Book description
Within the severe and depressed slums of Drumsagart, rife with unemployment and discontent, the members of Thistle cling to their game as an escape. And when they actually start winning, a momentum grows up in the community around them, as they come to represent ambition and hope. The Holy Grail…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked The Thistle and the Grail as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This novel gets to the heart of football’s importance to communities, in this case a small Scottish industrial town beset by poverty and unemployment in the 1950s.
In this comic novel Jenkins writes simply but evocatively about football, about its emotion, and its beauty.
But perhaps more importantly, his writing focuses on the town’s people and their relationships, with each other and with the town’s Junior football team as they dream of winning the Scottish Junior Cup.
While it would be unwise to overly romanticize how football was in the past, at the same time looking back does make you…
From Stephen's list on football as a game, as business, and as community.
If you love The Thistle and the Grail...
The Rosewood Penny
2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Want books like The Thistle and the Grail?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 88 books like The Thistle and the Grail.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,343
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like The Thistle and the Grail, you might also like...
Let Evening Come
After her mother is killed in a rare Northern Michigan tornado, Sadie Wixom is left with only her father and grandfather to guide her through young adulthood. Miles away in western Saskatchewan, Stefan Montegrand and his Indigenous family are displaced from their land by multinational energy companies. They are taken…
The Sarcophagus Scroll
A dark academia mystery thriller set in contemporary St Andrews, with snappy dialogue and a strong sense of place.
When Ellie Meikle moves to the picturesque seaside town of St Andrews to study for her PhD in Ancient History, she soon feels as if she has made a mistake. She…
