Sue Townsend writing new Adrian Mole book when she died - Telegraph Book news Sue Townsend writing new Adrian Mole book when she died The working title - Pandora's Box - raises the prospect that Townsend planned for her hero to be romantically reunited with Pandora, object of his affection since schooldays Stephen Mangan played Adrian Mole in 'Adrian Mole - The Cappuccino Years' with Helen Baxendale as his love interest Pandora Photo: BBC By Anita Singh, Padraic Flanagan 12:41PM BST 11 Apr 2014 Sue Townsend was working on a new Adrian Mole novel when she died, with the working title of Pandora’s Box. The book was due for publication this autumn and Townsend had sent “a few wonderful pages” to her editor, Louise Moore, earlier this year. It is not known if the author had completed a first draft, and it will now be up to her family to decide what, if anything, of the project will be published. The working title raises the wonderful prospect that Townsend planned for her hero to be romantically reunited with Pandora, object of his affection since schooldays and last sighted as the Labour MP for Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Related Articles 27 Feb 2012 Gian Sammarco as Adrian Mole in the Thames TV production of 'The Secret Diary' A spokesman for Townsend’s publisher, Michael Joseph, said: “We can confirm that Sue was in the middle of writing the book. Her editor had seen what she describes as ‘a few wonderful pages’. "It was supposed to be out this autumn and we are very sad that we won’t be able to show it to the world.” Moore, managing director of Michael Joseph, paid tribute to the much-loved author. “Sue was a comic genius. I watched her write many times, and I don’t use those words lightly. “Her precision, clarity and sentence structure were simply perfect and that is why her words ring so true and are so very, very funny. “She was also a human of the very highest calibre. I loved her dearly, as did most people who were lucky enough to encounter her in their lives. Her voice will stay with us all,” Moore said. The new book would have been the 10th in the series, which began in 1982 with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾.

The 10th, Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years, was published in 2009. Townsend, who was left blind after suffering from diabetes for many years, revealed in 2012 that she was planning to revisit her most famous comic creation. Speaking at the Hay Festival, she said the book would be set against the backdrop of “austerity Britain”. “Adrian is going to be a big wheel in the village he lives in,” she explained. “But there are no facilities – the pub has closed, and the shops and the Post Office. There is a horse therapy centre though.” Author Sue Townsend (Rex Features) The book would open with Adrian’s 45th birthday, she explained, “so there will be some reflection but only a bit – too much reflection is boring”. As news of her death spread, tributes were led by JK Rowling, Ian Rankin and David Walliams. The Harry Potter author praised the writer on the social media site Twitter, posting: “So sad to hear about Sue Townsend. She gave me so many laughs. #AdrianMoleWillLiveForever” Her publishers, Penguin Books, said she died on Thursday "surrounded by her family" after suffering a stroke.

Tom Weldon, chief executive of Penguin Random House UK, said: "Sue Townsend will be remembered as one in a handful of this country's great comic writers. We were so proud to be her publishers. “She was loved by generations of readers, not only because she made them laugh out loud, but because her view of the world, its inhabitants and their frailties was so generous, life affirming and unique." Stephen Mangan, who played Adrian Mole in a 2001 television adaptation, tweeted his condolences, saying: "Greatly upset to hear that Sue Townsend has died. One of the warmest, funniest and wisest people I ever met." Writer Caitlin Moran said she was "One of the funniest women who ever lived". Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946, and set her most famous work in her home city. She left school at the age of 15, married at 18 and by 23 was a single parent with three children. Television newsreader Julie Etchingham, also from Leicester, said: “She put Leicester on the literary map and Adrian Mole in our hearts.

RIP Sue Townsend.” Crime writer Ian Rankin also paid tribute, saying that her death was “a real loss”. He said: "So I'm reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and marvelling at it afresh." Novelist Linda Grant said: "Sue Townsend did social satire without contempt and cruelty. She always felt to the reader like one of us". The poet Ian McMillan said Townsend "understood the rhythms of 'ordinary' speech and how magnificent and life-affirming they are". Musician Chas Hodges said: "Sad about Sue Townsend. Must say I preferred Adrian Mole to Harry Potter." Actor and presenter David Walliams, who has also written a string of best-selling books for children, said: "Sue Townsend was a comedy genius & wrote some of the funniest books of all time. A lovely lady too". After writing in secret for 20 years while working as a factory worker, shop assistant and youth worker, she eventually joined a writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester when she was in her 30s.

At 35 she won the Thames Playwright Award for her play Womberang and a year later published the first in her series about Adrian Mole, which she had begun writing in 1975 while living in Leicester's Saffron Lane estate. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 was published in 1982 and was an instant hit going on to sell more than 20 million copies around the world. It was followed by The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole in 1984 and six others in the Mole series, including The True Confessions Of Adrian Albert Mole and most recently Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years, in 2009. Much of Townsend's life was blighted by illness. She had a heart attack in her 30s and suffered from diabetes for many years, leaving her registered blind in 2001 and forced to resort to dictating her work. In 2009 she had a kidney transplant, also a complication of her diabetes, which was donated by her son, Sean. Speaking in 2012 she said: "He felt it more than I did.

