A gentle coming-of-age tale by the Bard of Orkney George Mackay Brown. His short novel invokes the prehistoric ruins, Norse history and long traditions of rural Orkney in graceful prose with lovely attention to detail and rich insight into place. Shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1994, Beside the Ocean of Time is told from the point of the young daydreamer Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter.  (SCT14, $19.95)