Scotland's National Book Awards, formerly known as the Saltire Society Literary Awards, are made annually by the Saltire Society. First awarded in 1937, they are awarded for books by Scottish authors or about Scotland, and are awarded in several categories.

The first Saltire Society Book Award was given in 1937, the year after the Saltire Society was established. No awards were given after 1939 due to the Second World War, and the next award was made 1956. The History Book of the Year award was inaugurated in 1965. In 1982 sponsorship was obtained and since then the awards have been made annually. First books have been recognised since 1988, and in 1998 the award for Scottish Research Book of the Year was established.^[1]

Until around 2021, the awards were known as the Saltire Society Literary Awards, subtitled Scotland's National Book Awards,^[2] but then took on the subtitle as the name covering all of the literary awards that the society awards: Scotland's National Book Awards, and are known by this name as of May 2023^[update].^[3]

The awards seek to recognise books which are either by "living authors of Scottish descent or residing in Scotland," or which deal with "the work or life of a Scot or with a Scottish question, event or situation".^[4]

As of 2022^[update], the winner in each category receives an award created by artist Simon Baker of Evergreen Studios, based in Inverness; the winners of each literary award receive a cash prize of £2,000, while the winner of the Saltire Society Book of the Year is given a further £4,000.^[5]

A one-off Homecoming Book of the Year award was made in 2009 to celebrate the "Year of homecoming": the award was presented to American professor Donald Worster for his biography of John Muir, A Passion for Nature.^[6] The shortlist consisted of The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography, by Robert Crawford, The Testament of Cresseid and Seven Fables, by Seamus Heaney, The Lamplighter, by Jackie Kay and Piano Angel, by Esther Woolfson.

In 2014, the Scottish Literary Book of the Year was awarded,^[7] but was replaced after only one year by separate awards for Fiction Book of the Year and Non-Fiction Book of the Year

As of 2022^[update], the Saltire Society presents awards in seven categories for books, and three awards for publishers:^[5]

• Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award (formerly "Scottish Book of the Year")
• Saltire Society First Book of the Year
• Saltire Society History Book of the Year
• Saltire Society Research Book of the Year
• Saltire Society Poetry Book of the Year (introduced in 2014)^[7]
• Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year (introduced in 2015)^[8]
• Saltire Society Non-Fiction Book of the Year (introduced in 2015)^[8]
• Saltire Society Book Cover Design of the Year
• Saltire Society Publisher of the Year
• Saltire Society Emerging Publisher of the Year (awarded in partnership with Publishing Scotland)

In 2019, a Lifetime Achievement Award was introduced, the inaugural prize going to Alasdair Gray.^[9][10][11]

Subsequent winners of the lifetime achievement have been:

• Douglas Dunn (2021)^[12]
• Alexander McCall Smith (2022)^[5]
• Liz Lockhead (2023)^[13]
• James Kelman (2024)^[14]

In addition, an annual student travel bursary is awarded to a creative writing graduate, and the Ross Roy Medal is awarded for the best PhD thesis on a subject related to Scottish literature.^[15]

The Scottish Book of the Year award was established in 1937,^[1] and has been given annually since 1982. The award is open to novels, poetry and plays as well as non-fiction works on Scottish subjects.^[15]

Year	Work	Author	Ref(s)
1937	Highland River	Neil M. Gunn	[1]
	The Lord Bothwell	Robert Gore-Browne
1939	Three Plays	Robert McLellan	[1]
1956	One Foot in Eden	Edwin Muir	[1]
1958	Scotland Before History	Stuart Piggott	[1]
1982	Lanark: A Life in Four Books	Alasdair Gray	[16]
1983	Collected Poems	Derick Thomson
	Poems of Thirty Years	Edwin Morgan
1984	God and the Poets: The Gifford Lectures	David Daiches
	Intimate Voices: Selected Works	Tom Leonard
1985	Collected Poems	Norman MacCaig
1986	A Storm from Paradise	Stuart Hood
1987	The Stories of Muriel Spark	Muriel Spark
1988	Games with Shadows	Neal Ascherson
	The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy	Tom Nairn
1989	A Question of Loyalties	Allan Massie
1990	O Choille gu Bearradh / From Wood to Ridge	Sorley MacLean
1991	Scottish Art 1460–1990	Duncan Macmillan
1992	Collected Poems	Iain Crichton Smith
1993	Robert Burns – A Biography	James A. Mackay
1994	Beside the Ocean of Time	George Mackay Brown
1995	Black Sea	Neal Ascherson
1996	The Kiln	William McIlvanney
1997	Grace Notes	Bernard MacLaverty
1998	The Sopranos	Alan Warner
1999	Pursuits	George Bruce
2000	The Lantern Bearers	Ronald Frame
2001	Medea	Liz Lochhead
2002	Clara	Janice Galloway	[17]
2003	Joseph Knight	James Robertson
2004	In Another Light	Andrew Greig	[18]
2005	Case Histories	Kate Atkinson	[19]
2006	A Lie About My Father	John Burnside
2007	Day	A. L. Kennedy
2008	Kieron Smith, Boy	James Kelman	[20]
2009	The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography	Robert Crawford	[21]
2010	And the Land Lay Still	James Robertson	[22]
2011	A Life in Pictures	Alasdair Gray
2012	Mo Said She Was Quirky	James Kelman
2013	Something Like Happy	John Burnside	[23]
2014	The Scottish Town in the Age of Enlightenment 1740–1820	Bob Harris and Charles McKean	[24][25]
2015	The Book of Strange New Things	Michel Faber	[26]
2016	The Bonniest Companie	Kathleen Jamie	[27]
2017	Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe	Kapka Kassabova	[28]
2018	All That Remains	Sue Black	[29]
2019	Working Verse in Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community	Kirstie Blair	[30]
2020	No award given
2021	Duck Feet	Ely Percy	[31]
2022	Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean	David Alston	[5]
2023	Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began	Leah Hazard	[32]
2024	Thunderclap	Laura Cumming	[14]

