Raw Spirit
Iain Banks
Arrow

If the little things you hold near and dear are driving, sitting around talking to friends and/or total strangers, sitting around talking to friends and/or total strangers while drinking single malt whisky, explosions for purposes of entertainment, bashing the very bashable George Bush and/or wittering on about these things then you got nailed in the target market profile for this book.

Banks has written an only slightly twee book on what could have amounted to an entirely twee subject and done so reasonably entertainingly. The book is less about whisky than it is about Banks drinking whisky and the wonderful kinds of associations this act causes him to make about whisky, his personal history and Life In General. That's entirely cool. It feels like sitting down and having a drink with him and that's what I liked about it. If people were looking for the definitive book on whisky then they misread the title. "In search of the perfect dram..." is what the book is about and the journey is its own reward. Banks takes us across Scotland explaining why he loves the place and its famous product. Whisky has multiple appealing qualities as a beverage. As complex, fine and fulsome as a glass of the very best wine. As Banks observed I think it is even more rife with associations with the place it is made in than even wine. There is almost nothing more Scottish than a dram of single malt. It is like nothing I have ever tasted or free-associated about for that matter. For the record, so far my favorite is Talisker and YES, I like even "difficult" whisky like Laphroig but it's true that it's not for everyone.

The Twee Moments are here but so are the deeply funny and incisive ones. Worth a look especially if you are fan.