Books with author Sue Townsend

British adolescent angst has never been so “laugh-out-loud funny” as in this first encounter with a sharp-witted, pining, and achingly honest underdog (The New York Times). Perhaps when I am famous and my diary is discovered, people will understand the torment of being a 13¾-year-old undiscovered intellectual. Adrian Mole is approaching fourteen, and like all radical intellectuals he must amass his grievances: His acne vulgaris is grotesque; his crush, Pandora, received seventeen Valentine’s Day cards; his PE teacher is a sadist; he fears his parents’ marriage is over since they no longer smoke together; his dog has gone AWOL; no one appreciates his poetry; and Animal Farm has set him off pork for good. If everyone were as appalled as Adrian Mole, it would be a better world. Introducing “one of literature’s most endearing figures”: a luckless adolescent of great expectations and dwindling patience who knows all—or believes he does—and tells all (The Observer). First published in 1982, Adrian’s chronicle of angst has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, spawned seven sequels, and been adapted for television and staged as a musical. Here’s where it all began.

THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF ADRIAN MOLE is the third in the series to be part of Penguin's Sue Townsend repackaging programme. A chance to sell Sue Townsend to a whole new audience! Adrian Mole has grown up. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life Pandora has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he hoped it would be. Still, intellectual poets can't always have things their own way...

“Townsend’s wit is razor sharp” as her self-proclaimed intellectual adolescent hero continues his hilarious angst-filled secret diary (TheMirror). I can’t wait until I am fully mature and can make urban conversation with intellectuals. Growing up among inferiors in Great Britain isn’t easy for a sensitive fifteen-year-old “poet of the Midlands” like Adrian Mole, considering everything in the world is conspiring to scar him for life: His hormones are in a maelstrom; his mother is pregnant (at her age!); his girlfriend, Pandora, is in shutdown; radio stardom isn’t panning out; he’s become allergic to non-precious metals; and passing his exams is as dire a crisis as the Falkland Islands. From weathering a profound but shaky romance with the love of his life to negotiating his parents’ reconciliation to writing his poetry on restroom walls (why on earth did he sign his name?), “Adrian Mole is as engaging as ever” (Time Out). The sequel to the beloved TheSecret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ continues Adrian’s chronicle of angst, which has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, and been adapted for television and staged as a musical. Adrian Mole is truly “a phenomenon” (The Washington Post).

Celebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the third book in his diaries, as 16-year-old Adrian navigates his way into adulthood Monday June 13th I had a good, proper look at myself in the mirror tonight. I've always wanted to look clever, but at the age of twenty years and three months I have to admit that I look like a person who has never even heard of Jung or Updike. Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still, without the slings and arrows of modern life what else would an intellectual poet have to write about . . . Included here are two other less well-known diarists: Sue Townsend and Margaret Hilda Roberts, a rather ambitious grocer's daughter from Grantham. 'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday Times 'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see in it' Sunday Telegraph'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

As his secret diary extends into his later teen years, the angsty Brit remains “part Holden Caulfield, part . . . Bertie Wooster” and all Adrian (The New York Times). Send my diaries back. I would hate them to fall into unfriendly, possibly commercial hands. I am afraid of blackmail; as you know my diaries are full of sex and scandal. What’s happening to Adrian Mole? He’s on the cusp of adulthood and burgeoning success as a published poet. But . . . he still lives at home, refuses to part with his threadbare stuffed rabbit, and has lost his job at the library for a shocking act of impudence: He shelved Jane Austen under “light romance.” Even worse, someone named Sue Townsend stole his diaries and published them under her own name. Of course they were bestsellers. The “brilliant comic creation” returns, sharing his poetry (award-winning!), travel journals (he’s going places), musings on lost love (more of an obsession), and some major news (he’s writing a novel!) (The Times). But not all the confessions are his alone. We also hear from that notorious pilferer Townsend, who, after receiving a suspended prison sentence, now lives in shame in a bleak moorland cottage. Don’t tell Adrian, but the New York Times Book Review still insists that it’s she who “is a national treasure.” From “one of Britain’s most celebrated comic writers” (The Guardian) comes the inventive new novel in the “perceptive and funny” (The New York Times) series that has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, was adapted for television and staged as a musical, and is nothing less than “a phenomenon” (The Washington Post).

“The trouble with trying to read passages from the Adrian Mole Diaries aloud is that you find yourself laughing so hard you can’t go on. It’s that kind of book.” —Kansas City Star “As sad and devastating as it is laugh-out-loud funny. A delight!” —New York Times The agonizingly funny, captivatingly poignant journals of England’s bespotted everyboy are now available again. An international phenomenon and perennial favorite since their initial publication made a splash in Thatcher’s Britain more than twenty years ago, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 ¾ is now side-by-side with its hilarious sequel The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole in this collected single volume.

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole is the second book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. 'If I turn out to be mentally deranged in adult life, it will be all my mother's fault.' Adrian Mole continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life in this second volume of his secret diary. Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades. 'I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading' Tom Sharpe 'A satire of our times. Very funny indeed' Sunday Times 'We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful' Heat Sue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

“The trouble with trying to read passages from the Adrian Mole Diaries aloud is that you find yourself laughing so hard you can’t go on. It’s that kind of book.” —Kansas City Star “As sad and devastating as it is laugh-out-loud funny. A delight!” —New York Times The agonizingly funny, captivatingly poignant journals of England’s bespotted everyboy are now available again. An international phenomenon and perennial favorite since their initial publication made a splash in Thatcher’s Britain more than twenty years ago, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 ¾ is now side-by-side with its hilarious sequel The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole in this collected single volume.