The award for Literary Book of the Year was introduced in 2014, and was open to fiction, non-fiction or plays .The award only existed for one year before being replaced by separate awards for Fiction and Non-Fiction

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2014	How to Be Both	Ali Smith	Winner	[33]
	All the Rage	A L Kennedy	Shortlist	[34]
	Gone Are the Leaves	Anne Donovan
	Where Memories Go	Sally Magnusson
	Cala Bendita	Martin MacIntyre
	The James Plays	Rona Munro

The fiction book of the year award was inaugurated in 2015.

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2015	The Book of Strange New Things	Michel Faber	Winner	[35]
	The Illuminations	Andrew O'Hagan	Shortlist	[36]
	A Decent Ride	Irvine Welsh
	Jellyfish	Janice Galloway
	An Dosan	Norma Nicleod
	God in Ruins	Kate Atkinson
2016	His Bloody Project	Graeme Macrae Burnet	Winner	[27]
	The Blade Artists	Irvine Welsh	Shortlist	[37]
	Dirt Road	James Kelman
	The Sunlight Pilgrims	Jenni Fagan
	This Must Be the Place	Maggie O'Farrell
	The Brilliant and Forever	Kevin MacNeil
2017	Memory and Straw	Angus Peter Campbell	Winner	[28]
	Midwinter Break	Bernard MacLaverty	Shortlist	[38]
	The Long Drop	Denise Mina
	That Was a Shiver	James Kelman
	Dalila	Jason Donald
	Ashland and Vine	John Burnside
2018	Elsewhere, Home	Leila Aboulela	Winner	[39]
	A Treachery of Spies	Manda Scott	Shortlist	[40]
	Dead Men's Trousers	Irvine Welsh
	The Growing Season	Helen Sedgwick
	The Great Chain of Unbeing	Andrew Crumey
	The Sealwoman's Gift	Sally Magnusson
2019	Nina X	Ewan Morrison	Winner	[41]
	Bird Summons	Leila Aboulela	Shortlist	[42]
	You Will Be Safe Here	Damian Barr
	Tiger	Polly Clark
	Ducks, Newburyport	Lucy Ellmann
	Còig Duilleagan na Seamraig (Five Leaves of the Shamrock)	Ruairidh MacIlleathain (Roddy MacLean)
2020	No award given
2021	Duck Feet	Ely Percy	Winner	[43]
	Scabby Queen	Kirstin Innes	Shortlist	[44]
	Shuggie Bain	Douglas Stuart
	Luckenbooth	Jenni Fagan
	There's Only One Danny Garvey	David F. Ross
2022	Blood & Gold: A Journey of Shadows	Mara Menzies	Winner	[5]
	Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy	Emma Grae	Shortlist	[45]
	Cwen	Alice Albinia
	News of the Dead	James Robertson
	The Pharmacist	Rachelle Atalla
	Young Mungo	Douglas Stuart
2023	In Ascension	Martin MacInnes	Winner	[13]
	crann-fie/Fig Tree	Duncan Gillies	Shortlist	[12]
	Electricity	Andrew Peter Campbell
	Hell Sans	Ever Dundas
	Mother Sea	Lorraine Wilson
	Orpheus Builds a Girl	Heather Parry
2024	What Doesn't Kill Us	Ajay Close	Winner	[14]
	Study for Obedience	Sarah Bernstein	Shortlist	[46]
	Clear	Carys Davies
	Lost People	Margaret Elphinstone
	Hazardous Spirits	Anbara Salam

The first book of the year award was inaugurated in 1988 and recognises an author who has not previously published a book. As with the book of the year, the award is open to novels, plays, poems and non-fiction.^[15]

