The arrival of Trainspotting was an earth-shaking cultural moment and it had a huge influence on me… This book sings and, in the darkest moments, it shines with humour and friendship. Every character here is alive
DOUGLAS STUART, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo Abhorrently dark and raw to the core, Trainspotting is an insight into one of life’s many ugly personalities — addiction and the accompanying domino effect of grim inevitabilities… Irvine Welsh’s novel will always be a cult classic.
Culture Trip
Welsh’s skill as a storyteller is undeniable, bringing both wit and compassion to a grim subject matter. If you liked Danny Boyle’s film adaptation, you’ll love the original.
i
The voice of punk, grown up, grown wiser and grown eloquent
Sunday Times
The best book ever written by man or woman... Deserves to sell more copies than the bible
Rebel Inc
Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing for decades
Sunday Times
An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marked the arrival of a major new talent… Loud with laughter in the dark, this novel is the real McCoy
Herald
A novel perpetually in a starburst of verbal energy - a vernacular spectacular... The stories we hear are retched from the gullet
Scotland on Sunday
An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marked the arrival of a major new talent. Trainspotting is a loosely knotted string of jagged dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wideboys and psychos who ride the down escalator of opportunity in the nation's capital. Loud with laughter in the dark, this novel is the real Mccoy
Herald
A page-turner... Trainspotting gives lies to any cosy notions of a classless society
Independent on Sunday