I'm used to having operations but he'd never been in hospital before. There was never any hesitation, though. "I was thrilled he was going to give me his kidney, but also scared for him and truly appreciated it." In recent years she was left wheelchair-bound, with neuropathy in her limbs. Townsend also wrote a number of other novels, including The Queen And I, as well as further plays and two non-fiction books. Her latest novel, The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year, has sold more than half a million copies in the UK since it was published in 2012. Several of her books were adapted for the stage, while the Mole series were adapted for radio, television and theatre. In 2001 she wrote The Public Confessions Of A Middle-Aged Woman aged 55 3/4, a collection of monthly columns written for Sainsbury's magazine from 1993 to 2001. Townsend was awarded an honorary Masters of Arts from Leicester University and in 2008 was made a Distinguished Honorary Fellow, the highest award the university can give.

She was also an Honorary Doctor of Letters at Loughborough University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2009 Townsend was given the Honorary Freedom of Leicester. She said at the time: "I have been a citizen of Leicester for over 62 years, most of my family and friends live here, so I was delighted when I was nominated to receive the freedom of the city." She leaves her widower, Colin Broadway, and four children. Adrian Mole (Literature) - TV Tropes Adrian Mole You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account Share WMG Adrian, Nigel, and a magazine they'd get in trouble for possessing. A series of books, written as journals, by Sue Townsend, centering around the life of Adrian Mole, a British everyman. It starts out when he's 13¾, and the series runs until his early forties (at least). With the death of Townsend in 2014 the series has most likely come to an end barring any posthumous publications or continuation by another author. Books in the series: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (pub.

1982; covers events 1981-82; Adrian is aged 13¾ to 15) The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (pub. 1985; covers events 1982-83; Adrian is aged 15 to 16) The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (pub. 1989; covers events 1984-89; Adrian is aged 17 to 22) Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians (pub. 1991 as part of Adrian Mole: The Lost Years; covers events 1990-91; Adrian is aged 22 to 24) Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (pub. 1993; covers events 1991-92; Adrian is aged 24 to 25) Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (pub.

1999; covers events 1997-98; Adrian is aged 30 to 31) Diary of a Provincial Man (serialised in The Guardian 1999-2001; covers events 1999-2001; Adrian is aged 32 to 33) (published in book form as The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001) Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (pub. 2004; covers events 2002-03; Adrian is aged 34 to 36) Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (pub. 2009; covers events 2007-08; Adrian is aged 39 to 40) This work provides examples of: Abusive Parents : Adrian's parents border on neglectful, although it is played for laughs. Ambiguous Gender : In order to go to see his current crush, who works at a creche, Adrian borrows one of the neighbours' young children.

He doesn't know the child's name and is not sure of their gender, so books them into the creche under the name Emily. He's banned from the creche when the staff had to change the child's nappy and discovered they certainly aren't an Emily. Adrian is unable to determine the genders of his landlord's three children in The Wilderness Years. Tamsin is a girl's name, but Griffith is usually a surname and the third kid is named Alpha . The Ace : Pandora. Beautiful, witty, Head Girl of her school, doctorate from Oxford, fluent in at least five languages, MP and published author, to list just a few of her achievements. Brett Mole is a widely acclaimed author, filmmaker, ladies' man, millionaire stock trader, wit and almost everything Adrian would like to be ... until Brett loses his money during the 2008 recession. Barry Kent could be considered this as well, since he becomes a widely admired poet...much to Adrian's consternation, as he believes Barry cannot read and Adrian desperately wants to be recognized as a genius poet (or recognized as being ANYTHING wonderful, for that matter).

After having been a housewife and mother to a large family for many years, Barry's mother Edna graduates with two first-class degrees, begins a successful career in middle age, and wins awards for her academic papers while Adrian's own life is falling apart. He's stunned. A Dog Named "Dog" : The Mole family dog is only ever referred to as "The Dog". When he dies, his successor is simply referred to as "The New Dog". Alliterative Name : Bert Baxter, Martin Muffet, Pamela Pigg, Wayne Wong Amusing Injuries : The famous Airfix glue incident. And Now for Someone Completely Different : True Confessions starts off with Adrian, before jumping to Sue Townsend herself around the halfway mark and the tail end of the book is the diary of a young girl named Margaret Hilda Roberts . Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking : At one point, Adrian goes to see a psychotherapist who engages him in an exercise to pretend that a chair is his father and tell "him" why he has disappointed Adrian. The therapist encourages Adrian to be angrier, but he's already said everything he could think of to say, and continues with "...

you didn't buy me an anglepoise lamp when I was revising for my GCSEs, and I hate your Country 'n' Western cassettes" Author Avatar : The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole features Sue Townsend as an actual character, whom Adrian believes is stalking him and trying to pass off his diaries as her own works of fiction. She also appears in True Confessions, where the opening blurb explains that Adrian sued her for this. Bad Boss : Brown, Adrian's boss at the Department Of The Environment, is a petty bureaucrat who makes hell for Adrian (and, to a lesser extent, everyone else). He's obsessed with nailing Adrian for stealing postage stamps and doesn't even give him his statutory rights when Adrian's resignation letter (which he wasn't going to submit, having got cold feet) somehow finds its way to him. Adrian suspects that he cares more about the Newport Pagnell newts than he does about his subordinates. Beardness Protection Program : In the second book, Adrian runs away from home and tries to grow a beard. Beard of Sorrow : Adrian has a beard during The Wilderness Years, a notable emotional low point for him.

