Alasdair Gray, Hugh Collins, James Kelman. Books about Glasgow.

Books about Glasgow:

This is not so much recommended reading, this list is inclined to be more of a suggestion.
Particularly relevant to this blog is the work of Hugh Collins, as he was brought up in nearby Garngad.
"Hugh Collins was born and brought up in Glasgow. In 1977 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder that took place in a Glasgow bar. Released in 1992, he has since written two volumes of autobiography - Autobiography of a Murderer (1998) and Walking Away (2000), as well as two novels, No Smoke (2001) and The Licensee (2002). He is married and lives in Edinburgh."
I have read No Smoke and Autobiography of a Murderer.
No Smoke
Glasgow, 1976. Jake McGinty and his gang are running around town, drinking, fighting and getting involved in all sorts of minor criminal activity. Then a scam goes wrong and dead bodies start to pile up. The police are quick to try to pin it on Jake - but are the real suspects closer to home?
With consummate plotting, a host of brilliantly drawn rogues and an uncanny sense of pacing, No Smoke is set to do for Glasgow what Ian Rankin did for Edinburgh.
Only, unlike Rankin and the majority of crime writers, Hugh Collins knows the territory he's talking about.

Autobiography of a Murderer.
Sentenced to "life" for murder, Hugh Collins served 16 years in prisons in Scotland. This is his account of the life that led to his imprisonment. Collins describes the wanton violence of the Glasgow streets to the culture of prison.
This extract from the opening chapter is both amusing and straight to the point:

"I'M FIVE AND A half years old, attending St Roch Primary School in Glasgow. The teacher, Miss O'Donnell, has asked us each to stand, walk to the front of the class, and tell the others what our fathers do.
'My da's a railway worker,' says one, and sits down.
'My da's a postman. He delivers the mail.' ~ It's my turn, and I walk to the front with some pride. 'My da,'
I say, 'is Wullie Collins. He's like Robin Hood. He takes from the rich and gives to the poor. My da's a bank robber.'
The class erupts, shrieking with laughter. I'm immediately embarrassed. Miss O'Donnell is taken by surprise. That's the end of that exercise, and my granny is summoned."

I usualIy buy books on ebay, these two I happened to get on Amazon

Glasgow's People: 1956-88 by Oscar Marzaroli.
Shades of Grey : Glasgow, 1956 - 1987
McIlvanney, William , photographs by Oscar Marzaroli
ANY book of Oscar Marzaroli's photographic work is a MUST HAVE item.
The Glasgow Almanac: An A-Z of the City and Its People by Stephen Terry
The Wee Book of Glasgow by Robert Jeffrey
The Legend of Red Clydeside by Iain McLean
Beloved, The: St. Mungo, Founder of Glasgow
Glasgow: The Making of the City by A Gibb
I recommend anything by Alasdair Gray, but particularly Lanark, which was published in 1981 after about thirty years in the making. Gray's works combine elements of realism, fantasy, and science fiction, plus clever use of typography and his own illustrations. He has also written on politics, in support of socialism and Scottish independence. He has been described by author Will Self as "a creative polymath with an integrated politico-philosophic vision" and by himself as "a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian". He was born just up the road from Germiston, in Riddrie.
Lanark, subtitled A Life in Four Books, was the first novel of Scottish writer Alasdair Gray, and is still his best known. Written over a period of almost thirty years, it combines realist and dystopian fantasy depictions of his home town of Glasgow.
Lanark comprises four books, arranged in the order Three, One, Two, Four ( there is also a Prologue before Book Three, and an Epilogue four chapters before the end of the book). In the Epilogue, the author explains this by saying that "I want Lanark to be read in one order but eventually thought of in another", and that the epilogue itself is "too important" to go at the end. This is something I particularly like about Gray, is a particular 'openess' about what he has plagiarised and from whom he has sought inspiration.
Don't be afraid of James Kelman - he might be a little hard going, especially if you are used to reading fiction in standard English - Kelman writes in Glasgow dialect, but it feels as if he has taken it a little further, and not just for the sake of a Glaswegian aucience. Alasdair Gray does this somewhat in reverse in Something Leather, where he gives the Queen of England's language a dialect through the character of Harry and her chums.

If you are having difficulty finding any of these books on Amazon or ebay, you could always give Abebooks or Alibris a go. Some of the more established 'real-life' shops such as Waterstone's and Blackwell's are rather good sources.