The Book of I

Description

A Fall 2025 Indies Introduce and Indie Next Pick

★ “A small treasure… A bloody and beautiful sojourn in the distant past.”–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A brilliant Scottish debut, shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize and the Bookmark Book Festival Book of the Year.

The year is 825 CE. In the aftermath of a vicious attack by raiders from the north, an unlikely trio finds themselves the lone survivors on a remote Scottish isle. Still breathing are young Brother Martin, the only resident of the local monastery to escape martyrdom; Una, a beekeeper and mead maker who has been relieved of her violent husband during the slaughter; and Grimur, an aging Norseman who claws his way out of the hasty grave his fellow raiders left him in, thinking him dead.

As the seasons pass in this wild and lonely setting, their inherent distrust of each other melts into a complex meditation on the distances and bonds between them. Told with humor and alive with sharply exquisite dialogue, David Greig deftly lifts the curtain between our world and the past. The Book of I is an entirely unique novel that serves as a philosophical commentary on guilt and redemption, but also humanity, love, and the things we choose to believe in.

“Gruesome, exciting… I haven’t read many books that are at once so murderous and so breezily cheerful.”–Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

Binding Type: Hardcover
Author: David Greig
Published: 09/09/2025
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 9798889661276
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 0.80″ H x 8.40″ L x 5.20″ W

About the Author
Greig, David: –

David Greig is a Scottish writer whose plays have been performed widely in the UK and around the world. His theatre work includes The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, Touching the Void, Midsummer, The Events, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Local Hero, and Dunsinane. From 2015 to 2025 he was the Artistic Director at Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre. The Book of I is his first novel.