Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

The final chapter in the beloved chronicles of an angsty Brit begun in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ is "a tour de force by a comic genius" ( Daily Mail).   Am I turning into one of those middle-aged men who think the country has gone to the dogs and that there has been no decent music since Abba?   Hard to believe! Adrian Mole is pushing forty, a beleaguered bookseller looking back through the wistful eyes of an unrecognized intellectual and, admittedly, pretty much of an Everyman. But he's also looking forward, despite a few things: His five-year-old daughter is showing alarming Stalinist traits; his son is fighting the Taliban and he's worried sick; his unfaithful wife is keeping a diary of her own and it's all rather heartbreaking; frequent urination has made him fear trouble "down there;" and his mother is penning a misery memoir that is one gross slog of a lie (born an aristocrat in a Norfolk potato field, indeed!).   Then one day he receives a phone call out of the blue from the great and only love his life: Pandora Braithwaite. "Do you think of me?" she asks. Only ever since he was 13¾ . . .   Adrian Mole's epic and hilarious chronicle of angst over a quarter century has sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, and been adapted for television and staged as a musical—truly "a phenomenon" ( The Washington Post). This final volume is "like rediscovering an old school friend on Facebook" ( Time Out), and "if [it] isn't the best book published this year, I'll eat my bookshelf" ( Daily Mail).