Birth/Death Juxtaposition : In The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, elderly Queenie dies shortly after Adrian's sister is born, and he reflects at her funeral that she had to die in order to "make way" for the baby. Bittersweet Ending : Most of the books tend to end this way, most notably The Wilderness Years where Adrian has lost Bianca and his flat is burgled, but starts a new relationship with Jo Jo and a possible career as a chef and The Prostrate Years where Daisy leaves him, but he may have gotten back with Pandora. Black Comedy : There are some elements of this in the books, such as the deaths of Ivan Braithwaite and the Moles' dog. An in-universe example is when Adrian writes "The White Van", a sitcom about a serial killer. The Bore : Adrian's knowledge of the Norwegian Leather Industry and his book tend to be looked upon with little interest from most people. British Teeth : Earlier on in the series, Adrian has an Australian dentist who comments on how bad British people's teeth are. The Bully : Barry Kent in the early books. The Bus Came Back : Several characters return after long absences. Mr.

Lucas was absent for a whole quarter-century between Growing Pains and The Prostrate Years. Before he returned in The Cappuccino Years, Nigel, Adrian's best friend in the early books had gradually faded away from the storyline; by The Wilderness Years (in which he does not appear) Nigel was referenced in passing as Adrian's former best friend. Butt Monkey : Adrian. Captain Oblivious : Adrian misses the signs of just about everything, especially when he does something that leads to disaster for someone else. Chuck Cunningham Syndrome : Half-brother Brett Slater (until The Prostrate Years). Also several more minor characters like Animal (from The Weapons of Mass Destruction). Cluster F-Bomb : The trademark of Peter Savage, Adrian's boss at the offal restaurant in The Cappuccino Years We also hear several of these from Rosie during her teenage years. Coming-of-Age Story : The books start off when Adrian is thirteen and ends in his forties with him becoming a grandfather. Cordon Bleugh Chef : Adrian becomes this in The Cappuccino Years, as Savage instructs him to only cook basic dishes. He gets an abysmal review in The Sunday Times.

He becomes a celebrity chef specialising in offal, even though he admits to being unable to cook. By the next book, he's reduced to working in a roadside burger van . Creator Cameo : In addition to Sue Townsend's appearance in The Lost Diaries and her own diaries midway into True Confessions, Adrian's contact at The BBC , John Tydeman, was actually Radio 4's Head of Drama, responsible for the original Nigel Mole radio play and later radio adaptations of the books. Credit Card Plot : Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction has an ongoing plot about Adrian's credit card debts Critical Research Failure :invoked Adrian never bothers researching anything. He sent a character on a day trip to China (...from England) who walked around on the Great Wall because that's all he knew about the place. In addition, Adrian's perpetually mixing up names of all branches of the arts (claiming Rupert Blake wrote "The Tyger", for example) Also, in the first book, he thinks that the Sistine Chapel was painted by Rembrandt in Venice. He finds Pride and Prejudice old-fashioned and thinks that Austen "should write something a bit more modern".

He also does not know why someone named "Pandora" would have the nickname "Box". In the second book, he thinks that Evelyn Waugh was a woman and confuses Kingsley Amis with Kingsley Martin. The author herself does this sometimes, too. In one book, Adrian's younger sister becomes a Goth. Townsend seems to have this idea that Goth is some sort of cult rather than a subculture, since Rosie does not wash after this and prays to a callous "Goth god". (Or maybe the joke here is that Rosie, not Townsend, has no clue what a Goth really is.) In The Cappuccino Years, Adrian is described as being almost knocked off his feet by "Sarah Brightman's opening shrieks" when he plays a The Phantom of the Opera CD too loudly - but Christine, the character played by Brightman, doesn't sing in the opening of the show. A newspaper proclaims Barry Kent's 45 year old father as a burly World War II veteran. Considering that this happens in the early eighties , it's completely impossible . However, as someone who grew up in Leicester, this could be a poke at the local newspaper which has a habit of getting these things wrong.

