Choose Life. Choose Leith.

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About the Book: 

Much more than transgressional entertainment, Irvine Welsh’s book Trainspotting and its derivatives is a window into the social mayhem that was everyday life in one of the most deprived areas in 1980s Britain. Thatcherism. Greed. Poverty. Heroin. HIV. Disenfranchised youth. In the back garden of posh, prosperous Edinburgh, Leith had the lot.

For 20 years, Bell has interpreted Trainspotting on the streets of Leith for locals, tourists, aficionados and academics. In this book, a critical analysis of Trainspotting – the book, the play, and the film – he splices well-researched erudition with street-level wisdom and lived-experience testimony to tell the story behind the story.

This new edition refocuses Trainspotting as a creative chronicle of the early years of the ongoing and uniquely Scottish drug death culture.

Reviews: 

This hugely informative book...is a hard-hitting social history brimming with local knowledge.  ALASTAIR MABBOTT, Sunday Herald Life Magazine

No other book is needed now. Choose Life, Choose Leith: Trainspotting on Location is the book that lets others know what locals knew when they first read [Trainspotting]… Irvine Welsh has found the Boswell for his Johnson. GORNDON MUNRO, The Leither

A really absorbing read; so many strands woven together. I came away with a greater understanding of Trainspotting (the book, and the film) - it grew in stature and importance as I was reading Tim Bell's book. Not only that, I came away with new perspectives on the history of Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, the United Kingdom, new perspectives, too, on people dealing with loss, pain and temptation. PEGASUS, Amazon

The book is great, full of precise details and new information. One of the best things is the way the author connects Trainspotting with different historical periods and how he relates Welsh to other writers as Robert Louis Stevenson or Chaucer. The book allows us to analyse Trainspotting from a literary and sociological point of view; a pleasure that most of us wouldn't imagine when we were kids in 90s and Trainspotting was a new generation rise. MARISA MOLINA ALONSO, Amazon

With a teenage daughter at school at UofEdi, a long way from home in the US, I read this book for personal enrichment, deep dive on what Trainspotting was all about, and to better understand Edinburgh. What a treat! Top of my reading list for 2018. Tim Bell gives history and details of Welsh, the book, the play, the movie, but more importantly he gives an imaginative enthralling history of Leith and places Leith in the post-WWII social upheavals that were exacerbated by Thatcher economics and top-down governance. Trainspotting is about a lot more than drug abuse. Bell helped me to understand, at street level, building by building, the perfect storm of unprotected sex, heroin dealing, destructive housing and development policies/practices, and HIV/AIDS that was Leith in the 1980s. This historical perspective alone, makes Bell’s book worthy of required reading for medical students and social services professionals, regardless of one’s regard for Trainspotting. Choose this book. F. WHITTBY, Amazon

About the Author:

TIM BELL arrived in Leith in 1980 from his native rural Northumberland, and has lived in the same house there since then. Working as a social worker and bringing up a young family, he was a witness to the unfolding drama of the heroin epidemic and the arrival of HIV/AIDS in the setting for Welsh’s Trainspotting. Intrigued by the way Welsh spliced geography and history into his fiction, Bell set about unpicking the chaos and complexities of the place and the culture. In 2000, Tim became a tour guide in Leith and embarked on research for Choose Life, Choose Leith. Check out Tim's Leith Walks, find out about some of his upcoming events and read his blog posts here.

Tim has five children and two grandchildren, who live in Uganda, Italy, London and Edinburgh. He has been a life-long member of the Labour Party and an Elder of the Church of Scotland for 40 years. He is also a founding member of both the Alnwick Hockey Club and Leith Rules Golf Society.