Year	Work	Author	Ref(s)
1988	The Richt Noise	Raymond Vettese
1989	Cells of Knowledge	Sian Hayton
1990	The Ballad of Sawney Bain	Harry Tait
1991	Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains	A. L. Kennedy
1992	Adoption Papers	Jackie Kay
	Uirsgeul/Myth	Christopher Whyte
1993	Robert Louis Stevenson: Dreams of Exile	Ian Bell	[47]
1994	Music, in a Foreign Language	Andrew Crumey	[48]
1995	Free Love and Other Stories	Ali Smith
1996	Slattern	Kate Clanchy
1997	A Painted Field	Robin Robertson
1998	The Pied Piper's Poison	Christopher Wallace
	Two Clocks Ticking	Dennis O'Donnell
1999	Some Rain Must Fall	Michel Faber
2000	The Rising Sun	Douglas Galbraith
2001	In the Blue House	Meaghan Delahunt
2002	Burns the Radical	Liam McIlvanney	[17]
	The Cutting Room	Louise Welsh
2003	Ath – Aithne	Martainn Mac an t-Saoir
2004	Stargazing	Peter Hill	[18]
2005	Amande's Bed	John Aberdein	[19]
2006	George Mackay Brown: The Life	Maggie Fergusson

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2007	Fresh	Mark McNay	Winner
	Writing in the Sand	Angus Dunn	Shortlist	[49]
	The Tenderness of Wolves	Stef Penney
	Shadow Behind the Sun	Remzije Sherifi with Robert Davidson
2008	The Good Mayor	Andrew Nicoll|	Winner	[50]
	The Wall	D C Jackson	Shortlist	[51]
	James Kelman	Simon Kövesi
	The Redemption Of Alexander Seaton	Shona MacLean
	Moonshine In The Morning	Andrea McNicholl
	The Peachgrower's Almanac	Elaine di Rollo
2009	The Tin-Kin	Eleanor Thom	Winner	[21]
	Chokechain	Jason Donald	Shortlist	[52]
	Eating Pomegranates	Sarah Gabriel
	Cainnt na Caileige Caillte	Alison Lang
	Chapel at the Edge of the World	Kirsten McKenzie
2010	The History of Orkney Literature	Simon W. Hall	Winner	[22]
	The Death of Lomond Friel	Sue Peebles
	The Prisoner of St Kilda: The True Story of the Unfortunate Lady Grange	Margaret Macauley	Shortlist	[53]
	And This Is True	Emily Mackie
	A' Ghlainne agus Sgeulachdan Eile	Màiri E. NicLeòid
	Homecomings	Donald Paterson
2011	The Echo Chamber	Luke Williams	Winner	[54]
	Island of Wings	Karin Altenberg	Shortlist	[55]
	This Road Is Red	Alison Irvine
	Let Not the Waves of the Sea	Simon Stephenson
2012	The Last Highlander: Scotland’s Most Notorious Clan-Chief, Rebel and Double Agent	Sarah Fraser	Winner
	Air Bilean an t-Sluaigh: Sealladh air Leantalachd Beul-Aithris Ghàidhlig Uibhist a Tuath	Maighread A. Challan	Shortlist	[56]
	Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma	Kerry Hudson
	The Incomers	Moira McPartlin
	Furnace	Wayne Price
	Ramshackle	Elizabeth Reeder
2013	Air Cuan Dubh Drilseach	Tim Armstrong	Winner	[23]
	As Far As I Can See	Eunice Buchanan
	The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter	Malcolm Mackay	Shortlist	[57]
	Nothing Is Heavy	Vicky Jarrett
	Kaleb's List	Kellan MacInnnes
2014	Moontide	Niall Campbell	Winner	[24]
	Any Other Mouth	Anneliese Mackintosh	Shortlist	[58]
	The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle	Kirsty Wark
	The Monster's Wife	Kate Horsley
	The Last Pair of Ears	Mary F McDonough
	The Rental Heart	Kirsty Logan
2015	On the Edges of Vision	Helen McClory		[35]
	60 Degrees North	Malachy Tallack	Shortlist	[36]
	Airstream	Audrey Henderson
	Lie of the Land	Michael F Russell
	The Liepzig Affair	Fiona Rintoul
	The Peoples Referendum	Peter Geogheghan
2016	Trials on Death Row	Isabel Buchanan	Winner	[27]
	Expecting	Chitra Ramaswamy
	Infinite Ground	Martin McInnes	Shortlist	[37]
	This Changes Things	Claire Askew
2017	Goblin	Ever Dundas	Winner	[28]
	The Case Room	Kate Hunter	Shortlist	[38]
	Language of My Choosing: The Candid Life-Memoir of an Italian Scot	Anne Pia
	Beneath the Skin	Sandra Ireland
	Mary's the Name	Ross Sayers
	Fallow	Daniel Shand
2018	Sal	Mick Kitson	Winner	[59]
	Amphibian	Christina Neuwirth	Shortlist	[40]
	St Kilda: The Silent Islands	Alex Boyd
	A' Togail an t-Srùbain	Calum L. MacLeòid
2019	Threads of Life	Clare Hunter	Winner	[60]
	Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds	Stephen Rutt
	Overlander: Bikepacking Coast to Coast Across the Heart of the Highlands	Alan Brown	Shortlist	[42]
	Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket	Fraser MacDonald
	A Superior Spectre	Angela Meyer
2020	No award given
2021	Bleak: The Mundane Comedy	Roddy Murray	Winner	[43]
	Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema	Vanessa Harryhausen	Shortlist	[44]
	The Young Team	Graeme Armstrong
	A Kind of Spark	Elle McNicoll
	Mother, Nature	Aoife Lyall
	If Rivers Could Sing	Keith Broomfield
2022	In: The Graphic Novel	Will McPhail	Winner	[5]
	A Sky Full of Kites	Tom Bowser	Shortlist	[45]
	I Am Not Your Eve	Devika Ponnambalam
	Limbo	Georgi Gill
	The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley	Sean Lusk
	The Voids	Ryan O’Connor
2023	For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain	Viktoria MacKenzie	Winner	[13]
	Confessions of a Highland Art Dealer	Tony Davidson	Shortlist	[12]
	Ginger and Me	Elissa Soave
	My Margaret, Your Toshie	Keith Adamson
	The Maiden	Kate Foster
	The Two-Headed Whale	Sandy Winterbottom
2024	Night Train To Odessa	Jen Stout	Winner	[14]
	Fragile Animals	Genevieve Jagger	Shortlist	[46]
	Remember, Remember	Elle Machray
	The Old Haunts	Allan Radcliffe
	The Department of Work and Pensions Assesses a Jade Fish	Nualla Watt

