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modern scottish fiction starter pack

Novels

1. The Crow Road - Iain Banks,
2. The Trick is To Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway
3. Poor Things - Alasdair Gray
4. Lanark - Alasdair Gray,
5. How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
6. Morvern Callar - Alan Warner
7. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

Short Stories

1. Blood - Janice Galloway
2. 10 Tales Tall & True - Alasdair Gray
3. Busted Scotch James Kelman

This list was concocted for a friend who needed suggestions for books to read. It's a highly imperfect, incomplete, and subjective list of some Scottish writers who are a. really cool and b. still alive and kicking. It's a start.

Some caveats: I'm not adding the more science fiction-ey Iain Banks books, I'm figuring most people will get to those anyway--The Crow Road is one of the better of his non-SF books. Of the novels, I'd start with Trainspotting, Poor Things, and The Trick. Lanark and How Late It Was are probably the two most important books on the list, but they're also two of the most difficult and/or dense. Relatively speaking, the lightest reads are probably The Crow Road and Morvern Callar (highly uneven, but fun). I say lightest, but there isn't a book on the list that isn't grim--in general, the writers concentrate on talking about drug abuse, death, alcoholism, death, political repression, death, police brutality, death, mental problems, death, disability, suicide, sexual abuse, and, um, death. Especially the funny ones.

copyright 1999-2002, james reffell. all rights reserved.