Synopsis
A jarring, fragmented ride through the dark underbelly of Edinburgh, the festival city. There is not an advocate, a festival performer or a fur coat in sight as, with bitter passion and rancid humour, Welsh lays bare the lives of this ill-starred bunch of addicts, alcoholics and no-hopers.

Received in the mail from Suffolk, UK, through the Reverse Wish List 2 Bookrelay. I'd read this years ago, back before the movie (which I've still never seen), and loved it. Look forward to reading it again.

I was so jealous of my friend Danna when she got a copy of this back in 1993, before it was available in the U.S. I read it a year or so later, but I'd totally forgotten that it's in phonetic Scottish vernacular, so it takes yonks tae raid. And it's first-person narrative from many perspectives, so it's hard tae ken which gadge is tellin each chapter--you have to keep an eye (ear?) out for favorite expressions -- such as Spud callin gadges "catboy" or Sick Boy's bad Sean Connery impression ("yesh, Shimon") -- or hope another character addresses the narrator by name. Set in the late 1980s, Trainspotting is as much about HIV, poverty, racism, sectarian violence, and unemployment as it is about heroin and alcoholism. (If the language has you scoobied, check the Scottish vernacular dictionary or the dictionary of UK slang.)

Mailed to a friend in Washington, DC, USA.

Thanks for finding this book
Please write a journal entry letting all its readers know that this book has been found. (It's anonymous, and you don't have to join BookCrossing to do it.) Then read and keep this book, give it to a friend, or even release it for someone else to find—just like you did. Happy reading!