Books by Irvine Welsh

Lurching from crisis to crisis, the four men circle each other, driven by their personal histories and addictions, confused, angry - so desperate that even Hibs winning the Scottish Cup doesn't really help.

Featuring murder, depravity and revenge - and enormous amounts of food and sex - The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins taps into two great obsessions of our time - how we look and where we live - and tells a story so subversive and dark it blacks out the Florida sun.

*Number #1 Bestseller**BEFORE TRAINSPOTTING CAME SKAGBOYS Mark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a bright future.

'An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent. Trainspotting is a loosely knotted string of jagged, dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wide-boys and psychos who ride in the down escalator of opportunity in the nation's capital.

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.

They Don''t Think They''re Gonna Let You Stay in the Film Business Performers deals with masculinity at the point when the sexual revolution was saturating culture. For many working-class men, it was confusing and threatening. As secularism started to replace traditional Judaeo-Christian attitudes, a lot of men found themselves torn between embracing the liberation and clinging to the simpler, more morally binary past. In the swinging and hallucinogenic London of 1968, visionary Scottish filmmaker Donald Cammell joined forces with cinematographer Nicolas Roeg to make "Performance". The film would star James Fox, Mick Jagger and Anita Pallenberg, but the casting process was frustrating for Cammell because he insisted on bringing "real villains" into the roles that supported the lead character of South London gangster Chas Devlin. David Litvinoff, a chameleon like character who bridged the worlds of rock and roll and organized crime, was employed as dialogue coach because of his connections and he set about introducing "real villains" to Donald Cammell. What started out as an acting vehicle for Mick Jagger soon took detours as Cammell began experimenting with the script. He developed the theme of dualism and became inspired by the writings of Borges and the paintings of Francis Bacon. Violence, psychedelic drugs, sex and a homo-erotic subtext became enmeshed in a story about the fracturing of the male psyche. David Litvinoff persuaded many London criminals to audition for roles in the film. Performers is the story of two of them. On release, "Performance" was disowned by Warner Brothers, refused distribution, banned in certain countries and attacked by the mainstream media over its gratuitous sex, violence and illicit drug consumption. "Performance" did however go on to become a critical success and remains a cult classic. The filming took its toll on those involved though, most notably James Fox, who suffered a nervous breakdown and retired from acting for a period of time. Many believe that this was a result of Fox''s method acting and his submergence in the London criminal underworld in preparation for the role, which Cammell enthusiastically encouraged. Today the film is cited as a huge influence on director Martin Scorsese and many other filmmakers and has gained a place in pop culture as the "coolest" and most accurate portrayal of swinging London ever documented. "Performers" is a dark, subtle comedy with a cast of 4. A play of one scene, that narrates the story of two unwitting gangsters who find themselves auditioning for a part in the film. Homoerotic in parts, somewhat misogynistic, packed full of cultural reference points from the swinging sixties, the play presents an altogether inspiring twist on a classic casting couch situation.

LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Home by Salman RushdieDreams by Sigmund FreudEating by Nigella LawsonWork by Joseph Heller

Now a major film directed by Danny Boyle reuniting the cast of TrainspottingYears on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London.

But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies - and, most alarmingly, his former self - Francis seems to have other ideas.When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband's violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly.

With a rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, 'Juice' Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane 'Bawbag'?

Hilarious, shocking and hugely entertaining, Reheated Cabbage has all the classic Irvine Welsh ingredientsIn Reheated Cabbage you can enjoy Christmas dinner with Begbie and discover how aliens addicted to Embassy Regal have Midlothian under surveillance.

Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh.

In 'Rattlesnakes', three young Americans find themselves lost in the desert, held captive by armed Mexicans; an ex-jockey and table-football star of Cowdenbeath takes on the charms of Jenni Cahill and her remarkable jodhpurs...

At Edinburgh's Department of Environmental Health, hard-drinking, womanising officer Danny Skinner wants to uncover secrets: 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs', secrets he believes might just help him understand his self-destructive impulses.

A 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. 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.

The characters in this extraordinary book are often - on the surface - depraved, vicious, cowardly and manipulative, but their essential humanity is never undermined. God turns Boab Coyle into a house-fly; The Acid House is a bizarre, disturbing and hilarious collection from one of the most uncompromising and original writers around.

Roy Strang is engaged in a strange quest in a surrealist South Africa. But behind this world lies another: the world of Roy's bizarre family, the Scottish housing scheme in which he grew up, his mundane job, a disastrous emigration to Africa, and his youthful life of brutality with a gang of soccer casuals.

This collection is made up of "The Granton Star Cause", "The Acid House" and "A Soft Touch". All three stories come from the badlands of the schemes of north Edinburgh and take us into a dark world of drugs, deviant sex and football hooliganism.

An original stage play from the author of "Trainspotting". Within the sound-proof walls of a recording studio a score is being settled. Two inner city low-lifes take the law into their own hands to satisfy their craving for fun, fear and a freakish sense of justic.

Rebecca Navarro, best-selling authoress of Regency romances, suffers a paralysing stroke. Assisted by her nurse, Rebecca plans her revenge on her unfaithful husband. Together they go in search of the man who marketed the drug that crippled her - in order to cripple him. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance.

From Irvine Welsh's bestselling books come four brilliant plays: Trainspotting, Filth and Marabou Stork Nightmares (all adapted by Harry Gibson) and Ecstasy (adapted by Keith Wyatt).

Ten years on from Trainspotting Sick Boy is back in Edinburgh after a long spell in London.