The award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year was introduced in 2015

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2015	Adventures in Human Being	Gavin Francis	Winner	[35]
	Young Eliot	Robert Crawford	Shortlist	[36]
	Lifeblood	Gill Fyfe
	This Is Scotland	Daniel Gray & Alan McCredie
2016	Other People's Money	John Kay	Winner	[27]
	A Little History of Religion	Richard Holloway	Shortlist	[37]
	Fallen Glory	James Crawford
	Glasgow: Mapping the City	John Moore
	The Outrun	Amy Liptro
2017	Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe	Kapka Kassabova	Winner	[28]
	Al Britannia, My Country: A Journey Through Muslim Britain	James Ferguson	Shortlist	[38]
	Scotland: Mapping the Islands	edited by Christopher Fleet, Charles W.J. Withers, and Margaret Wilkes
	Love of Country	Madeleine Bunting
	Waypoints: Seascapes and Stories of Scotland's West Coast	Ian Stephen
	The Passion of Harry Bingo: Further Dispatches from Unreported Scotland	Peter Ross
2018	All That Remains: A Life in Death	Professor Sue Black	Winner	[29]
	Appointment in Arezzo	Alan Taylor	Shortlist	[61]
	Moscow Calling	Angus Roxburgh
	Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa	Joseph Farrell
	The Story of Looking	Mark Cousins
	Waiting for the Last Bus	Richard Holloway
2019	The World I Fell Out Of	Melanie Reid	Winner	[29]
	Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me	Kate Clanchy	Shortlist	[62]
	Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns	Kerry Hudson
	Seòl Mo Bheatha (My Life Journey)	DòmhnallEachann Meek (Donald E. Meek)
	Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage	Mary Miller
	My Life with Murderers: Behind Bars with the World’s Most Violent Men	Dr David Wilson
2020	No award given
2021	A Tomb with a View	Peter Ross	Winner	[43]
	Native: Life in a Vanishing Landscape	Patrick Laurie	Shortlist	[44]
	Islands of Abandonment	Cal Flyn
	Ruxton: The First Modern Murder	Tom Wood
	The See-Through House: My Father in Full Colour	Shelley Klein
	Checkpoint	Joe Donnelley
2022	Homelands: The History of a Friendship	Chitra Ramaswamy	Winner	[5]
	Alison Watt: A Portrait Without Likeness	Alison Watt	Shortlist	[63]
	Alternatives to Valium	Alistair McKay
	One Body	Catherine Simpson
	The Eternal Season: A Journey Through Our Changing British Summer	Stephen Rutt
	Seven Ways to Change the World	Gordon Brown
2023	Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began	Leah Hazard	Winner	[13]
	A Pebble in the Throat: Growing Up Between Two Continents	Aasmah Mir	Shortlist	[12]
	Boy Friends	Michael Pederson
	Avacado Anxiety	Louise Gray
	The Edge of the Plain	James Crawford
2024	Thunderclap	Laura Cumming	Winner	[14]
	The Unfamiliar: A Queer Motherhood Memoir	Kirsty Logan	Shortlist	[46]
	Already Too Late	Carl MacDougal
	O Brother	John Niven
	Ian Fleming: The Complete Man	Nicholas Shakespeare

