Before I discuss, I would like to note for those who are looking for Trainspotting the novel... this is not it. Irvine Welsh adapted his wonderful novel for the stage and this is the result. Along with another play, Headstate, you can enjoy some of the great drama coming out of contemporary Scotland. The play is significantly different from the novel (and the film as well) - different enough that I would call them variations on a theme, but not truly the same story. There is a lot of role-doubling, so if you are not used to non-realist theatre styles, you might not find this work overly palatable. For those theatre buffs out there, it's a great read, and a fun choice for regional theatre companies looking for something new (but you will need actors with solid Scottish accents).

I read that half the people who bought the novel "Trainspotting" have never bought a book before! I fall into that category, with the exception of non-fiction. I bought Filth for the flight home from Edinburgh to New Jersey because I had enjoyed "Trainspotting" the movie. Once I started reading it (slowly!) I could'nt put it down. It was absolutely amazing. It helps that I'm originally from around the area I suppose but the fact remains that "Filth" is an amazing book. Bruce Robertson is a thoroughly despicable person (soccer fans will note that Welsh is a Hibernian fan and made Bruce a Hearts fan!). We are supposed to be following Bruce along as he solves a politically sensitive murder case when in fact all we're doing is following his total and complete degeneration. This book is incredibly funny and will test your stomach at times, but for a "non-reader", this will get you into reading, especially Irvine Welsh books of which, this is the best.

Read the book it far outclasses the film which in itself was very good. END

This is a truly stunning book. If you have any way of getting it, Go for it. You will not regret reading this.

Irvine Welsh's classic first novel which spawned a play and a critically acclaimed film is now available in the US in hardback, with a great non-film oriented dust jacket. If you have read Trainspotting then you know what I'm talking about, but this book is (to put it plain and simple) one hell of a funny and interesting journey.

The whole gang is here; Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie along with some other great voices that went unheard in the film version. If all you know of Trainspotting is the film, then you owe it to yourself to read this book. The perspective changes chapter to chapter and the voices are distinct and hilarious. This is a literary tour de force with Welsh pulling out all the stops and stopping at nothing to shock, inspire, and warn.

I have never been able to read a novel that is the basis for a film after seeing the film. Trainspotting is so inventive, complex, and fresh that this was not the case. The novel and the film are both distinct and wonderful pieces of work, enjoyable for many different ways.

The language is a little hard to get for the first few chapters, but fighting through it is well worth it and lends to a great reading experience. The language is original and fresh, recalling the distinct narrative of "A Clockwork Orange". A modern classic.

This is a small book but they've managed to pack an amazing amount of information and opinion into it. I'm a huge fan of Trainspotting, in all of its incarnations, and the energy of the work really comes through in this book - Robert Morace is clearly a big fan as well. He provides some fascinating background on Welsh's own background (especially about Thatcherism and its effects on Scotland) and his analysis of the novel itself is readable and hard to disagree with. I've read Trainspotting 4 or 5 times, but this has made me want to go and read it again.

I am an American who owns over 300 cookbooks, and I consider myself a gourmet cook. On a recent trip to Britain, I scoured bookstores and chose this book over all the others. I'm glad I did. I have to say, this is absolutely the BEST cookbook I have come across in the past 20 years.

This book is not as comprehensive as The Joy of Cooking, which tries to tell you how to cook absolutely everything under the sun. But this book IS inclusive of everything that's important in classic British Cooking (and in traditional American cooking, as well)'soups, sauces, cheese and eggs, vegetables, fish, meat, poultry, picnics, puddings, cakes and baking, and preserves and pickles. In addition, it has chapters on The Great British Breakfast, Savories and Snacks, Sunday Lunch Roasts, A Festive Christmas, and Afternoon and High Tea.

