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Irvine Welsh

Personal Information

Born September 27, 1958 (67 years old)
Leith, United Kingdom
Also known as: アーヴィン・ウェルシュ, וולש, אירווין
30 books
4.2 (81)
794 readers

Description

Scottish novelist

Books

Newest First

Rave

0.0 (0)
4

Frank, incendiary, and luminous collection by influential poet resounds with intense sensuality and seductively unique music.

PorNO

3.0 (5)
72

some of the gang from trainspotting ten years on and as always dream up schemes to make a quick buck whilst doing there normal dodgy things and how their seperate lives entangle!

A decent ride

3.0 (1)
5

"Irvine Welsh returns to Edinburgh, the home of Trainspotting and so many of his novels since, with a new novel featuring one of his most iconic and beloved characters 'Juice' Terry Lawson that's thick on the Scottish brogue, heavy on the filth and masterful in its comedic timing. A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back in Edinburgh, this time with one of his most compelling and popular characters front and center: the rampaging force of nature that is 'Juice' Terry Lawson, first seen in Glue. Juice is a man who contains multitudes: he's a top shagger, drug-dealing, gonzo pornstar and taxi driver. As we ride along in Juice's cab through the depraved streets of Edinburgh, Juice encounters a series of charmingly filthy characters, each of whom present their own, uh, unique challenges. Has he finally met his match in Hurricane 'Bawbag'? Can he discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man child Wee Jonty, out of prison? Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker? And, crucially, will Juice be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without... a decent ride? (The meaning of the title is starting to sink in now, huh?). So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for one unforgettable ride"--

Because I am a girl

0.0 (0)
2

"Seven authors have visited seven different countries and spoken to young women and girls about their lives, struggles and hopes. The result is an extraordinary collection of writings about prejudice, abuse and neglect, but also about courage, resilience and changing attitudes. Proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Plan, one of the world's largest child-centered community development organizations"--P. of cover.

Reheated cabbage

4.0 (2)
5

Most of the stories in Reheated Cabbage originally appeared in fugitive form in magazines and long-out-of-print anthologies in the 1990s. Finally collected together, they show all Irvine Welsh's trademark skills - vaulting imagination, a brilliant vernacular ear, dark, scabrous humour and the ability to create some of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction.In these pages you can enjoy Christmas dinner with Begbie, and see how warmly Franco greets his sister's boyfriend and the news of their engagement. You will discover, in 'The Rosewell Incident', how aliens addicted to Embassy Regal have Midlothian under surveillance, and plan to install the local casuals as the new governors of Planet Earth. You will not be surprised to read that a televised Hibs v. Hearts game might matter more to one character than the life of his wife, or that two guys fighting over a beautiful girl might agree - on reflection, and after a few pills and many pints of lager - that their friendship is actually more important. And you will be delighted to welcome back 'Juice' Terry Lawson, and to watch what happens when he meets his old nemesis, retired schoolmaster Albert Black, under the strobe-lights of a Miami Beach nightclub. Most of the stories in Reheated Cabbage originally appeared in fugitive form in magazines and long-out-of-print anthologies in the 1990s. Finally collected together, they show all Irvine Welsh's trademark skills - vaulting imagination, a brilliant vernacular ear, dark, scabrous humour and the ability to create some of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction.

Ecstacy

5.0 (1)
37

With three delightful tales of love and its up and downs, the ever-surprising Irvine Welsh virtually invents a new genre of fiction: the chemical romance. In "Lorraine Goes to Livingston," a best-selling author of Regency romances, paralyzed and bedridden, plans her revenge on a gambling, whoring husband with the aid of her nurse, Lorraine. In "Fortune's Always Hiding," flawed beauty Samantha Worthington enlists a smitten young soccer thug to find the man who marketed. the drug that crippled her from birth - in order to give him a taste of his own disastrous medicine. In the upbeat final tale, "The Undefeated," we experience the transfiguring passion of the miserably married young yuppie Heather and the raver Lloyd from Leith - a grand affair played out to a house music beat.

