Trainspotting

https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/trainspotting.html

This was trailed in the last magazine, I think. Looks a tidy well illustrated production. I don't remember it being 400 pages long, though - but then my memory's not what it was - probably the drugs...

>1 red_guy:
Welsh was interviewed in the Guardian (sorry, can’t quite be bothered to find the link, should be easy enough) and this was mentioned, though he claimed to have been ignorant of the existance of FS which seems like a disadvantageous soundbite for them…

>2 GusLogan: I suppose it is an incongruous combination. And a musical ?!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/02/trainspotting-author-irvine-welsh-...

This should pair well with Fear and Loathing. Both about drug abuse; both culturally significant if not high watermarks for literature; both in bright, perhaps ostentatious, bindings. I will probably add it to an order at some point.

That's more like it, Folio. Ordered.

A definite buy for me once I have decided what to combine with it to save on postage charges.

>4 ubiquitousuk: Agreed, I'll probably pick it up for my partner at some point. I already bought her Fear & Loathing. Maybe they can finish the trilogy with a Burroughs or Bukowski book. Junkie or Barfly, perhaps.

>2 GusLogan:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/02/trainspotting-author-irvine-welsh-...

Kudos to the FS for an atypically adventurous selection. Illustrations are appropriate. Ordered.

Similar to >6 Cat_of_Ulthar:, I searched for another book to combine it with to save on shipping charges and, for me, it is the newer edition of 'Monkey' by Wu Ch'eng-en.

>3 red_guy: A musical ? Wow ..wonder what level of cringe that might be .....

I did see the play back in the 90's before the film came out, just as the book started to move mainstream from a very cult following - was with a lot of folk (myself probably included) who hadn't been to a theatre through choice before.

(Ewen Bremner - Spud - played Renton in the original play - although can't remember if he was on when I was there)

Not a fan of those illustrations though. There were a few drawings in the "dead mans trousers" (the post Trainspotting/Porno book) illustrating the DMT sessions - they seemed far more appropriate to the images in my head / from the films of the characters.

>1 red_guy:

At first glance I think they have missed an opportunity here. Too much of a comic strip feel to the illustrations.

In my humble opinion, some psychedelic mind-bending full page images should be there. The images I don't think do the 'filth' and 'rawness' justice.

>11 LesMiserables: I do think the look of a graphic novel is appropriate, but from what I can see there is none of the grim humour of the book - it's all very tasteful and elegiac. Fear and Loathing was lucky to be published in Rolling Stone and get the Steadman illustrations. Who do you think in Folio's roster of illustrators might be a better fit for Trainspotting than the current offering?

>12 red_guy: Not sure who the best illustrator would be, but the illustrators used for the John Wyndham trilogy, and the JM Coetzee novel might be the fit that springs to mind.

Also not a fan of the illustrations, but it's also the colors that are putting me off.

Maybe the Folio art department and I just like different things because there have been a few that I've passed on because I didn't want to have to look at my bookshelf and see some garish yellow thing screaming at me (passed on Something Wicked This Way Comes, Confederacy of Dunces, and the recent Beowulf for the same reason).

illustrations feel like a big miss.

>14 LeBacon: We must be on different ends of the spectrum, as it were, because I have all the books you mention and love their covers.

With regard to Beowulf, having seen it in person, I would not describe it as garish at all. It is a mustard colour rather than a bright yellow, more subdued than it looks on Folio's website. If you got the physical mailing in the post, it gives a better impression of it. With the gold highlights, I think it's a really beautiful cover :-)

I'm indifferent on the illustrations, but that's often the case with FS titles for me. The illustrations seldom sell me on the book, or conversely keep me from buying it.