As an American, I learned SO much from this book. I learned about the ORIGIN of bacon and eggs for breakfasts, about the histories of many different vegetables (quite different information than is included in The Joy of Cooking), HOW and WHY British cuisine got a reputation for being bland (it wasn't always so), and many things about the history of eating which have just been plainly lost to us in America. For example, I did not know before that the origin of certain foods sometimes being served on a piece of toast was from the 'trenchers' used in medieval times--'trenchers' being big slabs of bread which were laid directly on the table, and food put on top. The reason for the use of trenchers was that plates were too expensive for ordinary people to use. Not only are so many interesting discussions about the origins of different foods and customs included in this book, but ALL the recipies are interesting and FANTASTIC!

British readers will enjoy the depth and style of this book, while American readers will really learn a lot about the origin of our own traditional cuisine. I will treasure this book for many years. I am buying four more copies to give as gifts this Christmas. I bought the paperback edition. This book is so wonderful and will be used for so many years, that I highly recommend to other readers to spend the extra money and get a hardcover edition, if it is available.

How is it that the Final Opus of Leon Solomon is out of print in both hardcover and paperback?

The book's author, Jerome Badanes, died halfway through the sequel to The Final Opus of Leon Solomon. What he had written, and revised himself, was a pretty amazing 100 page novella called Change or Die which appears in Issue number #5 of Open City in its entirety.

It is always a peculiar thing when you take a piece of writing that has so much peculiar character and substance, and lump it in with all the other stuff that happens to comprise that issue of the magazine.

This issue has some absurd wild cards - when seen in the light of its central feature, "Change or Die," - such as an Irvine Welsh story he wrote shortly after completely Trainspotting, and this wonderful piece of non-sense that Delmore Schwartz wrote about T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism. That is the one interesting thematic thread in this issue--Both Shwartz and the academic protagonist of Change or Die (a man trying to recover from Shakespeare,) have a certain lovely fatedness about them.

And Change or Die has one of my favorite short lead sentences:

"The Blik family was a dream and an education."

What a great beginning to such a great story!

(And what a concise and honest use of the short sentence, which has been bastardized and beaten up on any number of fronts, from Hemingway imitators to the cold pragmatism of news providers).

If this whole computer as a means to shop for books is to have any good side, then it is that finding a book like, "The Final Opus of Leon Solomon," or getting your hands on the novella "Change of Die" is something you MUST GET! If only to make use of the fact that you are sitting in front of a computer and perusing.

Jerome Badanes. He is coming back in the only way he can.

I must admit. I only picked up this book because Irvine Welsh had a small part in its content. I am very happy I did though. It is a very charming look at a families build up to a wedding, as well as the ceremony and reception. What makes this book so unique, is two things. One, this is no "ideal" family. Two, Waplington was able to capture some rare moments with his photographs. Flipping through the pages, you can get caught in their lives. I almost felt a part of the family. As though I was in the same run down house, with children running all about me. Walpington lives with his subjects. In doing this, he is able to show us a side to their lives you would not usually see in a photograph. I can not praise this book enough. Once again, my love of Irvine Welsh, has introduced me to a gem. This book is worth the time and money and should be noticed.

Figured I'd write that title so people would know what this book is about because I certainly didn't with a title like Trainspotting! Firstly, I read a couple of customer comments and noticed a lot of customers complaining about the Scottish 'lingo'. Personally, I didn't have a problem with the accent being British with Scottish grandparents but even so, my book had a translation list in the back so I'm wondering why people didn't use this as a guide? Anyway, Irvine Welsh has written a riveting book about heroin addicts and their everyday life. Wow! Talk about a hard-hitting book! The characters were quite vivid in my mind throughout the book as the narrator, Renton, tells his account of life in a junky existence. The energy pouring out of each page is riveting! I was actually bouncing off the walls along with the addicts at some points. The parts I really found interesting and amazing were the accounts of how they 'scored', how they paid for their drugs and all of the different drugs they would use for a high! The toilet chapter was vivid too. This book is intense and is not what I'd recommend for a lot of people I know, but if you like reality books and can manage the Scottish dialect then I'd recommend this book. Beware; it's graphic in some spots.