In the second book, a newspaper gives Adrian's age as 5, her mother's age as 58, and mispells their surname as "Vole". Daddy DNA Test : This is how Adrian finds out he is the father of Glenn Bott, and later how the family confirms that Mr Lucas, with whom Adrian's mother had an affair in an earlier book, is the real father of Rosie. Darker and Edgier : Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction dealt with some much darker topics than earlier books, such as Adrian's debt problems, the morality of the war in Iraq and Glenn's best friend being killed in combat, which has a profound effect on Adrian. The Prostrate Years is even darker than this, with Adrian being diagnosed with prostate cancer and suffering a painful breakdown of his marriage. While not quite as dark as either of these The Wilderness Years was rather bittersweet dealing with a period of homelessness and poverty, heartbreak and the death of Adrian's grandmother. The series as a whole gets progressively darker throughout, which is only natural given that Adrian is growing up, shedding some of his childhood innocence, and experiencing the world as an adult.

However, as the series goes on, his friends and family lose their patience with and tolerance of him; admittedly he brings some of it on himself, but at times they're quite openly hostile or nasty towards him, which is a bit jarring compared to earlier books. Additionally, while some of his complaining still comes off as immature Wangst , he also accumulates more genuine worries, often mentions feeling lonely, unhappy and inadequate, and is clearly showing the effects of his troubled adolescence. Deadpan Snarker : Adrian thinks he's this. His mother fits the trope much better. "Dear John" Letter : During Growing Pains, Pandora dumps Adrian twice this way, once because he wanted to see one of her nipples, the other because he started hanging out with Barry Kent. December-December Romance : Bert and his second wife, Queenie. They get married when he's 89 and she's 78. A Degree in Useless : Adrian's most prominent academic qualification is an A Level in English literature. When he leaves the Department Of The Environment, his jobsearch initially proves fruitless as nobody requires anyone with that particular qualification. Denied Parody : One publisher mistakes Lo! The Flat Hills Of My Homeland as a parody of English literature.

Ironically it is by far the best reception Lo! recieves. Determinator : Adrian's constant mailing of his work to John Tydeman at the BBC show that he's absolutely dead set on being recognised as a great writer. Tydeman becomes increasingly frustrated with Adrian's constant letters, especially when he starts sending the manuscript for Lo! The Flat Hills Of My Homeland. Did Not Get the Girl : Adrian never managed to get his most constant love interest, Pandora Braithwaite but the ending of The Prostrate Years might have changed this. Eagle Land : Hamish Mancini, Adrian's pen pal in the early books. Also, in The Cappuccino Years, his American literary agent fits the trope. The '80s : First few books take place in the 80's, and Adrian captured the zeitgeist very well. Egg Sitting : A variant of this takes place in The Cappuccino Years, when Rosie accidentally gets pregnant and decides to hire a lifelike simulation baby doll to see if she's ready to become a parent. The doll's crying drives her insane, and she eventually decides to have an abortion.

Embarrassing Middle Name : Adrian's mother names his new sister Rosie Germaine Mole, after Germaine Greer. Adrian notes that his mother is the only person who liked the "Germaine" bit. Epistolary Novel : The books are formatted as diary entries. Adrian tends to include copies of his correspondence in his entries as well. Executive Meddling : In universe example. Adrian's mother submits her book, A Girl Called "Shit" to a publisher, who insist she retitles it The Potato Farmer's Daughter. Everything Is Online : Adrian's ex-wife Jo Jo is apparently able to find his bank details, new address, and medical records online. Either that or she's got him under a scary amount of hidden surveillance. Fat Idiot : Sharon Bott, Glenn's mother and Adrian's former girlfriend. Unusually for this trope she is implied to have been pretty attractive as a teen, making her a borderline (former) Brainless Beauty too. He seems to think she's gorgeous in her rollerskating togs, but that might be because they're on a rollerskating date he's heard she's easy.

Follow the Leader : In universe Adrian tries this twice: Once by writing in the style of Bridget Jones and once by renaming his novel Birdwatching to try and capitalise on the success of Trainspotting . Adrian's mother tried to cash in on the Misery Lit genre with her autobiography A Girl Called "Shit!" Four-Temperament Ensemble . Among the teenage main characters Sanguine: Barry Kent Well, Pandora's initials spell out PLEB ... The Whelk Association Trust is a rather more "fun" example. Socialist Lesbians Against Globalisation. Gallows Humour : The author just loves to kill off characters in unusual ways. Gasshole : Glenn Bott gets in trouble for farting in school, and Adrian's mother comments that she's never known anyone to fart so much. Gender Scoff : When George goes to Stick Insect and their newly born son, Brett, Tania drives Adrian and Pauline back to Leicester from Skegness. When they get back, she tells Paulines that "All men are bastards" and shoots a dirty look at Adrian, who takes major offense to this. Good Girls Avoid Abortion : Averted with Rosie.

She is really no more "good" or "bad" than any other character, and Adrian takes her to the clinic and she doesn't get chastised or painted as a monster by anyone. Pandora's father claims that his daughter has had at least one abortion, too. Granola Girl : The entire Flowers family (except Daisy). Brown has his moments. For example, when driving to Newport Pagnell with Adrian to obtain an update on the newt situation, he drives stupidly close to a large truck so as to remain in its slipsteam to conserve fuel. Greater Scope Villain : Adrian's family, his father in particular, consider Margaret Thatcher to be this given the state of his employment history. Growing Up Sucks : Adrian's life gets increasingly crappy as time goes by. When we first meet him, he's being bullied in school and has to deal with his parents, but manages to get Pandora as a girlfriend. By the end of the final book, he has two failed marriages and prostate cancer.

