Rare Book of the Day – Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh. First American Edition.
Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh. First American Edition.
Irvine Welsh, born in 1958, is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and playwright. His work has this great raw Scottish dialect, and often portrays a brutality of life in Edinburgh. He's probably best known for his first novel Trainspotting, published in 1993. It takes the form of a collection of loosely linked short stories, telling the story of a group of friends and their addiction to heroin, their decaying friendships, and various stabs at escaping boredom. It was received with outrage and shock in some circles, and critical acclaim in others, and has since achieved the status of a cult novel. Time Out called the book "funny, unflinchingly abrasive, authentic and inventive", and The Sunday Times called Welsh "the best thing that has happened to British writing for decades." It was longlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, yet was apparently rejected for the shortlist after "offending the sensibilities of two judges." Oh and it was adapted into the classic 1996 film of the same name, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor. This is the first American edition:
Welsh:
More info here:
What striking cover art. Though I haven't read the book,only seen the film, I imagine it accompanies the text quite nicely.