September's Reading group: The Bridge by Iain Banks

The novel that Banks himself thought his best has much to recommend it at any time, but seems particularly apt this month

The hat has chosen The Bridge by Iain Banks. This hymn to the Forth road bridge, lament for the ills of Thatcherism and story of a fatal car crash seems beautifully appropriate in the month of the Scottish Independence referendum but it is also, of course, a book for all time. Banks himself thought it was his best novel. According to Wikipedia, he called it: "Definitely the intellectual of the family, it's the one that went away to university and got a first. I think The Bridge is the best of my books."

Elsewhere, the first review comment I found online brought a lump to my throat. Back in 1986, The Times said it "represents significant progress in the flowering of an exceptional talent a totally absorbing read."

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