Hardman of Scottish football to spill the beans on his turbulent life

One of the great characters of Scottish football – and, after his transfer to Everton from Rangers in 1994, the English version of the game – Duncan Ferguson has many stories to tell. Highs, lows, prison stints, pigeons – you name it, it’s all here in what will be one of the most hotly-anticipated sports biographies of the year.

May 8 (Century, £22)

No & Other Love Stories

Glasgow-based author Kirsty Logan presents what her publishers call “the perfect anti-Valentine” in this collection of dark short stories on the theme of … love. But if the themes are consistent, the settings are not – Logan’s tales take in everything from a medieval convent and a Victorian home to a high school in the 1990s and London in the Blitz. The Angela Carter comparisons appear apt.

February 6 (Vintage, £16.99)

Damian Barr (Image: free) The Two Roberts

The new novel from author and broadcaster Damian Barr tells the story of painters Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, who met on their first day at Glasgow School of Art (GSA) in 1933 and went on to become workmates and lovers. Working class Scottish kids – MacBryde, from Maybole, was the son of a labourer, Kilmarnock-born Colquhoun was at GSA on a scholarship – they were openly gay and for a time were at the centre of a buzzing London art scene which included Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

September (Canongate)