The award for Poetry Book of the Year was introduced in 2014

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2014	Bones and Breath	Alexander Hutchison	Winner	[25]
	All in One Breath	John Burnside	Shortlist	[64]
	Byssus	Jen Hadfield
	The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion	Kei Miller
	At Maldon	J O Morgan
	Locust and Marlin	J L Williams
2015	Killochries	Jim Carruth	Winner	[35]
	Cream of the Well	Valerie Gillies	Shortlist	[36]
	Not All Honey	Roddy Lumsden
	The Good Dark	Ryan Van Winkle
2016	The The Bonniest Companie	Kathleen Jamie	Winner	[27]
	40 Sonets	Don Paterson	Shortlist	[37]
	Galore	Peter MacKay
	Interference Pattern	J O Morgan
	This Far Back Everything Shimmers	Vicki Husband
	The Golden Mean	John Glenday
2017	Bird-Woman	Em Strang	Winner	[28]
	Still Life with Feeding Snake	John Burnside	Shortlist	[38]
	Farm By the Shore	Thomas A Clark
	Twist	Pippa Little
	In Search of Dustie-Fute	David Kinlock
	Moon For Sale	Richard Price
2018	Wristwatch	Jay Whittaker	Winner	[65]
	Bantam	Jackie Kay	Shortlist	[40]
	So Glad I'm Me	Roddy Lumsden
	The Long Take	Robin Robertson
	Who Is Mary Sue?	Sophie Collins
2019	Hand Over Mouth Music	Janette Ayachi	Winner	[66]
	The Games	Harry Josephine Giles	Shortlist	[42]
	I'm a Pretty Circler	Iain Morrison
	Moder Dy	Roseanne Watt
	Ceum air Cheum	Christopher Whyte
	Line Drawings	Ross Wilson
2020	No award given
2021	Life Without Air	Daisy Lafarge	Winner	[43]
	Nàdar De (Some Kind Of)	Padraigh Macaoidh (Patrick Mackay)	Shortlist	[44]
	The Threadbare Coat	Thomas A Clark
	Clydebuilt	Owen Gallagher
	Ben Dorain	Garry Mackenzie
	Later That Day	Andrew Greig
2022	How to Burn a Woman	Claire Askew	Winner	[5]
	At Least This I Know	Andrés N Ordorica	Shortlist	[45]
	Blood Salt Spring	Hannah Lavery
	Polaris	Marcas Mac an Tuairneir
	The Luna Erratum	Maria Sledmere
2023	Dastram / Delirium	Taylor Strickland	Winner	[13]
	Another Way to Split Water	Alycia Pirmoham	Shortlist	[12]
	Burning Season	Yvonne Reddick
	The Swailing	Patrick James Errington
	Too Hot to Sleep	Elspeth Wilson
2024	RUIN, BLOSSOM	John Burnside	Winner	[14]
	Quick Fire, Slow Burning	Janet Ayachi	Shortlist	[46]
	May Day	Jackie Kay
	The Wrong Person To Ask	Marjorie Lotfi
	Three Births	K Patrick
	The Cat Prince: & Other Poems	Michael Pederson

The award for History Book of the Year was established in 1965 in honour of the historian Agnes Mure Mackenzie (1891–1955). It was only awarded intermittently until 1994 when it became an annual award. ^[67]

Year	Work	Author	Ref(s)
1965	Robert Bruce	G W S Barrow	[68]
1974	Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland	Marjorie O Anderson	[69]
1975	Scottish Banking: A History 1695-1973	S G Checkland	[70]
1977	Scottish Population History	M Flinn, P T C Smout, Rosalind Mitchison, Judith Gillespie, Nancy Hill, Ailsa Maxwell	[71]
1982	Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth	Stewart J. Brown	[72]
1986	A Century of the Scottish People 1830–1950	T. C. Smout	[73]
1994	James I	Michael Brown
1995	The Great Highland Famine	Tom Devine
1996	No award given
1997	The Early Stewart Kings: Robert II and Robert III 1371–1406	Stephen Boardman
1998	The Identity of the Scottish Nation	William Ferguson
1999	Patrick Sellar and the Highland Clearances: Homicide, Eviction and the Price of Progress	Eric Richards
2000	The Rough Wooings: Mary Queen of Scots 1542–1551	Marcus Merriman
2001	The Late Medieval Scottish Parliament: Politics and the Three Estates 1424–1488	Roland Tanner	[74]
2002	The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland	Margo Todd
2004	Adventurers and Exiles: The Great Scottish Exodus	Marjory Harper	[18]
2005	David II	Michael Penman	[19]
2006	Native Lordships in Medieval Scotland: The Earldoms of Strathearn and Lennox c.1140–1365	Cynthia J. Neville	[75]
2006	Scotland's Historic Heraldry	Bruce A. McAndrew	[76]
2007	The Scots and the Union	Christopher Whatley	[77]

