Books

[Carnage]

I enjoyed Collins' biography more than I thought I would, but yeah - like most autobiographies it tailed off toward the end. The best one I've read lately was Elton John's, very warts and all.

I lost interest in Welsh a long time ago but what I've read I read in order. It probably makes no difference but lead characters in one book can turn up in another in cameos or smaller roles. So yeah, start with Trainspotting. There are a few different versions of it though, it's originally written in phonetic Edinburgh slang which is tough going 'til you get used to it. It was later published in 'standard English' which seemed pointless to me.

I'd also recommend Glue, Porno, Ecstasy and The Acid House.

[mishima]

Has anyone read Dan Simmons' Hyperion books? Always saw the name but read into the plot/style a bit more and I'm intrigued.

I read the first one a good few years ago. Well worth checking out.

[mishima]

Love Ellis (for the most part) - never read Welsh. Is "Trainspotting" the place to start?

Can't really go wrong with Welsh.
Start with Trainspotting or Filth and take it from there.

[Eoin McLove]

Trainspotting is unreal. I never knew there was am 'English' version. Sure the whole point of reading Welsh is to get all the Scottish slang. I think he is a master storyteller. At his best his balance of humor and human degradation is magical.

I'm currently tipping through Last of the Mohicans. It's not exactly gripping me but I'll keep at it and see if it improves.

[nukeabuse]

To be clear Im only using those two authors for level of grimy content rather any particular writing style

[Carnage]

At his best his balance of humor and human degradation is magical.

It's the degredation that turns my stomach - the bit in Glue or Porno with Spud and that lump of shite, that was the end for me. From what I gather it's nothing compared to what Filth offers and I just don't want to go there. I bought it years ago and it's just rotting on the shelf.

[astfgyl]

There's a scene in Porno that's as bad as anything I've read in terms of degradation, again involving Spud. Haven't read all the books though so there's every chance there's worse in those too.

At the session he read passages from his new work - The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs - including a lurid scene in which a man in his 20s has sex with an ancient woman, called a white witch, whose physical attributes are described in grotesque and lavish detail. These range from the "sagging corrugations" of her body to her "ludicrously extended clitoris" to the smell of the "slimy golden-brown fecal matter that lay saturating the incontinence pads below her".

Just found that while looking up his other books. Lovely.

[Eoin McLove]

The nastiest scene that stays with me is in Trainspotting with the dude in the wheelchair injecting gear into the abscess on his stump 

[Carnage]

That scene in Porno, is it the tights/graveyard bit? Might be mixing books up. Either way I was disgusted.

[Thorn]

At his best his balance of humor and human degradation is magical.

It's the degredation that turns my stomach - the bit in Glue with Spud and that lump of shite, that was the end for me. From what I gather it's nothing compared to what Filth offers and I just don't want to go there. I bought it years ago and it's just rotting on the shelf.

Yeah I'd be the same can't, hack Welsh at all, my copy of Filth is also rotting on the shelf however it has been  read, a base level evisceration of humanity that no amount of crude humour and slang can redeem. Depressed even thinking about it. I'd always say the most outrageous and explicitly disgusting book I've read is De Sade's '120 Days In Sodom' but that had something of a twisted, surreal charm to it whereas Welsh's contemporary vulgarity and the whole prevailing atmosphere of urban decay and degeneration is just not a mindset I want to put myself in ever again.

[Eoin McLove]

   I love it even though it makes me want to have a shower after reading . I've never read de Sade. Good wanking material, I would wager.

[Thorn]

  I love it even though it makes me want to have a shower after reading . I've never read de Sade. Good wanking material, I would wager.

It ain't no Babestation 🌋

[astfgyl]

That scene in Porno, is it the tights/graveyard bit? Might be mixing books up. Either way I was disgusted.

Yep, that's the one! The fuckin depravity

[astfgyl]

  I love it even though it makes me want to have a shower after reading . I've never read de Sade. Good wanking material, I would wager.

Worked well for the lads in "Quills" at least

[Don Gately]

I was into all that craic in my 20s, Ellis, Welch etc. I think I just grew out of it.
Actually Shuggie Bain is a tough read that I would recommend.