Happy Ending Override : The Wilderness Years ends on a bittersweet but clearly optimistic note for Adrian - he has just been through a very low period of his life having lost his Second Love Bianca, but even that pain has made him mature as a person with him finally getting over Pandora, and he is beginning a very promising new relationship with Jo Jo. There is even a suggestion he might have a future in writing after all. Six years later when The Cappuccino Years starts he's gone through a bitter divorce, been left a struggling single parent, is back to be hopelessly in awe of Pandora and his writing career is no closer to getting anywhere. This happens again between The Weapons of Mass Destruction and The Prostrate Years: at the end of the former, Adrian is married to Daisy, they have a baby daughter and he seemingly gives up diary-writing because 'happy people don't keep a diary'. At the beginning of the latter, their marriage is unhappy (and falls apart over the course of the book) and Adrian is displaying the first signs of his prostate cancer. Have a Gay Old Time : Gleefully played with by Nigel, who starts up a Gay Club at school.

When the headmaster objects, Nigel pretends that it's for "pupils who want to be frisky, frolicsome, lively, playful, sportive, vivacious or gamesome during the dinner break. What's immoral about gaiety?" Pop-Eye Scruton: "Nigel, the word 'gay' has changed it's meaning over the past year. It now means something quite different." Nigel: "What does it mean, sir?" Pop-Eye Scruton: "...." Nigel: "Sorry sir, I can see that I will have to get an up-to-date dictionary!" Heroic B.S.O.D. : Adrian is no stranger to these, but the biggest one comes during Growing Pains after Pandora dumps him. He runs away from home, then upon returning, spends several days lying in bed incapable of mustering up the effort to get up. He gets better when Pandora comes back to him. He also spends some time running with Barry Kent and his gang, and even visits the Kent home (which turns out to be a much less dysfunctional bunch than his own family).

Keep in mind that outside of this time, he considers Barry Kent to be an enemy, and seems to develop a deep-seated hatred of Barry's success as an adult. High School Is Hell : Adrian's secondary school life is portrayed as being difficult for him, particularly in the first book where he is bullied by Barry Kent, subjected to humiliation in P.E. classes by Mr. Jones and is generally treated like shit by "Pop-Eye" Scruton. Hormone-Addled Teenager : Adrian's acne is a source of angst for him in the earlier books and, even into his thirties, he still gets spots. Growing Pains portrays his sexual frustration, especially when Pandora makes him wait, even dumping him when he feels he can no longer do so. Hypocritical Humor : In Growing Pains, Adrian does some last-minute Christmas shopping at Woolworth's on December 23. Then he complains about the long lines and asks, "Why do people wait to do their shopping until there are only two days left before Christmas?" Immediate Sequel : Growing Pains begins the day after Secret Diary ends.

Innocent Inaccurate : Played for laughs in the first book; Adrian completely fails to pick up the obvious signs of his mother's affair with Mr. Lucas. In the second book, he fails to realize the signs of his mother's pregnancy. Innocently Insensitive : There are times when Adrian displays a complete lack of tact. When introducing Bianca to his mother, she notes that she has a degree in engineering. Adrian quips that she has not so much as built a LEGO tower since leaving college, which brings her to tears. Intergenerational Friendship : Adrian tends to get along with senior citizens best, throughout his life. His relationship with Rosie can also count. He has mentioned that she's one of the few to understand him, and he's the one she goes to when she needs to get an abortion. Interquel : The Lost Diaries... sort of. Falling between the The Cappuccino Years and The Weapons of Mass Destruction they were originally published as a weekly column in the Guardian between 1999 and 2001 and were only published in book form in 2008.

The chapters remained in limbo in so long most fans assumed they had become a case of Canon Discontinuity , especially because very little in them is mentioned in the later books. Among which include the circumstances of Ivan Braithwaite's death, which are completely different to the description thereof in the book that chronologically follows. Adrian does have a tendency to be a somewhat Unreliable Narrator , so he may simply have gotten things wrong. Mr. Niggard the bank manager early on in the series. Mr. B'astard the landlord later on. Adrian's manager at the Book Shop, Mr. Carlton-Hayes. Carlton Hayes hospital was the psychiatric hospital just outside Leicester. Adrian notes that Peter Savage is a fitting name for a man of his temperament . Mayï¿½December Romance : Pandora and Cavendish have an affair in The Wilderness Years. He's a college professor in his sixties, whereas she's around 24. Men Can't Keep House : Pauline goes to an anti-nuclear protest at Greenham Common and several women join her at the Mole house afterwards. Several of the neighbourhood husbands show up at the house needing their wives to help them with simple household tasks. Mr.