After seeing the film "Trainspotting" I decided it was time to read the novel that got it all started. After all, the lead actors in the film even claimed they feel in love with it after thier first reading! Trainspotting had to be the first Real adult book I read. Now being 15, at the time I was 14, it was a bit of a chllange. The hard scottish accents were tough to get around, but once you got through the first two chapters it was fine. Welsh does however, start his chapter of strangely in the sense that you are never quite sure who is talk until you reach at least the second page. Over all. It turned out to be the best book I ever read! IThe characters caught my attention and they gained my sympathies (even when, at times, they didn't desrve it). Renton is an amazing voice in the book and it is no wonder that Ewan McGregor turned him into a cult hero in Britain. This book should definitely be on the top of everyones reading list. As it is, I have read it three times, not to mention lent it out so often, that I find I will have to buy myself a second copy. And it's definitely worth it. Trainspotting is Irvine Welsh's greatest accomplishment! READ IT!

It's not a book for everybody.

Yes, it was dark. Yes, it had naughty, naughty language. Yes, parts of it depressed the hell out of me. But parts of it also touched me and even made me cry....

The characters were more real than those in any other book I have read to date. I have finally found an author who can rival Douglas Coupland at people-making! Mr. Welsh deserves a hurrah for his incredible talent for seeing and writing people as they truly are. Everybody knows somebody from Trainspotting, whether or not said someody is a heroin addict.

I think that, for many, the attraction to this book lies in the fact that we are all addicted to something...people, places, books, love, hate...and we have all been "kicking" something. Therefore, this novel can speak to anybody...if you listen to it.

Oh, and it's the first time I have actually been attracted to a literary character. C'mon, ladies, wouldn't Renton be just the IDEAL man if he'd just kick that nasty habit of his???

Read this book! If nothing else, you will feel that you are prepared to travel to Scotland and talk with the natives.

Irvine Welsh, the 'bad boy' of modern Scottish literature, certainly doesn't hold back when writing about his favorite subject: the misfits of urban Scotland. He chooses realistic (read filthy) language, and is completely uncompromising in showing us how the forgotten underclass live and think. Marabou Stork Nightmares has all the Welsh goodness (or rather, badness?) in telling a story about a teenager growing up in an utterly dysfunctional household. His life spirals downhill, falling into company of rapists and football hooligans. The 'Marabou stork' element is an interesting side story of the teenager's early life in South Africa as it is retold later on when the (now) young adult is suffering from some serious delusions. Complicated? A bit, but it all comes together nicely.

Marabou Stork Nightmares is not my favourite Irvine Welsh book. That belongs to 'Filth', which should serve as a better intro into the world of Mr. Welsh for those wanting the challenge. However Marabou Stork Nightmares an enjoyable, bizarre read.

A little more offbeat that the other Welsh works, this one goes into the head of coma-beset thug, Roy Strang. He's passing time in his coma by inventing a fantasy world where he is on a mission in Africa to eliminate the evil predator marabou stork. This world is depicted in a old-fashioned boy's own adventure-style language, however, it keeps getting interrupted by real-life visitors talking to him. This sets him off on reflections on his dysfunctional upbringing and the horrific Scottish slums he comes from. Over the course of the book, Roy reveals his maturation and a transformation from bullied kid to violent "casual," culminating in an awful crime. If it sounds whacked-out, it kind of is, but it all makes some terrible kind of sense when you read it... Welsh demonstrates his usual written pyrotechnics in switching voices back and forth between the upper-crusty tones of the African story with the gritty realistic ramblings he's displayed elsewhere.

i read trainspotting while i was living in england and had to put it down because it was just too far over my head, two years later i picked it up again and was lost to reality for a couple days. unfortunatly i lost the book while high on my way to rehab on BART. i was left with a hole that needed to be filled, so i aquired the marabou stork nightmares. for eight hours i sat on a couch and lived as our misguided main character for that time. when i finished, i put it down and walked around still lost for about a week, unable to get the end out of my head. the style of writing is classic welsh and the characters are just as pitiful in their delusions as the gang from trainspotting, but their actions even more despicable because of their wanton violence. the scariest thing about it is that these characters were probably based on actual people welsh ran into during his adventures.
...This book will grab you by the balls and pull you down into hell, it will spit you out in the only way possible... insanity. READ THIS BOOK

Ah didnae think ah'd like this eht fist...