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2008	From Pictland to Alba 789–1070	Alex Woolf	Winner	[78][50]
	Bannockburn: The Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307 - 1323	Michael Brown	Shortlist	[79]
	Portmahomack: Monastery of the Picts	Martin Carver
	Iron Road: The Railway In Scotland	PJG Ramsden
2009	A History of Scottish Philosophy	Alexander Broadie	Winner	[80]
	From Caledonia to Pictland Scotland to 795	James E Fraser	Shortlist
	Edinburgh: A History of the City	Michael Fry
	'Homage to Caledonia	Daniel Gray
	From Peat Bog to Conifer Forest	Ruth Tittlensor
2010	Whaur Extremes Meet: Scotland's Twentieth Century	Catriona M. M. MacDonald	Winner	[81]
	lmpaled Upon a Thistle Since 1880, New Edinburgh History of Scotland	Ewan A Cameron	Shortlist	[82]
	Famine in Scotland: The 'Ill Years' of the 1690s	Karen J Cullen
	So Foul and Fair a Day A History of Scotland's Weather and Climate	Alistair Dawson
	Mighty Subjects The Dunbar Earls in Scotland c. 1072-1289	Elsa Hamilton
	The Visions of Isobel Gowdie Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth Century Scotland	Emma Wilby
2011	The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth Century History	Emma Rothschild	Winner	[83]
	Scottish Ethnicity and the Making of New Zealand Society	Tanya Bueltmann	Shortlist	[84]
	To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland’s Global Diaspora, 1750-2010	T M Devine
	Elite Women and Polite Society in 18th Century Scotland	Katharine Glover
	Andrew Melville and Humanism in Renaissance Scotland 1545-1622	Ernest R Holloway III
	Men of Spirit and Enterprise	Suzanne Rigg
	Reading the Scottish Enlightenment: Books & their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750-1820	Mark Towsey
	Enlightened Evangelicalism - The Life and Thought of John Erskine	Jonathan M Yeagher
2012	A Military History of Scotland	E. Spiers, J. Crang and M. Strickland (editors)	Winner	[67]
	Women of Morray	S. Bennett, M. Byatt, J. Main, A. Oliver, J. Trythall	Shortlist	[56]
	Scotland's Radical Export - The Scots Abroad- How they Shaped Politics and Trade Unions	Pat Kelly
	Scotland's First Oil Boom - The Scottish Shale-Oil Industry, 1851–1914	John MacKay
	The Two Unions: Ireland, Scotland, and the Survival of the United Kingdom, 1707-2007	Alvin Jackson
2013	An Enlightened Duke: The Life of Archibald Campbell (1682–1761), Earl of Ilay, 3rd Duke of Argyll	Roger L. Emerson	Winner	[23]
	Death,Life and Religious Change in Scottish Towns, C. 1350 – 1560	Mairi Cowan	Shortlist	[85]
	Scotland No More? The Scots who left Scotland in the Twentieth Century	Marjory Harper
	The Firth of the Forth: An Environmental History	T C Smout and Mairi Stewart
	Annie’s Loo: the Govan origins of Scotland’s Community Based Housing Associations	Raymond Young
2014	Scottish Gods, Religion in the Modern Scotland 1900–2012	Steve Bruce	Winner	[24]
	Cosmo Innes and the Defence of Scotland’s Past	Richard A Marsden	Shortlist	[86]
	Governing Gaeldom:The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1600-1688	Allan Kennedy
	A New Race of Men	Michael Fry
	Painting the Town: Scottish Urban History in Art	E P Dennison, S Eydmann, A Lyell, M Lynch & S Stronach
2015	A Chasm in Time – Scottish War Art and Artists in the Twentieth Century	Patricia R. Andrew	Winner	[35]
	A History of Drinking: The Scottish Pub since 1700	Anthony Cook	Shortlist	[87]
	John Knox	Jane Dawson
	The Going Down of the Sun: The Great War and a Rural Lewis Community	Donald A Robinson (editor)
2016	Set Adrift Upon the World	James Hunter	Winner	[27]
	A Tale of Three Cities	Bob Harris	Shortlist	[37]
	Castles in the Mist	Robin Noble
	Oil Strike North Sea	Mike Stephen
	Shetland and the Great War	James Hunter
	St Kilda	A Gannon Geddes
2017	No award given
2018	The Drowned and the Saved	Les Wilson	Winner	[88]
	Sir David Nairne. The Life of a Scottish Jacobite at the Court of the Exiled Stuarts	Edward Corp	Shortlist	[40]
	Scotland's Populations from the 1850s to Today	Michael Anderson
	Scots & Catalans: Union and Disunion	J H Elliott
	Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics: Empire of Dissent	Valerie Wallace
2019	Alexander III, 1249–1286: First Among Equals	Norman Reid	Winner	[89]
	John Law, A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century	James Buchan	Shortlist	[90][42]
	The Sea Kings: The Late Norse Kingdoms of Man and the Isles, c.1066-1275	R Andrew Macdonald
	The Darkest Dawn: The Story of the Iolaire	Malcolm Macdonald and Donald John MacLeod
	Lord Seaforth, Highland Landowner, Caribbean Governor	Finlay McKichan
	Frederick Douglass and Scotland: Living an Antislavery Life	Alasdair Pettinger
2020	No award given
2021	Stuart Style: Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite	Maria Hayward	Winner	[43]
	History with Heart and Soul	Ness Historical Society Editorial Team with Rachel Barrowman	Shortlist	[44]
	Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland	Ewan Biggs
	Union and Revolution: Scotland and Beyond 1625 – 1745	Laura Stewart and Janay Nugent
	David I: King of Scots 1124 – 1153	Richard Oram
	Gaelic Influence in the Northumbrian Kingdom: The Golden Age and the Viking Age	Fiona Edmonds
2022	Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean	David Alston	Winner	[5]
	Blood Legacy: Reckoning with a Family's History of Slavery	Alex Renton	Shortlist	[45]
	Mael Coluim III, Canmore	Neil McGuigan
	R.B. Cunninghame Graham and Scotland: Party, Prose, and Political Aesthetic	Lachlan Gow Munro
	Embroidering Her Truth	Clare Hunter
	Putting the Tea in Britain	Les Wilson
2023	The People Are Not There: The Transformation of Badenoch 1800–1863	David Taylor	Winner	[91]
	The Material Landscapes of Scotland’s Jewellery Craft, 1780-1914	Sarah Laurenson	Shortlist	[12]
	Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger	Charles Withers
	One Mans Legacy: Tom Patey	Mike Dixon
	The Whalers of Harris	Ian Hart
	The Early Life of James VI: A Long Apprenticeship, 1566–1585	Stephen J Reid

