Glue by Irvine Welsh

Ohh I've just started it and i am really enjoying it! I loved trainspotting, was a bit scared by marabou stork but appreciated it for what it was, liked some of the short stories and was disgusted by the rest

Ralph - why? Why would you go back to Welsh after the last three were so dreary and uninspired? I'm willing to forgive any novelist one bad novel, as an experiment, but three strikes is enough for me. The guy just hit the right time with Trainspotting, which was a very fine book, but was actually just a collection of anecdotes nicked from other drug users and tied together in a loose story. I'm quite an unforgiving reader when I pay a tenner and give two hours to read a book, I expect there to be at least one moment in there that was worthwhile.

Andrew Hmm. I thought Ecstasy was very good. Filth stank. He really is a writer with a fine range and a big heart. Glue is a real emotional ride. A big departure. If someone writes something that was once considered outstanding, I'll always give them a chance and then another. Give it a go; if you do not like it, I will refund you when eventually we meet. Ralph

Ecstasy was terrible, and in fact The Acid House had one good story, the Scottish hardman who goes to EuroDisney and lays out goofy for looking at him funny. I find him a bit one-dimensional in a way that Hornby (although I am off him at the moment) isn't. I am confident that Hornby can get it back, whereas Welsh sadly, has not only lost it but couldn't give a toss about finding it because the books are still selling. I feel almost as let down by Iain Banks, who managed to produce his best ever work with Crow Road and then just completely went off, writing the most pedestrian and laboured stuff of his career. The Crow Road is still magic though.

Andrew That is so strange. The Crow Road put me off Ian Banks for a while. It was the lack of thrills that I enjoyed so much in The Wasp Factory. I really liked Complicity as well. I did re-read The Crow Road and enjoyed it much more the second time, maybe I was expecting way too much the first time i picked it up. Ralph

The Crow Road was big when i was a student. i only got a third of the way through it. it bored the pants off me. great opening line though. haven't tried any Welsh. perhaps i will do.

I'm currently halfway through Glue and I love it. I found the dialect a little difficult at first, which I remember finding with Trainspotting, but once my eyes adapted I was away. My favourite character in it is Terry Lawson, who sees the whole world through his Jap's eye. It's beautiful in places and repulsive in others (the plight of the guard dogs, for instance, which I read sat on a bus on my way to work.) But it's never anything less than a beautifully absorbing read. I've got a feeling it's going to leave me feeling sad, however.

Well, I guess there are no takers for Glue. This is a real shame because it's just the best book I've read in ages (and I've read a lot of good ones recently.) I'd even go so far as to say it's better than trainspotting, which, whilst being brilliantly written, only ever remains clever and exciting. Glue has those qualities also, but it's deeply touching as well. By the end of this book I felt the characters were people I'd known for years. And I still stand by Terry Lawson: a fantastic piece of characterisation. The pity of life wonderfully expressed.

welsh is often a good read, though in the last few years there has been a trendy backlash against him which you can monitor in wine bars etc. fact is he has consistently delivered good modern scots folklore, even in filth, which suffered from that immediate backlash. i've not read glue but i'm certain welsh will deliver his usual. there's too much player hating in british literature, as in the whole culture.