest loss of life in British maritime history, was a Shetlander?

The Islands Book Trust has just published Destination St Kilda: From Oban to Skye and the Outer Hebrides, edited by Mark Butterworth.

White below: poems and stories from Shetland’s fishing industry. Hansel Cooperative Press.

Although this book is full of fun, it has a serious sea background. It can be enjoyed as a truthful and hilarious statement of how things were, at the fishing and ashore.

Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves. Mac­millan, £16.99.
The final book in crime writer Ann Cleeves’ Shetland quartet opens benignly, with detective Jimmy Perez taking his fiancée to his Fair Isle home to meet his parents.

Orkney: a Celebration of Light and Landscape. Photography by Iain Sarjeant, poetry by Pam Besant. The Orcadian (Kirkwall Press), £14.99.

This delightful book of photographs, coupled with some verse, depicts the best of Orkney and will be a wel­come gift to anyone who loves the isles.

Orkney’s Italian Chapel: The True Story of an Icon by Philip Paris. Published on 20th May by Black and White, £14.99.

Orkney’s Italian Chapel is a book that has waited to be written for more than 65 years and examines in detail one of the most inspiring stories to emerge from the Second World War.