Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Not all my favorite books were written before I could read. Irvine Welsh is actually still alive and still writing great stories. His best so far is Trainspotting. Written in a strong Scottish venacular it can be hard to follow at times. It's the story of four young men in Edinburgh whose lives revolve around drugs, trying to get off drugs, and stealing things to get more drugs. As the main character Renton says, being a herion addict is hard to kick, because "when you are on heroin you only have one problem, how to get more heroin." The real world is a lot harder to deal with. You have to get a job, interact with people and deal with the day to day stuff that drives us all crazy.

I had always heard that Edinburgh was the AIDS capital of Europe because of the herion use and sharing needles. It wasn't until I read this book (and subsequently saw the movie) that I realized how bad it was. This book is gritty and hard to read, and not only because of the Scottish accents (which had to be subtitled in the US release of the movie). Some of the characters, i.e. Begbie, are reprehesable and seem to have little human value. Other characters you root for despite their bad habits.


This is also one of those very rare cases here the movie did a great book justice. So, if you have seen the movie, go back and read the book.