Reheated Cabbage is a new collection of old Irvine Welsh stories, many no longer in print, illustrating all his signature skills — brutal humour, an ear finely tuned to the vernacular and, of course, unforgettable characters.

In these pages you can enjoy Christmas dinner with Begbie, and see how warmly Franco greets his sister’s boyfriend and the news of their engagement. You will discover, in “The Rosewell Incident,” how aliens addicted to Embassy Regal cigarettes have Midlothian under surveillance, and plan to install the local casuals as the new governors of Planet Earth.

Most of the stories in Reheated Cabbage originally appeared in fugitive form in magazines and long-out-of-print anthologies. Finally collected together, they show all Irvine Welsh’s trademark skills — vaulting imagination, a brilliant vernacular ear, dark, scabrous humour and the ability to create some of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction.

Irvine Welsh is the author of nine previous works of fiction, most recently, Crime. He lives in Dublin.