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Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years
Jan 14, 2026 8:44 PM

Author:Sue Townsend

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years

'A classic. The Adrian Mole diaries are thoroughly subversive. A true hero for our time' Richard Ingrams

'My comfort read. The best diaries ever written - with apologies to Samuel Pepys, Bridget Jones and me' ADAM KAY

The FOURTH book in Adrian Mole's diaries, where we catch up with a hapless Adrian and his desperate attempts to win back the love of his life.

__________

Thursday January 3rd

I have the most terrible problems with my sex life. It all boils down to the fact that I have no sex life. At least not with another person.

Finally given the heave-ho by Pandora, Adrian Mole finds himself in the unenviable situation of living with the love-of-his-life as she goes about shacking up with other men.

Worse, as he slides down the employment ladder, from deskbound civil servant in Oxford to part-time washer-upper in Soho, he finds that critical reception for his epic novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, is not quite as he might have hoped.

But Adrian is about to discover that extraordinary and wonderful things may blossom even in the wilderness . . .

__________

'A very, very funny book' Sunday Times

'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

Reviews

Celebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the fourth book in his diaries, where we catch up with a hapless Adrian and his desperate attempts to win back the love of his life

—— from publisher's description

A classic. The Adrian Mole diaries are thoroughly subversive. A true hero for our time

—— Richard Ingrams

Enormously funny

—— Sunday Telegraph

Adrian Mole really is a brilliant comic creation

—— The Times

The funniest person in the world

—— Caitlin Moran

A great read.

—— Bella

A powerful tale of friendship.

—— Prima

Koomson brilliantly captures the fraught friendship between the two girls in this gripping tale.

—— Closer

Full of heart and sympathy.

—— Dail Mail

An absolute page-turner of a novelpowerful and oh so compelling When I Was Invisible left me with a tear in my eye and touched my heart

—— www.lovereading.co.uk

A thought-provoking, emotional drama.

—— Sunday Post

I’m a massive Dorothy Koomson fan, so I’ll be taking When I Was Invisible on holiday

—— Katie Fforde , Daily Mail, Summer Reads

Cancel the excursion to the ancient ruins and get poolside for this compelling story of love and forgiveness.

—— Sainsbury’s Magazine

A hard-hitting tale

—— Sun

Great heart

—— The Herald

Raw and emotional, this packs a punch

—— Fabulous

Koomson just gets better and better

—— Woman & Home

Tense and emotional with truly empathetic characters

—— My Weekly

A powerful story about friendship and forgiveness, fans of Dorothy Koomson’s novels will enjoy the clever twists and unexpected turns, which keep the reader enthralled

—— Candis

A powerful book … it’s always good to be thinking of a book long after you put it down

—— Woman’s Way (Ireland)

A beautiful and clever novel

—— The Culture Trip

Thematically taut and compulsively paced.

—— Edmund Gordon , Sunday Times

A very good novel of anxiety, embarrassment and also, somehow, the depths of Englishness.

—— Evening Standard

Marvellous, original and intelligent. Kunzru writes like a master storyteller... There's simply nothing [he] couldn't manage in prose

—— Literary Review

Publisher's description. Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt. This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.

—— Penguin

Compulsively readable, masterly - a tour de force

—— Rachel Kushner

Riveting from the very first page, I was completely addicted... A literary thriller and a timely, unsparing excavation of the very real spectre of race in America's past and present. White Tears is proof that Kunzru is one of the finest novelists of his generation...

—— Mirza Waheed

Hari Kunzru is an incredibly versatile writer who is alert to the inequalities in the world... Powerful and complex, White Tears is a novel about abuses of wealth and power. Brilliantly orchestrated, unforgettable and devastating

—— Bernardine Evaristo

Hari Kunzru is one of our most important novelists

—— Independent on Sunday

Kunzru's engagingly wired prose and agile plotting sweep all before them

—— New Yorker

Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton shouldn't work, but its frail texture was a triumph of tenderness, and sent me back to her excellent Olive Kitteridge

—— Cressida Connolly , The Spectator

A rich account of a relationship between mother and daughter, the frailty of memory and the power of healing

—— Mark Damazer , New Statesman

This physically slight book packs an unexpected emotional punch

—— Simon Heffer , Daily Telegraph

A novel offering more hope

—— Daisy Goodwin , Daily Mail

My Name Is Lucy Barton intrigues and pierces with its evocative, skin-peeling back remembrances of growing up dirt-poor.

—— Ann Treneman , The Times

Masterly

—— Anna Murphy
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