This award was initiated in 1998, and is made jointly by the Saltire Society and the National Library of Scotland. It aims to recognise books which "represent a significant body of research and offer new insight or dimension to the subject".^[15]

Year	Work	Author	Ref(s)
1998	The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language	Charles Jones
1999	The Poems of William Dunbar (Volumes I & II)	Priscilla Bawcutt
2000	Jessie Kesson: Writing her Life	Isobel Murray
	The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society	William Donaldson
2001	The Scottish Book Trade 1500−1720	Alastair J. Mann
2002	Sorley MacLean, Poems to Eimhir	Christopher Whyte (editor)	[17]
	Public Sculpture of Glasgow	Ray McKenzie
2003	The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection	Emily B. Lyle and Katherine Campbell
2004	The Last of England?	Randall Stevenson	[18]
	Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William MacKinnon and his Business Network 1823–1893	J. Forbes Munro
2005	Weights and Measures in Scotland	R. D. Connor and A. D. C. Simpson, edited by Alison Morrison-Low	[19]
2006	Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes	Michael Newton
2007	Scotland's Books: The Penguin History of Scottish Literature	Robert Crawford

Year	Work	Author	Result	Ref(s)
2008	Scott's Shadow: The Novel in Romantic Edinburgh	Ian Duncan	Winner	[50]
	Scottish Life and Society: A compendium of Scottish Ethnology: Volume 5: The Food of the Scots	Alexander Fenton	Shortlist	[92]
	A Floating Commonwealth: Politics, Culture, and Technology on Britain's Atlantic Coast, 1860-1930	Christopher Harvie
2009	Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary	Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon	Winner	[21]
2010	Robert Burns & Pastoral: Poetry and Improvement in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland	Nigel Leask	Winner	[22]
	Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life	Nicholas Phillipson
	The Scots Imagination and Modern Memory	Andrew Blaikie	Shortlist	[93]
	Robert Owen	Robert Davis & Frank O'Hagan
	Charles Rennie Mackintosh: A Biography	James MacAuley
	Land, Law and People in Medieval Scotland	Cynthia Neville
	The Lore of Scotland: A Guide to Scottish Legends	Jennifer Westwood & Sophia Kingshill
2011	Beyond the Last Dragon: A Life of Edwin Morgan	James McGonigal	Winner	[94]
	Noble Power in Scotland from the Reformation to the Revolution	Keith M Brown	Shortlist	[95]
	The History of the Scottish Parliament	Keith M Brown & Alan R MacDonald
	Scottish Ethnicity and the making of New Zealand Society, 1850-1930	Tanja Bueltmann
	To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland’s Global Diaspora, 1750-2010	T M Devine
	George Mackay Brown: The Wound and the Gift	Ron Ferguson
	Domination and Lordship Scotland 1070-1230	Richard Oram
2012	Scotland: Mapping the Nation	C. Fleet, C. Withers and M. Wilkes	Winner
	The Sexual State - Sexuality and Scottish Governance 1950-80	R. Davidson & G. Davis	Shortlist	[56]
	The Grand Designer	Rosemary Hannah
	Dear Grieve: Letter to Hugh MacDiarmid	John Mansen
	Jamieson's Dictionary of Scots	Susan Rennie
2013	The Sunlit Summit: The Life of W. H. Murray	Robin Lloyd-Jones	Winner	[23]
	A Dictionary of Scottish Phrase and Fable	Ain Crofton	Shortlist	[85]
	Visions of Britain, 1730-1830	Sebastian Mitchell
	Nancy Brysson Morrison: A Literary Life	Mary Seenan
2014	The Scottish Town in the Age of Enlightenment 1740–1820	Bob Harris and Charles McKean	Winner	[24][7]
	The Eagles Way	Jim Crumley	Shortlist	[96]
	The K2 Man (and his Molluscs)	Catherine Moorehead
	Material Culture and Sedition 1688—1760	Murray Pittock
	Lexical Variation and Attrition in the Scottish Fishing Communities	Robert McColl Millar, William Barras & Lisa Maria Bonnici
	Landscapes of Protest in the Scottish Highlands after 1914	Iain J M Robertson
2015	Clubbing Together: Ethnicity, Civility and Formal Sociability in the Scottish Diaspora to 1930	Tanja Bueltmann	Winner	[35]