O'Leary can't find his pyjamas and Mr. Singh doesn't know how to use an electric kettle. Never Mess with Granny : After Adrian's grandma learns he's being tormented by local bully Barry Kent, she goes out, returning a little while later with the money Barry took from Adrian, and assurances that he won't be bothering Adrian again. Next day, Adrian writes, "It is all over school that a seventy-six-years-old woman frightened Barry Kent and his dad into giving back my menaces money," although precise details of what happened are never given. No Can Opener : Happens in one of the early books when Adrian goes on a camping trip, causing him to note "Thank God cheese doesn't leak, break, soak up water or come in a tin." Perhaps because of this incident, when he ran away from home in the second book, he made sure to take a can opener with him. Not Even Bothering with an Excuse : In Growing Pains, Adrian has to have one of his front teeth pulled, and some of his classmates tease him about it. Two days later, still embarrassed and depressed, he stays in bed all morning instead of going to school.

He manages to pull himself together and go to school in the afternoon, so he asks his mom for an excuse note. She writes a note that says, "Adrian did not come to school this morning because he didn't get out of bed until 12:45." Oblivious to Love : Adrian is pretty dense when women are making the move on him. Notably, Bianca drops several huge hints towards him before they get together and he is called out for his not picking up on this by both his mother and his landlord. He's partly also afraid to make the first move himself being afraid of misjudging the situation. One Drink Will Kill the Baby : Marigold Flowers reacts with absolute horror when Adrian offers her a glass of wine while she's pregnant (although she's faking it so he will agree to marry her.) Adrian states that his mother did not adhere to this belief, and drank three cans of Guinness a night during her pregnancy. Papa Wolf : Adrian and his father have both had moments. Unfortunately, one of these moments was averted, leading to the incident mentioned in Never Mess with Granny .

Pocket Protector : Bert Baxter has a Bible with a bullet hole through it, and claims that it saved his life during WWI. Adrian notices that the Bible was printed in 1956. Porn Stash : Adrian's mother discovers the porn mags he has hidden under his mattress. She also discovers the phone bill (hidden for completely different reasons) and assumes there may be some additional perversion. At least, until she finds out it was a collect call from TUNISIA. Pretty Fly for a White Guy : In the early books, Adrian's classmate Danny is a Jamaican Rastafarian who happens to have albinism. After he calls Adrian a "honky" Adrian writes: "what a cheek, he's twice as white as I am!" Pronoun Trouble : In Weapons of Mass Destruction Adrian's employer, Mr Carlton-Hayes, always refers to his unseen partner Leslie (a unisex name) by name rather than "he" or "she," leading to a Running Gag throughout the book whereby Adrian wonders whether Leslie is male or female. The Prostrate Years reveals that Leslie is a man. Not only that, but Adrian looks forward to going to Mr.

Carlton-Hayes' house to find out Leslie's gender. Put on a Bus : Several characters. The most prominent is probably Adrian's younger son William, who moves to Nigeria to be raised by his mother and is never seen again. Sue Townsend justified this in an author's note a the end of The Prostrate Years by stating that William restricted the storylines she could do with him. Racist Grandma : Adrian mentions that his grandmother is "not keen on black, brown, yellow, Irish, Jewish or foreign people". Rapunzel Hair : Poppy Flowers has "the longest hair (Adrian has) ever seen" and it takes her four hours to wash and blow-dry her hair. Reality Subtext : Adrian's friend Nigel loses his sight over the course of the books, as the author did in real life Retcon : In The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, Jo Jo's second husband is named as "Colonel Ephat Mapfumo." In later books he is Wole, to which Adrian's son William changes his own name in honour of the stepfather.

Rosie is initially described as "looking exactly like Baby Spice" (Emma Bunton, who is blonde and pale) but by The Prostrate Years she has dark hair and skin which leads Pauline Mole to suspect that Mr Lucas is Rosie's real father, later confirmed by a DNA test on The Jeremy Kyle Show There's some confusion over the ages of Adrian, his son Glenn, and Rosie at different stages in the books. The Other Wiki goes into more detail. Glenn appears to gain 5 years (born in 1990 but joins the army aged 17 in 2002.) To say nothing of the death of Ivan Braithwaite ... Scruton retires during Growing Pains, but during True Confessions, Adrian mentions that he is still headmaster at Adrian's school. The Wilderness Years is set in 1991, during which time Adrian moves to London from Oxford thanks to a change in career and a new girlfriend. He's also established to have only passed one of his A Levels; English. In The Cappucino Years, he mentions in 1997 that he's been living in London for the past eight years.

