Richard Brassey is the author and illustrator of a host of colourful and original non-fiction books for children, among them the bestselling Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and The Story of Scotland, which won the TES/Saltire Society Award. The first major Loch Ness sighting was reported by a London man named George Spicer who claimed that on 22 July, 1933, while driving with his wife along the east side of Loch Ness, something like a “pre-historic animal” crossed the road ahead of them “carrying a lamb or small animal of some kind” in its mouth.

I congratulate anyone aiming to put esoteric data like this on the record, and to unearth more information on relevant people and the backgrounds to claimed eyewitness accounts.Surprisingly informative and factual (if that's the right word for such a subject) about all the lore and history. Following her academic studies in Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, she moved to Edinburgh to pursue a career in art and illustration, drawing inspiration from mythology and folklore. And this is the picture book debut of the wonderful Natasa Ilincic, who has created the most beautiful monster I’ve ever seen. Naish 2017) – are more frequently tremendously naïve, biased, impressionable and unscientific, and attracted to the subject because of its intrinsic appeal and their own tendency to want the world to be occupied by stuff considered beyond current scientific knowledge.

There’s a popular idea among cryptozoologists that one should ignore personality traits and biography and just pay attention to the monster sighting.

In The Treasure of the Loch Ness Monster, Ishbel and Kenneth need to save their family from going hungry, so when they remember the old local tale about treasure under Castle Urquhart, they set off across Loch Ness in a rowing boat. Furthermore, Spicer wasn’t a quiet, impartial witness, reluctantly discussing his encounter when door-stepped by thirsty journalists, but extraordinarily enthusiastic, garrulous and boastful about it, his own writings making him sound wide-eyed and credulous. With humour and historical accuracy, Richard Brassey tells the irresistible tale for readers everywhere. Naish’s assertion that Watson inhabits ‘an idiosyncratic intellectual landscape’ was a generous and measured response”, he says (p. The story is haunting, and along with its lovely, detailed illustrations, it captures the look and feel of Scotland perfectly.

I am of course especially interested (I hope understandably) in what Binns says about my own Hunting Monsters, a volume he classes as part of the same ‘cultural cryptozoology’ school as Loxton and Prothero’s Abominable Science! The book which resulted from his travels is highly detailed and includes reports on all known sightings, including some that occurred prior to 1933.

Kenneth and Ishbel's story is wrapped up nicely at the end of the book but the appearance and actions of the Loch Ness Monster are as mysterious as her legend leaving the reader's imagination free to dream up their own stories about her. There’s a section of photographs of unidentified animals that have washed ashore on beaches around the world–Gould argued that these might be specimens of the same creature that was living in the loch. Nataša Ilinčić is an artist and illustrator originally from Croatia, now living and working in Edinburgh.

Known affectionately as ‘Nessie’, this elusive creature has been chased with great zeal for over a century (it has been seen by over 1000 people) and this enthusiasm shows no sign of diminishing. Anyway… it would be helpful to read Reloaded right after The Loch Ness Mystery Solved if you haven’t read that book already, but I wouldn’t say that this is a requirement. Since then, there have been photographs and films that allegedly show proof of the monster’s existence. Legends of the Loch Ness Monster abound, but this new tale from renowned Scottish children's author and storyteller Lari Don sidesteps the modern Nessie to create a new Loch Ness Monster myth inspired by local folklore.

Those of us sceptical about lake monsters are so, or have become so, because we aren’t convinced by the evidence, such as it is, and we see obvious problems with the ‘data’ deemed integral to the case by believers. I photographed this male Red deer adjacent to Loch Knockie, which is just a few hundred metres to the east of Loch Ness. In view of all this, the time is right for an addendum to Solved, and thus we find The Loch Ness Mystery Reloaded (Binns 2017).