The Scottish writer and wine buyer has been named Cycling Weekly's Fantastic Fundraiser 2020. Davy not only cycled 500 miles in 4 days but raised £150,000 for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation for MND (you can still donate on JustGiving).

The editor of influential magazine Chapman and a poet in her own right, Joy Hendry was announced as the winner of the Scottish Poetry Library’s inaugural Outstanding Contribution to Poetry in Scotland Award. The award will be presented again in 2021 and then become biennial. 

The Wee Book Company won the Scots Business o the Year category of the Scots Language Awards 2020. Cranachan Publishing was shortlisted.

Stuart Paterson (published by Tippermuir) won Scots Writer o the Year at the Scots Language Awards 2020.

Luna Press Publishing is shortlisted for Best Independent Press at the British Fantasy Awards 2020.

Nina Oram, author of the The Joining (Luna Press Publishing), has been shortlisted for Best Newcomer (the Sydney J Bounds Award) at the British Fantasy Awards 2020.

Theresa Breslin (author), Marit Törnqvist (author/illustrator) and Eva Eriksson (illustrator) are all nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2021 (and all published by Floris Books).

Award-winning Scottish poet and writer Robin Robertson will be retiring from his role as associate publisher of Jonathan Cape at the end of 2020. He will continue to run the Cape poetry list as editor-at-large. See The Bookseller 7 October 2020. Željka Marošević is joining Jonathan Cape as editorial director next year.

The Booksellers Association managing director Meryl Halls was named FutureBook's Person of the Year for 2020. See The Bookseller 13 November 2020.

Kate Gibb of Canongate Books has been appointed as chair of Publishing Scotland and Fiona McParland of APS Group Ltd is the new Treasurer. John MacPherson of Bright Red Publishing joins the Board and Chani McBain of Floris Books will serve a second term. Kate Gibb takes over from Jamie Crawford who served as chair for four years. For the list of all the Board Members, see the Publishing Scotland website

After a few years on the market, the UK's most remote bookshop has been sold. The new owners plan to reopen in spring and while concentrating on the cafe side, hope to sell a selection of books. See The Bookseller 18 November 2020.

Spur of Light published by Vival Publications is the work of Aberdeen-born nonagenarian Tonie Ritchie. Begun almost 20 years ago at an inspirational creative writing course on Iona, it was finally completed this year. As 97-year-old Tonie says in her Press and Journal interview of 15 December: 'You never say never'.

We were thrilled that last month New-York based Glaswegian Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize. His debut novel Shuggie Bain (Picador) was the unanimous choice of the judges in a strong and diverse shortlist. His discussion with Damian Barr at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August was one of its highlights: watch it here.

For a round up of Scottish books that have been Booker-listed, see the feature on our website.

Every year newspapers and others compile year-end lists of books and this year is no different in that respect at least. Here is just a small selection:

Produced by Publishing Scotland to mark the start of the 2020 Frankfurt Book Fair in October, Second Nature is an 18-minute documentary film featuring five award-winning writers talking on the subject of nature and nature writing today: Kathleen Jamie, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy, Roseanne Watt and Gavin Francis. Written and presented by Jamie Crawford (of BBC's Scotland from the Sky series) and with a short reading by Tilda Swinton, this beautiful film sees the writers calling for people to 'notice' the natural world in response to the climate crisis and the Covid pandemic. You can watch it here.

We love to give you a bumper BooksfromScotland issue at this time of year to give you as many Christmas gift recommendations as possible. Every kind of book lover should find something here worth putting under their tree, from fiction, humour, biographies and cookery books, to thrillers, art, nature writing, poetry, and a huge variety of books for children.

See also the BooksfromScotland festive recommendations on Bookshop.org.

Everyone deserves a little bit of magic at Christmas. If you are able to, please consider donating £5 to Scottish Book Trust's Christmas appeal to give a book to a family who is struggling. For many families, the books provided by Scottish Book Trust will be the only ones in their home.

Publisher Saraband's Christmas appeal is supporting the Trussell Trust this year. Its Food Bank Book Bundles (pictured right) do what they say on the tin: a book and a donation to The Trussell Trust.

Portobello Bookshop has teamed up with charities Streetreads and HomeStart to get books into the hands of readers young and old. You can buy in the shop or donate to its Christmas Book Drive.

You can help those who can't afford to buy a book with a pay it forward voucher from Edinburgh's radical bookshop Lighthouse.

The Penguin Random House website features a round up of book-related charities.

Scotland Street Press has donated £1000 of brand new books to ten Edinburgh libraries as gifts for local children. See The Edinburgh Reporter14 December 2020.

And finally, we were glad to play a small part in getting some new books on the shelves of Tynecastle High's S1-S3 School of Basketball Library (see tweet of 1 December 2020).

Check if your local bookshop or favourite publisher offers this. Eg Golden Hare's PostBooks (pictured right) offers a variety of reading subscriptions. The Watermill's subscriptions include new Scottish books and Cosy Wee Reads specialises in books with a Scottish slant.

Bookishly and The Literary Gift Company focus on book themed gifts such as mugs, bookends, jewellery and cuddly toys.

Literati and Light has a wide range of book and writer themed candles and Our Lovely Goods has one called The Old Library. If you are splashing out, Byredo does a Bibliotheque scented candle (and perfume).

The Art of Illustration has a selection of limited edition prints, original illustrations and special edition books by well-known artists.

The programme was made up of over 100 events for adults, families and children. Many are available to view through the Book Festival’s own website.

If you missed these Autumn events, there are recordings of many of them on the Wigtown Digital Book Festival YouTube channel.

This year, Publishing Scotland teamed up with the Stay-at-Home! Literary Festival. You can catch up with our events on our YouTube channel.

For an annual subscription (currently £10) to Hay Player you can access thousands of audio and film recordings from Hay Festival in Wales.

Bloody Scotland. Apply for the part-time, freelance position of Digital Manager by 5pm on Friday 18 December 2020. See the Bloody Scotland website.

Creative Scotland. Apply to be a Board Member by Friday 8 January 2021 at midnight. See the Public Appointments website.

The British Book Awards. Also known as the Nibbies, these book industry awards are now open for entries until 5 February 2021. See The Bookseller website.

Our first training courses of 2021 are now open for booking so if you want to start the year learning or improving your skills, take a look at our website.

Oxford Brookes has the following modules running: 24 January to 26 April 2021

See also our round up of free and paid-for online training courses.

Collins Dictionary chose 'Lockdown' as their Word of the Year 2020. The Oxford English Dictionary couldn't choose a single 'word of the year' and wrote a report : Words of an Unprecedented Year.

Our latest report covers December 2019 to November 2020. As well as an account of what we did, it has a section on our members' highlights. See the Annual Report PDF here.

The last episode of the excellent second series with Damian Barr aired on BBC Scotland on Sunday 13 December. You can still catch up on the BBC iPlayer but be quick as some of the earlier episodes are only available for another month.

The videos of Andrew Cotter's dogs Olive and Mabel have been a real tonic over the past year. With over 50m views they went viral in a good way and even recently featured on Good Morning America. There's a book too: Olive, Mabel and Me (published by Black & White Publishing).

Janey Godley's extremely funny voiceover videos of the First Minister's coronavirus briefings have not only kept up our spirits but got the messages across. Frank Get The Door! ma feet are KILLIN me (Luath Press) contains the uncensored transcripts (ie sweary words and all!).