I think one could call this a classic. Must read when I get around to it.

From the inside of the front cover:

"Adrian Mole is a worrier. The problems of existence hit him hard. Spots, bits of him that won't seem to keep still, the cracks in his parents' marriage, all prey heavily on his mind. There are some consolations. A fourteen-year-old feminist, an eighty-nine-year-old chain smoker and his spoilt best friend all help to lift the gloomy introspection of Mole's moods.

Mole believes he is an intellectual. He is certainly a poet. He buys strikingly coloured stationery on which to write his poems and send them to the BBC. He is dogged by ill health as well as by an infuriatingly ever-present dog, and by a catalogue of misfortunes familiar to anyone over the age of thirteen.

The acclaim which this book has already won from readers of all ages has assured it a lasting place in the literature of family life."

Blah. Didn't like this. I didn't find the book funny at all (well, okay, I might have smiled a couple of times). Can't understand why this is such a big hit. Is it just me?

I guess this is partly because it's written in the form of a journal. I just can't get anything out of the short entries.

I'm taking the book to our meet-up.

Took the book at the meet-up. I have found the later Adrian Mole books very enjoyable (when he's already adult), so I'd like to re-read this very first part of the series.

I felt kinda nostalgic reading this. Adrian is older than me (he was born 1967), but I have sort of grown up with him. It was also interesting to read the first book now that I knew what will happen to him, his family, Pandora and Nigel in the future. Now I actually want to re-read the whole series again, even though Adrian is not a very likeable character. But I find diary style very easy to read and I like the way Townsend ties the series into the real time (in the latest book, published 2009, Adrian is already 39 years old).

Also, I found some of the names in the book strangely familiar and I kept wondering if there are same or similar ones in the Harry Potter books (like Kate Bell). Coindinence, I suppose.

The book will released somewhere in the Book Fair. Happy reading!

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Saw the book at the reception counter at Book Fair, but left it right where it was. Not my cup of tea, after all. As I left at 18.00, the book was gone...

My daughter found it in a book fair. Let's start with reading!!!!