Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 3 December 2009.

The latest volume in the Adrian Mole saga see's Adrian down on his luck in more ways than one and when the possibility that he may have prostate cancer hits home things just seem to go from bad to worse. Sue Townsend still manages to keep these well known characters fresh, funny and interesting. You will laugh and cry at the continuing adventures of Adrian Mole.

Synopsis

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?

About the Author

Sue Townsend is the creator of Britain's best loved and bestselling diarist, Adrian Mole. She was born in Leicester in 1946, is married and has four children and five grandchildren and still lives in Leicester. She left school at fifteen and was employed in series of unskilled jobs. By her 18th birthday she was married, and a year later had her first baby. In 1978 she joined a Writers Group at the Phoenix Art Centre in Leicester and her career as an author and playwright took off from there. Her first play, Womberang, won its author a Thames Television Bursary as Writer in Residence.   Her book The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2 and its sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole were both number one bestsellers and made Sue Townsend the bestselling novelist of the 1980s. In 1991 came a third volume: Adrian Mole from Minor to Major, in 1993 Adrian Mole - The Wilderness Years and in 1999 Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years. Together the Mole diaries have sold over 8 million copies, have been adapted for radio, television, theatre and been translated into 34 languages. Her other novels include Rebuilding Coventry (1988), The Queen and I (1992) and Ghost Children (1998). A collection of her monthly columns for Sainsbury's Magazine was published in 2001 entitled Public Confessions of a Middle-aged Woman Aged 55 3/4. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation