Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

I opened the package containing this book less than 24 hours ago and have just finished it. Despite work the next day, I found myself still reading at two this morning! What is it about the Adrian Mole books that are so absorbing? The sagas of his family and friends are both hilarious and emotional and it is fascinating to see some of the minor characters last heard from years ago as children reappearing as adults. The books also map out the major events of the last 3 decades and capture the zeit-geist of the different eras: the 80s, 90s and now the Noughties.

I don't wish to give a summary of this book here - suffice it to say, the trials and tribulations of 2007/2008 are all mentioned and it looks as though poor old Adrian gets the short straw once again.

Will our hero (I think anti-hero is a bit unfair) now forty, ever write something someone actually wants to publish, find someone to share his life with who isn't going to abandon him and stand up to the various "friends", relatives and petty officials who make his life a misery? Will his parents ever grow up or remain teenagers in pensioners bodies?

It's a pity I read this so fast because I'll have to wait another 4 years until the next instalment comes out. That's assuming Sue Townsend is planning on one. If she isn't she's left one almighty cliff-hanger ending!

Sue Townsend proves yet again that she is one of the funniest novelists writing today. The latest installment in the Adrian Mole series sees our protagonist nearing the age of 40, living with his wife and daughter, and suffering not only from his ever-dysfunctional familiy, but also from prostate cancer. Despite the awfulness of his disease - which Townsend in no way plays down - the book is still laugh-out-loud funny throughout. I can't think of any other writer who combines heart-wrenching pathos with genuine humour so effectively. Somehow, the sadness makes the funny bits funnier, and the humour makes the tragedy all the more painfully real to the reader.

Adrian is still very much the same person as the teenager Townsend first introduced many years ago. Many of the other old favourite characters are there too - older, but not necessarily wiser. There is Pandora, Labour MP and still the secret love of Adrian's life; his parents, George and Pauline, now elderly but still keen to appear on the Jeremy Kyle show; Adrian's unlikely best friend Nigel - gay, blind, living with his guide dog and civil partner; and of course Glenn, Adrian's eldest son, currently fighting in Afghanistan. Others, however, are notable by their absence; the Braithwaite parents and Barry Kent don't get more than a mention.

There are plenty of the usual satirical side-swipes at modern society which make you both laugh and wince. Townsend cleverly incorporates many of the newsworthy events from 2007 and 2008 without it ever seeming forced - from the collapse of Icesave and Woolworths to MP's expenses and post office closures. Townsend has a gift for capturing the spirit of an age and using real-life events in her books in a realistic way. If you read Sebastian Faulks' 'A Week In December' - a novel set in a similar time frame - you will admire Townsend all the more for her skill in writing about everyday life in the 21st century. Faulks may be a serious-literary-heavyweight type but Townsend outperforms him effortlessly in this genre.

I read this book in the space of a weekend, hardly able to put it down, and was left wishing it was longer. Quite probably the best thing I've read all year. Definitely one to add to the Christmas list!

Another extremely funny, extremely touching installment of the Mole saga, which continues to build into something utterly magnificent. The subtle but deadly accurate social/political satire remains spot on, as Mole enters the era of the credit crunch and increasing global uncertainty. (At least Woolworths will always be with us, he muses at one point.) The characters just get stronger and stronger. I wondered if Sue Townsend could write anything as wonderful as Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, but she has done so here. Her comic abilities continue to mature as Mole grows older and (slightly) wiser. It's so good that you have to force yourself not to read it in one sitting.

The ending is left wide open. Is it too much to hope for another volume?