Trainspotting Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life. The seminal novel that changed the face of British fiction – repackaged for a new generation....

Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, is up to his old tricks with his new work of transgressive short fiction.

Irvine Welsh's first short-story collection since his debut work The Acid House presents five extraordinary stories, which remind us that he is a master of the short form, a brilliant storyteller, and—unarguably—one of today's funniest and most subversive writers. In "Rattlesnakes" three young Americans, lost in the desert, are accosted by two armed Mexicans. A Korean chef and a Chicago socialite find themselves connected through the disappearance of a pooch named Toto in "The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park." And in the title story, Mickey Baker—an ex-pat English bar owner living on the Costa Brava—tries to keep all of his balls in the air: maintaining his barmaid's weight at the sexual maximum, attending to the youthful Persephone, and dodging his ex-wife and Spanish gangsters.

In typically Welshian fashion, the characters and settings are anything but typical. These stories will make you laugh and gasp....

"A family saga, a revenge fantasy, a Twilight Zone-esque parable, and, most importantly, a very fun read." —Entertainment Weekly This story of two men locked in a war of wills that threatens their very existence is vintage Irvine Welsh. Troubled restaurant inspector Danny Skinner is on a quest to find the mysterious father his mother will not identify. Unraveling this hidden information is the key to understanding the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. His ensuing journey takes him from the festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie city of San Francisco. But the hard-drinking, womanizing Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of mild-mannered fellow inspector Brian Kibby. It is Skinner's unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific, undiagnosable illness, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma. Irvine Welsh's work is a transgressive parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex, and celebrity. ....

Irvine (Trainspotting) Welsh brings his brand of mayhem to the glitzed-out, drugs-and-danger state of Florida. In the wake of a nasty child-murder case, Detective Inspector Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh PD has suffered a full-scale breakdown. He's been placed on leave for mental retuning and takes off for a few days of sun in Miami. From there, Crime becomes an unmistakably Welshian blend of the macabre and the psychologically astute, as Lennox faces a dwindling supply of antidepressants, a bridal-magazine-toting fiancée who wants him to think seriously about floral arrangements, and some coke-happy locals who lead him back into old habits. Is he really in the right shape to be playing knight-errant to a terrified ten-year-old girl? Will his best instincts and worst judgments get them both killed, or find him the redemption he seeks? ....

“[An] inimitable combination of dark realism, satire and psychological insight . . . complicated, unsettling and at times beautiful."--Publishers Weekly, starred review In the wake of a nasty child-murder case, Detective Ray Lennox of the Edinburgh PD has suffered a full-scale breakdown. He’s placed on leave for mental retuning and takes off for a few days of sun in Miami. From there, Crime becomes an unmistakably Welshian blend of the macabre and the psychologically astute, as Lennox faces a dwindling supply of antidepressants, a bridal-magazine-toting fiancée, and cokehappy locals who lead him back into old habits and leave him to care for a child. Is he really in the right shape to be playing knight-errant to a terrified ten-year-old girl? Will his best instincts and worst judgments get them both killed, or find him the redemption he seeks?

....