He also mentions that he has two A Levels, both of which took him three attempts to pass, though it is possible that he attempted Biology again in the intervening years. The Rival : Barry Kent, for most of the series. Adrian's half-brother Brett occasionally fills the role instead. Romantic False Lead : In The Wilderness Years, Pandora's boyfriend Jack Cavendish. Her husband Julian may also count; Adrian is clearly jealous, although Julian is a Flamboyant Gay and it's a marriage of convenience. Running Gag : Adrian's talking to many people about the Norwegian Leather Industry, and how they're all bored/annoyed by it. In The Prostrate Years, most people Adrian talks to mispronounce the word "prostate." It's even in the book's title. Sadist Teacher : Reginald "Popeye" Scruton generally tends to make Adrian's life hell in the early books. He's implied to have been in his prime during the days when teachers could still physically beat students. Adrian's diagram of interpersonal relationships in Growing Pains lists him as a villain alongside Mr. Lucas, Margaret Thatcher and the Manpower Services Commission.

Shout-Out : Bridget Jones makes a brief appearance as a character in The Cappuccino Years, when Adrian hears of her diaries being published and later sees her out on a lunch date in the trendy London restaurant where he works. He then tries imitating her writing style in his own diary but very soon decides that it's irritating and reverts. When Adrian incorporates his work at Savage's restaurant into his book, he creates an Expy for his co-worker Luigi named Mario . Slap-Slap-Kiss : More like divorce divorce kiss. Adrian's parents are always splitting up and then reuniting. Small Name, Big Ego : Adrian is, or wants to be, this - he considers himself a celebrity (due to once presenting a show on cable about how to cook offal) and a gifted author (although his unpublished work is terrible, and his only published book was written in his name by his mother.) He frequently writes to famous people to offer "suggestions" about their lifestyles, ask for favours (e.g. to speak for free at the Christmas dinner for his book club) or ask radio/TV executives to give him his own show.

Stalker with a Crush : Adrian is almost this to Pandora in the early books, after they break up as teenagers (and Pandora eventually marries another man.) In The Cappuccino Years he acquires his own Stalker with a Crush , Eleanor Flood. Starter Marriage : Adrian's love interest Pandora deliberately has one of these; it's a marriage of convenience, since her husband is gay, and she believes that first marriages should "be got over with quickly." Adrian and Jo Jo's marriage also counts. It lasted only a few years, due to them having too many social and cultural differences to be sustainable. Statuesque Stunner : Adrian's first wife, Jo Jo is almost six feet tall and noted as being way out of Adrian's league. Part of the reason that his marriage with her breaks down is that he's insecure of the fact that she's taller than him. Stay in the Kitchen : Part of the reason Adrian's teen relationship with Pandora fails is that he wants to marry her straight out of school and expects her not to work outside the home, whereas Pandora has ... higher aspirations (see The Ace above.) Straw Feminist : Adrian's mother goes through a phase of this in the first two books.

Although it's toned down in later entries, she does include an entirely irrelevant chapter about gender politics when she writes a cookbook in Adrian's name. Pandora, to a lesser extent. Adrian tries to write a book with no vowels. Dsn't g wll. Ditto for his awful pseudointellectual novel Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland. And his epic poem The Restless Tadpole, which one publisher dismissed as "effete crap". The Prostrate Years has Adrian's mother trying to write her own book, a Misery Lit memoir entitled A Girl Called "Shit"! The publisher wasn't impressed. Probably because it was full of Blatant Lies . Barry Kent's poetry is similarly awful, yet he is incredibly successful at it. Suspiciously Specific Tense : In Growing Pains, Adrian is writing about "Stick Insect", the woman he thinks is his father's ex-mistress: "I have just realized that Stick Insect used the present tense when she was referring to her relationship with my father. It is absolutely disgraceful. A woman of thirty not knowing the fundamentals of grammar!

" Teen Genius : Adrian's classmate "Brain-Box" Henderson, who reappears as an adult in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Telegraph Gag STOP : Adrian receives a confusing telegram from his mother stating "Adrian stop coming home stop" and disregards it since it makes no sense as he can't stop coming home. This leads to later problems when his estranged mother turns up "without warning". Textual Celebrity Resemblance : In Growing Pains, Nigel tells Adrian that he looks like Dustin Hoffman, to which Adrian's mother scoffs "You should be so lucky, dearie." In The Wilderness Years, random passers-by mock him for looking like John Major. Time Skip : After Growing Pains, which is an Immediate Sequel to the first book, subsequent books take place several years after the previous books. Adrian's section of True Confessions starts off while he's still in school and has sporadic entries over a number of years, noting Adrian's post O Level schooling and the beginning of his subsequent employment at the Department Of The Environment. The Baby Trap : Marigold tries this on Adrian, but turns out to have been faking it.

