Sue Townsend

The day her gifted twins leave home for university, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Perhaps she will be able to think.Her husband Dr Brian Beaver, an astronomer who divides his time between gazing at the expanding universe, an unsatisfactory eight-year-old affair with his colleague Titania and mooching in his shed, is not happy. Who will cook dinner? Eva, he complains, is either having a breakdown or taking attention-seeking to new heights.But word of Eva's refusal to get out of bed quickly spreads.Alexander the dreadlocked white-van man arrives to help Eva dispose of all her clothes and possessions and bring her tea and toast. Legions of fans are writing to her or gathering in the street to catch a glimpse of this 'angel'. Her mother Ruby is unsympathetic: 'She'd soon get out of bed if her arse was on fire.'And, though the world keeps intruding, it is from the confines of her bed that Eva at last begins to understand freedom.The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year is a funny and touching novel about what happens when someone stops being the person everyone wants them to be. Sue Townsend, Britain's funniest writer for over three decades, has written a brilliant novel that eviscerates modern family life.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 and Queen Camilla, 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 Woman who Went to Bed for a Year

The Monarchy has been dismantled When a Republican party wins the General Election, their first act in power is to strip the royal family of their assets and titles and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands. Exchanging Buckingham Palace for a two-bedroomed semi in Hell Close (as the locals dub it), caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed. But is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else? 'No other author could imagine this so graphically, demolish the institution so wittily and yet leave the family with its human dignity intact.' The Times 'Absorbing, entertaining . . . the funniest thing in print since Adrian Mole.' Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph 'Kept me rolling about until the last page.' Daily Mail www.suetownsend.com

The Queen and I

Further writings from the pen of Adrian Mole as he continues to confide his deepest thoughts and most moving experiences to the page. We follow the young Adrian through life between ages 16 to 21 as he gains employment as a librarian and continues to pine for Pandora, who has gone to Oxford.

The True Confessions of Adrian Mole, Margaret Hilda Roberts and Susan Lilian Townsend

The Wilderness Years

Adrian Mole

David Walliams

Teenager Adrian writes candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual'. His painfully honest diary makes hilarious and compelling reading.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

The Cappuccino Years

The further misadventures of the world's oldest adolescent.

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction

The royal family has been living in exile on a bleak housing estate for the past thirteen years. Prince Charles is happy: he has married the love of his life, Camilla, and taken her to live in his tiny council house. He spends his time gardening, poultry keeping and writing his tortured autobiography, Uneasy Lies the Head. Camilla occupies herself in doing as little as possible. When the revitalized Conservative Party under the guidance of their new leader 'Boy' Mackintosh, publish their election manifesto the 'reinstatement of the monarchy' is the first in the list of bullet points. Her Majesty Elizabeth II cannot face being Queen again and sends Charles a formal letter: Dearest Charles, At 9.30 this morning I abdicated my position as Queen of Britain, the Commonwealth etc. etc. etc. PS It's wheelie bin day today. PPS Give my love to Queen Camilla.

Queen Camilla

the prostrate years

Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians

“Townsend has a rare gift … wickedly funny.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred) “It’s not pretty, it’s not subtle, but it’s wickedly funny and skewers London’s prime-time players.”—Columbus Dispatch Praise for Sue Townsend: “It’s a good thing British subjects are no longer beheaded for treason, or Sue Townsend’s head would roll . . . outrageously cutting.”—Newsday “[Townsend] is a national treasure.”—The New York Times Book Review Edward Clare, PM of England, doesn’t know the price of a liter of milk. Worse, he’s admitted it on national television. The public that ushered him to a landslide election has turned against him. Edward decides the only way to get closer to the men and women on the street is to travel the country dressed in drag. Leaving his high-powered, ambitious wife to attend to things in his absence, he sets out. In this comic romp Sue Townsend sends up, roasts, hoists and generally petards the once and future prime ministers as only she can. Sue Townsend is celebrated as the author of the bestselling Adrian Mole series, read by millions, as well as the #1 British bestseller, The Queen and I. She lives in Leicester, England.

Number 10

“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.

Adrian Mole Diaries

Alison Jenkins

Alan Blaikley

Ken Howard

At nearly 14, Adrian Mole is an unrecognised intellectual and poet suffering the traumas of first love, the threat of parental divorce and spots. If he could only have his mum back home, a date with the desirable Pandora, and his own poetry program on the BBC, all might be well...

Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year

Adrian Mole na crise da adolescencia

At thirteen years old, Adrian Mole has more than his fair share of problems - spots, ill-health, parents threatening to divorce, rejection of his poetry and much more - all recorded with brilliant humour in his diary.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3⁄4

A rainha Camilla

'There are two things that you should know about me immediately: the first is that I am beautiful, the second is that yesterday I killed a man. Both things were accidents . . .' When Midlands housewife Coventry Dakin kills her neighbour in a wild bid to prevent him from strangling his wife, she goes on the run. Finding herself alone and friendless in London she tries to lose herself in the city's maze of streets. There, she meets a bewildering cast of eccentric characters. From Professor Willoughby D'Eresby and his perpetually naked wife Letitia to Dodo, a care-in the-community inhabitant of Cardboard City, all of whom contrive to change Coventry in ways she could never have foreseen . . . Rebuilding Coventry is a brilliant, laugh-out-loud satire on modern Britain and the unfinished battle of the sexes. 'Splendidly witty . . . the social observations sharp and imaginative.' Sunday Express 'Nasty, naughty, funny, brash. I found this swift novel a delight.' Joseph Heller 'A satire in the best, Johnsonian tradition, with nothing and no one spared.' New Statesman www.suetownsend.com

Rebuilding Coventry

Behind the doors of the most famous address in the country, all is not well. Edward Clare was voted into Number Ten after a landslide election victory. But a few years later and it is all going wrong. The love of the people is gone. The nation is turning against him. Panicking, Prime Minister Clare enlists the help of Jack Sprat, the policeman on the door of No 10, and sets out to discover what the country really thinks of him. In disguise, they venture into the great unknown: the mean streets of Great Britain. And for the first time in years, the Prime Minister experiences everything life in this country has to offer - an English cream tea, the kindness of strangers, waiting for trains that never come and treatment in a hospital - and at last he remembers some of things he once really cared about . . . 'Wickedly entertaining. There is a gem on nearly every page. Nothing escapes Townsend's withering pen. Satirical, witty, observant . . . a clever book.' Observer 'A delight. Genuinely funny . . . compassion shines through the unashamedly ironic social commentary.' Guardian 'Poignant, hilarious, heart-rending, devastating.' New Statesman 'Hilarious. Sue Townsend's laughter is infectious.' John Mortimer, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year www.suetownsend.com

Number Ten

Whether its a war against against slugs, hosepipe bans, coping with writer's block or the perils of package holidays, Sue Townsend knows about it. Collected here are pieces from her monthly column for Sainsbury's Magazine - an advertisement for middle-age.

Sue Townsend

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