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The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001
The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001
Mar 6, 2026 4:38 PM

Author:Sue Townsend

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001

'An achingly funny anti-hero' Daily Mail

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

In the SIXTH book in Sue Townsend's hilarious and iconic series, Adrian, Leicester's most unlikely ex-con, faces the nit-infested reality of being a single parent . . .

__________

Monday January 3, 2000

So how do I greet the New Millennium? In despair. I'm a single parent, I live with my mother . . . I have a bald spot the size of a jaffa cake on the back of my head . . . I can't go on like this, drifting into early middle-age. I need a Life Plan . . .

The 'same age as Jesus when he died', Adrian Mole has become a martyr: a single-father bringing up two young boys in an uncaring world.

With the ever-unattainable Pandora pursuing her ambition to become Labour's first female PM; his over-achieving half-brother Brett sponging off him; and literary success elusive, Adrian tries to make ends meet and find a purpose.

But little does he realise that his own modest life is about to come to the attention of those charged with policing The War Against Terror . . .

__________

'One of the great comic creations of our time. Almost every page of his diaries bring a smile to the face' Scotsman

'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran

Reviews

Celebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the sixth book in his diaries where Adrian, Leicester's most unlikely ex-con, faces the nit-infested reality of being a single parent

—— from the publisher's description

Told with Townsend's trademark deadpan humour and cringe-worthy mishaps. To people of a certain age, Adrian Mole was their Harry Potter

—— News of the World

Very funny indeed. A satire of our times

—— Sunday Times

An achingly funny anti-hero

—— Daily Mail

Adrian Mole is one of the great comic creations of our time

—— Scotsman

To people of a certain age, Adrian Mole was their Harry Potter. Loveable in its celebration of mediocrity, it's told with Townsend's trademark deadpan humour

—— News of the World

The diaries are a satire of our times...very funny indeed

—— The Sunday Times

The funniest person in the world

—— Caitlin Moran

This book is very, very funny. Stibbe has a fine eye for absurdity, and her writing has an unforced charm. [And] there is real darkness here, which makes the humour shimmer all the more

—— Independent on Sunday

Lizzie's voice is convincingly childlike but also confidently witty . . . What is most moving here - and what makes the book most similar to Love, Nina - is its celebration of the happiness possible within the family. Stibbe's feat is to remain unsentimentally barbed while subtly and triumphantly demonstrating the value of the kind of understated love found within the strangest and least obviously functional families

—— Telegraph

Fans of Love, Nina will not be disappointed. Amusing, the writing is never less than accomplished

—— Daily Mail

This densely populated coming-of-age story (for both mother and children) has retained and even expanded on Stibbe's signature antic charm ... The appeal of Stibbe's novel lies less in plotting than in the way she shades a sequence of comic vignettes with seriously sad undertones. It's not too much of a stretch to conclude that Man at the Helm, with its jauntily matter-of-fact social satire, wouldn't be out of place on the same shelf as Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle

—— New York Times

This tour-de-force follow-up to Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a celebration of the extraordinary in the everyday, and Baume’s prose elevates the ordinary and finds inspiration in the strange.

—— Irish Times

[B]eautifully drawn … Baume’s writing is lyrical and immensely readable … [S]he is, in fact, the everywoman of her generation.

—— Scotland on Sunday

There’s an effortless profundity to Baume’s writing that never once draws attention to itself but rather quietly reminds you how terribly sad the world can be.

—— Dante Magazine

As tender and luminous as her debut.

—— The Mail on Sunday

Baume’s writing is lyrical and immensely readable ... [her] portrait of a conflicted young woman is heart-wrenchingly real on every page.

—— Yorkshire Post

A refreshing take on the genre, a semi-autobiographical retreat novel about finding something to live for not in nature but in art.

—— The Skinny

With this inventive and fascinating new novel Baume proves that she is the master of describing the intense poignancy of solitude within a noise-drenched world.

—— Lonesome Reader

Baume achieves the feat of making a book about depression, alienation and other cheerful subjects deeply absorbing and, ultimately uplifting. She does this through the elegant lucidity of her prose, the sharp truth of her insights and the wry humour that arise from her character’s associative mind.

—— Literary Review

A masterclass in the power of prose that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt lost.

—— i paper

Baume’s writing is distinguished by remarkable precision and lucidity

—— Daily Mail

A fast-paced, ambitious, hallucinatory mystery

—— Publishers Weekly

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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