Every bit as filthy, funny and provocative as the novel that proceeded it [Trainspotting]… Welsh's first collection of short stories is a riot of colourful characters, eye-watering vernacular and imaginative story-telling. This is one of Britain's best writers in his swaggering pomp, and the result is brilliantly addictive.

At the top of her form, she is remarkable

Shockingly beautiful and painfully funny

The quality of the writing should help to explain Enright's having won the 2007 Man Booker Prize ... single lines and paragraphs are so well crafted, with such salty, pleasantly brutal sensibility, that these stories function like beguiling advertisements for Enright's novels. After sampling Taking Pictures, those who, like me, have not yet read The Gathering will likely move her Man Booker winner nearer to the top of the pile beside the bed

She's a sphinx, an alchemist, a literary witch who sticks a spell on you. Angela Carter and Ali Smith can do this too.... buy it, read it, it isn't realism, it's music

Every one of these stories takes you to a place you might rather not be in, but which you are drawn in to explore, allured by their dark brilliance

Enright writes beautifully about the distance of desire

Dazzling ...These narrative snapshots are skilfully framed and in-focus, the language forthright and fresh

This short story collection gives those new to her oeuvre a chance to delve into gems from her past...precociously vibrant

All the elements of Welsh's best work remain in tact here: the brilliant imagination, the phonetically-transcribed Scots dialect, the humour, the gritty realism

What's striking about these early stories is that the thicker Welsh was steeped in the primordial goo of his Edinburgh Scots phonetics, the better the storytelling got

As you would expect, the stories in this collection involve a certain amount of cultural tourism to the lower depths, undertaken with black humour... Welsh's relish for degradation covers up a strong sentimental streak

Welsh's transcription of Scots dialect is brilliant... Welsh also has a fabulous sense of the absurd... The overall vibe of these stories is dark and grim. And fierily, fiercely funny

A sparkling and adventurous writer