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Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years [Hardcover]

Sue Townsend
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)

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Book Description

5 Nov 2009

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Unable to afford the mortgage on his riverside apartment, he has been forced to move into a semi-detached converted pigsty next door to his parents, George and Pauline. His ravishing wife Daisy loathes the countryside, longs for Dean Street and has yet to buy a pair of Wellingtons; they are both aware the passion has gone out of their marriage, but neither knows how to reignite the flame. To cap it all off, Adrian is leaving his bed numerous times a night to go to the lavatory and has other alarming symptoms, leading him to suspect prostate trouble.

Meanwhile, his mother thinks that an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show might solve the mystery of her daughter's paternity once and for all. And when George is asked to provide a DNA sample, will the shock kill him? He is already disabled, though still chain smoking and has had an ashtray welded onto the arm of his wheelchair.

As Adrian's worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame Dr Pandora Braithwaite, BA, MA, PhD, MP and Junior Minister in the Foreign Office, ignites memories of a shared passion and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?



Product details

  • Hardcover: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Michael Joseph (5 Nov 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0718153707
  • ISBN-13: 978-0718153700
  • Product Dimensions: 16.2 x 3.8 x 24 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 140,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Product Description

Review

Thank heavens for Sue Townsend ... she has an unrivalled claim to be this country's foremost practising comic novelist. --The Mail on Sunday

Adrian Mole really is a brilliant comic creation. --The Times --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

Sue Townsend is one of Britain's bestselling authors. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, Queen Camilla, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55 ¾) and Number Ten. She is also a well-known playwright. She lives in Leicester.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny and very sad - a triumph 8 Nov 2009
By BookWorm TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
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!
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47 of 50 people found the following review helpful
By Grouse
Format:Hardcover
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!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly superb 9 Dec 2009
Format:Hardcover
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?
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars adrian mole the prostate years?!
I must admit, I haven't read "all of the others"! Bit of a jump! I would have thought the latte years would have been first, but maybe that wasn't fashionable then. Reaching, IMOP! Read more
Published 10 days ago by amethyst777
4.0 out of 5 stars Adrian Mole
I bought this book for a friend, they found the story very amusing. It arrived on time and well packaged.
Published 1 month ago by Trudy
5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud nostalgia.
If, like me you haven't read Mole since the eighties don't read the Prostrate Years yet. I read this book and wished I had read the books following his teenage years as I really... Read more
Published 3 months ago by marina
5.0 out of 5 stars Gotta love it!
Despite the potentially depressing themes of prostate cancer, recession and a marriage breaking up, this book just had me convulsed with laughter. So well crafted ... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Blue Moon
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing as always
Another fantastic mole book, every bit as good as when I first read the 13 3/4 diary 20 years ago!
Published 4 months ago by Unknown
4.0 out of 5 stars Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years
Item arrived immediately. Her e-books are a little bit pricey-half this amount would be reasonable.
One section of the book is left adjusted and the next section is right... Read more
Published 4 months ago by syd peru
5.0 out of 5 stars I love Adrian
I have been a fan since the beginning. I'm about the same age as Adrian, and often share the same problems!
More please- I need to know what happens next!
Published 5 months ago by jill
4.0 out of 5 stars Growing old.
I have much sympathy for this character as I reach the same age group. Sue writes sympathetically but poor Adrian suffers.
Published 5 months ago by mbknees
1.0 out of 5 stars no last chapter
dont buy the last chapter is missing the book is great but adrian mole is his usual self but not much good without the last chapter
i will be contacting amazon for a full... Read more
Published 6 months ago by jh
5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly brilliant
Adrian Mole has certainly come a long way from the spotty 13 3/4 year old, whose diary was presented to us by Sue Townsend some thirty years ago - this edition of his ongoing diary... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Scaroth, Last of the Jagaroth
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