	Microbes and the Fetlar Man: The Life of Sir William Watson Cheyne	Jane Coutts	Shortlist	[87]
	The Voice of the People: Hamish Henderson and Scottish Cultural Politics	Corey Gibson
	The Native Woodlands of Scotland	Scott Wilson
2016	The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland	Sebastiaan Verweij	Winner	[27]
	Vikings in Islay: The Place of Names in Hebridean Settlement History	Alan McNiven	Shortlist	[37]
	James Hogg and British Romanticism: A Kaleidoscopic Art	Meiko O'Halloran
	Scottish Arctic Whaling 1750-WWI	Chesley Sanger
	The Wild Black Region: Badenock 1750-1800	David Taylor
2017	The Light Blue Book: 500 Years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse	Peter Mackay & Iain MacPherson	Winner	[28]
	The Campbells of the Ark: Men of Argyll in 1745 (Vol I and II)	Ronald Black	Shortlist	[38]
	Muslims in Scotland: The Making of Community in a Post-9/11 World	Stefano Bonino
	History as Theatrical Metaphor	Ian Brown
	Immortal Memory: Burns and the Scottish People	Christopher Whatley
2018	What the Victorians Made of Romanticism: Material Artifacts, Cultural Practices, and Reception History	Tom Mole	Winner	[97]
	Early Cinema in Scotland	John Caughie, Trevor Griffiths and María A. Vélez-Serna	Shortlist	[40]
	Literature and Union: Scottish Texts, British Contexts	Gerard Carruthers and Colin Kidd
	Tea and Empire: James Taylor in Victorian Ceylon	Angela McCarthy and Sir Tom Devine
	The Chair of Verity: Political Preaching and Pulpit Censure in Eighteenth-century Scotland	Ronald Lyndsay Crawford
2019	Working Verse in Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community	Kirstie Blair	Winner	[98]
	The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900	T M Devine	Shortlist	[99][42]
	Energy at the End of the World: An Orkney Islands Saga	Laura Watts
2020	No award given
2021	Darkness Visible: The Sculptor’s Cave, Covesa, from the Bronze Age to the Picts	Ian Armit and Lindsey Buster	Winner	[43]
	Gaelic in Scotland: Politics, Movements, Ideologies	Wilson McLeod	Shortlist	[44]
	Stepping Westward	Nigel Leask
	Terrorists, Anarchists and Republicans	Richard Whatmore
	The Changing Outer Hebrides	Frank Rennie
2022	Surveying the Anthropocene: Environment and Photography Now	(ed) Patricia Macdonald	Winner	[5]
	A Long and Tangled Saga	Bob Chambers	Shortlist	[45]
	Ainmean Tuineachaidh Leòdhais /The Settlement Names of Lewis	Richard A v Cox
	Recovering Scottish History: John Hill Burton and Scottish National Identity in the Nineteenth Century	Craig Beveridge
	Scripting the Nation: Court Poetry and the Authority of History in Late Medieval Scotland	Kathernie H Terrell
2023	The Old Red Sandstone, or, New Walks in an Old Field	Hugh Miller	Winner	[100]
	Mousa to Mackintosh: The Scottishness of Scottish Architecture	Frank Arneil Walker	Shortlist	[12]
	Cha Till Mise	Ruaraidh G MacIlleathain
	Politics and the People: Scotland, 1945–1979	Malcolm Petrie
	Scotland's Lascar Heritage	various
	French Paintings 1500–1900	Michael Clarke and Frances Fowle
2024	England’s Insular Imagining	Lorna Hudson	Winner	[14]
	Somhairle MacGill-Eathain na Bhriathran Fhèin	Mairi Sìne Chaimbeul, Jo NicDhòmhnaill & Iseabail NicGill-Eain	Shortlist	[46]
	The Afterlife of Mary, Queen of Scots	Stephen J Reid
	Salt: Scotland’s Newest Oldest Industry	eds. Christopher A. Whatley, Joanna Hambly
	Scotland's Royal Women and European Literary Culture, 1424 – 1587	Emily Wingfield

• Scottish literature
• Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards, formerly the Scottish Arts Council Book Awards
• List of history awards
• List of literary awards
• List of awards named after people

• Strachan, Anne (1989) Prizewinning Literature: UK Literary Award Winners Library Association Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-85365-558-8

• Marsden, Stevie (2021). Prizing Scottish Literature: A Cultural History of the Saltire Society Literary Awards. Anthem Studies in Book History. Anthem Press. ISBN 9781785274824.