But these stories are pock-marked all over with irony, humour and the infallible bad language and vernacular put into use by Irvine Welsh, author of that classic (which I won't name here). This book should be read without that other book looming behind it with a knife to it's back.

This is a good read, and that should be enough. But there's people out there who think it could be better, that Welshie disnae have a grasp of the short story, etc, etc... but they're all missing the point something chronic. How often do we get the lives of Eurotrash thrust into our face? Not many of us get to witness first hand a drug raid, or indeed, a baby with a dirty mind... but herein lies Welsh's appeal. See, it's funny. It's so sick that it's funny...situations we'll never get into ourselves. It'll make you squirm and grin in revulsion. Come on people, admit it to yourself. You only ever read Welsh for the kick. Don't kid yourself about what is deemed to be literature or Booker Prize material or politically correct... just enjoy it and stop your whining.

I loved The Acid House. I've read each of the stories multiple times. Welsh takes you on an amazing journey with each of these stories, as the impossible becomes possible. Anything can happen, no matter how warped it is. Your mind is messed with, especially if you are in a drug induced state. The stories actually talk to you. They come to life. You know exactly what Welsh is talking about, no matter how deep he goes. He goes pretty deep, which makes you feel very intelligent since you understand it. The plot twists are genius, and surprise the hell out of you. This is one hilarious book, full of cynicism, irony, wit, mockery of humanity, and dead on reality. An inspiration to my own writing.

The Acid House by irvine welsh is a superb depiction of the fears one has about the outcome of one's life. these twisted and beautifully articulated stories are written to fit any lifestyle perfectly. the way welsh uses the scottish vernacular is mind boggling and entertaining. i would read this book a thousand times over just for the enjoyment of learning to understand another culture's vernacular of my own language. my personal favorite storie in this novel had to be The Granton Starr Cause due to its unique and twisted ending. i must admit, this is the most quality novel i've read thus far in my existance.

After the blockbuster Trainspotting and the equally brilliant but unrecognized Marabou Stork Nightmares, comes this novel Filth. One thing is for certain - Welsh writes brilliantly in the scottish slang vernacular and he has an ability to deliver one powerful ending after another. He is a deranged O'Henry. 3/4 of the novel is shocking, disgusting, revolting, hilarious, and all the other adjectives used when describing Welsh's talents and his prose style. The tapeworm and its philosophical musings is hilarious, irrelevent, and original. The actual ending is shocking but the events leading up to the final scene get away from Mr. Welsh. Yes, his relations with his wife are absolutely jaw-dropping(Can't go into detail, just read and you will see) but I just didn't feel like Bruce's past from the coal mines should have been told by the tapeworm. He left out information vital to the story and had the tapeworm fill the reader in. Pretty weak narrative device. But i am an admirer of Welsh and his original voice so I still enjoyed the novel. It is just flawed, that's all. Just don't ever let your guard down when reading this book. He will surprise you with a few scenes here and the ending is true to the title Filth.

The entire first chapter is about a fart, I think. I had to try to read it over and over so many times because of the incomprehensible scottish slang. They replace words with rhymes, if that makes any sense. If you can get past the language, go for chapter 2.

I brought this book with me on my flight to the Dam, full of posh and eager to start Roger Mooring. I couldn't tear my eyes off the thing. Well done Welsh! Love that Robbo...a true blue solid polis after my own heart. ...