Crime

0.0 (0)
22

An electrifying thriller about innocence and absolute evil.Now bereft of both youth and ambition, Detective Inspector Ray Lennox is recovering from a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a particularly horrifying child sex murder case back in Edinburgh. On vacation in Florida, his fiancee Trudi is only interested in planning their forthcoming wedding, and a bitter argument sees a deranged Lennox cast adrift in strip-mall Florida. He meets two women in a seedy bar, ending up at their apartment for a coke binge interrupted by two menacing strangers. After the ensuing brawl, Lennox finds himself alone with Tianna, the terrified ten-year-old daughter of one of the women, and a sheet of instructions that make him responsible for her immediate safety.Lennox takes her across the state to an exclusive marina on the Gulf of Mexico, and quickly suspects that he has stumbled into a hornet's nest: a gang of organized paedophiles, every bit as threatening as the monster that haunted him back in Edinburgh. His priority is to protect the abused girl, but can the edgy Lennox trust his own instincts? And can he negotiate her inappropriate sexuality, as well as his own mental fragility, while still trying to get to grips with the Edinburgh murder and the emotions it unleashes in him? A novel about the corruption and abuse of the human soul and the possibilities of redemption, Crime is a thrilling journey into the bright glamour of the Sunshine State and a seething underworld of utter darkness.

Join now for instant access

0.0 (0)
0

Published to accompany the exhibition "Join Now for Instant Access", held at White Cube, London, 6 March-13 April, 2002.

Blade Artist

5.0 (1)
9

1 volume ; 20 cm

Glue

3.7 (3)
32

Keynote/Publisher's Comments: Despite its scale and ambition, Glue has all Irvine Welsh's usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up - about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally - who has one less skin than everyone and seems to find catastrophe at every corner. As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don't hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.

IDP

0.0 (0)
1

Ten major names in European comics and graphic novels collaborate on a single narrative--an environmentally-themed graphic novel in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Book Festival to mark its 30th anniversary. IDP (short for "internally displaced person or persons") imagines a Scotland 30 years in the future. The story, divided into six chapters, follows the catastrophic effects of a small rise in sea levels on the county's heavily populated low lying areas and how society reimagines itself in the face of a huge population shift in a world of scarce resources.

Babylon Heights

0.0 (0)
4

"If you put four dwarfs in a room with enough opium and alcohol, it's bound to end in tears. In 1935, MGM studios embarked on a movie adaptation of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. The production called for the casting of many dwarfs to play the Munchkins of the mythical Land of Oz, and the studio began recruiting 'small persons' from all over the world. During production, rumors spread around Hollywood of wild Munchkin sex orgies, drunken behavior and general dwarf debauchery. More sinisterly, a Munchkin is said to have committed suicide by hanging himself on the set during filming--what appears to be a small human body is clearly visible hanging from a tree in the Tin Man scene. It is a claim that has passed into Hollywood legend. Set in a hotel room in Culver City, California, Babylon Heights is Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh's scabrous and hilarious imaging of what could, very possibly, have led to the dwarf suicide."--Publisher's website.

Trainspotting ; & Headstate

0.0 (0)
7

viii, 752 pages : 26 cm

Filth!

4.2 (5)
75

With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves. But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition - in the form of truth and ethical conscience - from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction , and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.

Trainspotting

4.1 (25)
312

Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.

If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

0.0 (0)
11

In his first short-story collection since The Acid House, Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questionsIn his first short-story collection since The Acid House, Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questions.In 'Rattlesnakes' how do three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, and why does one find himself performing fellatio on another while being watched by the bare-breasted Madeline and two armed Mexicans?Who is the mysterious Korean chef who has moved upstairs to Chicago socialite Kendra Cross, in 'The D.O.G.S. of Lincoln Park', and what does he have to do with the disappearance of her faithful pooch Toto?In the title story, can Mickey Baker - an expat English bar-owner ducking and diving on the Costa Brava - manage to keep all his balls in the air: maintaining his barmaid Cynthia's body weight at the sexual maximum while attending to the youthful Persephone and dodging his persistent ex-wife and a pair of Spanish gangsters?By what train of events does Raymond Wilson Butler, writing a biography of a legendary US film director in 'Miss Arizona' come to end up as a piece of movie memorabilia?And how, in the novella 'The Kingdom of Fife' will Jason King - diminutive ex-trainee jockey and Subbuteo star of Cowdenbeath - fare in the world of middle-class female equestrians, and will he ever enjoy the tender and long-anticipated charms of Jenni Cahill and her remarkable jodhpurs?All of these questions are posed, and answered, in these five extraordinary stories: stories that remind us that Irvine Welsh is a master of the shorter form, a brilliant storyteller, and - unarguably - one of the funniest and filthiest writers in Britain.