The Topic of Cancer : Adrian suffers from prostate cancer in The Prostrate Years. Theme Naming : Daisy, Marigold and Poppy Flowers There Is Only One Bed : Many years after they had ended their sexual relationship, Adrian and Sharon Bott are forced to sleep in the same bed for a night. Sharon's current boyfriend almost starts a fight with Adrian when he finds out. Cindy, Barry Kent's ex, names her child Carlsberg. Adrian's landlord in The Wilderness Years has three children named Tamsin, Griffith and Alpha. Women Drivers : Tania Braithwaite is a mild example in that she refuses to drive above 30 mph. Wrench Wench : Bianca Dartington is a qualified hydraulic engineer, albeit reduced to working in a newsagents and then as a waitress. Write Who You Know : In universe, "Aiden Vole" from Barry Kent's highly successful novel, Dork's Diary, is basically a Captain Ersatz of Adrian. Which also makes Barry Kent into something of an Author Avatar . The books actually exist in universe, written by Sue Townsend, whom Adrian thinks is stalking him, stealing his journals, and passing them off as her own work.

(His memory is bad enough for him to really think this, even if events are only vaguely similar.) Adrian tries this with his own novel, basing characters on people he knows and puts his protagonist into similar situations to the ones he's just witnessed. Your Cheating Heart : Adrian, who became involved with Daisy while he was engaged to her sister Marigold. In The Prostate Years his marriage to Daisy breaks down when she has an affair of her own. Adrian's parents have had multiple affairs and are forever splitting up and changing partners; notably, his mother's lover Mr Lucas turns out to be the real father of Rosie. This manages to become (at least for Adrian's desires) something of a Tangled Family Tree as Adrian's mother marries Pandora's father, and Adrian's father marries Pandora's mother, making the double-step-siblings for a time...until everyone divorces and gets back with their original spouses. Bianca ends up leaving Adrian for his stepfather, Martin Muffet. :: Indexes :: Books of the year 2009 | Books | The Guardian Close Peter Carey – novelist Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows (Bloomsbury) has huge ambition and an author equal to the task.

Travelling from Nagasaki to Guantánamo, this very beautiful novel sets out to grasp the nettle of our modern history. The most utilitarian of us will find it "relevant and contemporary". At the same time, it is a work of art, as human as the feel of another's hand. Colum McCann once wrote himself inside the skin of Nureyev. In Zoli he created Romany characters that Romany readers have been pleased to own. Now, in Let the Great World Spin (Bloomsbury) [winner this week of the National Book Award for fiction], he has reinvented the city of New York in all its breathing, fighting, whining, joyous clamour. Wendy Cope – poet In January, Areté Books published A Scattering, Christopher Reid's tribute to his late wife, Lucinda. His poems about marital love and bereavement are immensely moving. Reid is a first-rate poet and this is his best book to date. Later in the year, the same author came up with something quite different. The Song of Lunch (CB Editions) is a witty narrative about a publisher meeting an old flame in an Italian restaurant.

The story is sad, as well as funny, and very enjoyable. Kazuo Ishiguro – novelist My reading this year was dominated by Roberto Bolaño's two massive novels, The Savage Detectives and 2666 (both Picador). The first is the superior, but 2666, for all its occasional longueurs, is still quite magnificent. Bolaño links seamlessly South American, US and European traditions; modernism with gritty realism and the crime thriller. These are both important works and the advent of Bolaño is a significant moment in the history of modern fiction. Peter Conrad – Observer critic My choice is Simon Mawer's novel The Glass Room (Little, Brown). Imagine the house of fiction as a clean, shining, transparent box, befouled by some of the nastiest episodes in recent history. A small saga, beautifully conceived and deeply moving. Hari Kunzru – novelist One of the most compelling recent fictional depictions of Manhattan is Richard Price's Lush Life (Bloomsbury), out this year in paperback, which takes place on the streets of the Lower East Side, a few blocks from where I live.

Price's low-key crime thriller is also a pointed look at gentrification and social exclusion, more Zola than Raymond Chandler. His ear for dialogue is extraordinary, as evidenced by his superlative work on The Wire. Also examining the lives of the dispossessed is The Story of My Assassins by Tarun J Tejpal (HarperCollins), an Indian novel that appears to have been overlooked in the general rush to adore The White Tiger and Slumdog Millionaire. Less crisp then either but with a much richer understanding of the politics of poverty – the author is a leading investigative journalist – it deserves wider attention. Dominic West – actor Josephine Hart's The Truth About Love (Virago) is a devastating account of grief and loss and the truth and lies that bind us to our family and to our country. Her language is beautiful, her characters rich and funny, and she has the courage to expose the deceit behind nationalism. It is also painfully personal and, like all great works of art, one is aware how much it cost her to write it. Jackie Kay – writer A very strong year for poetry. I was particularly moved by Fred D'Aguiar's Continental Shelf (Carcanet).

The heart of the book is a series of elegiac sonnets about the Virginia Tech massacre. D'Aguiar teaches there; his poems evoke the process of trying to work out what life means in the face of such senseless murder. Rain by Don Paterson (Faber) was another favourite of mine. Paterson is simply one of the best living poets in the UK. Kachi A Ozumba's The Shadow of a Smile (Alma Books) is a brilliantly funny and gripping novel that examines the corruption and hypocrisy within the Nigerian justice system. Philip French – Observer film critic The most valuable movie book of 2009 is Joseph P Kennedy's Hollywood Years by Cari Beauchamp (Faber), a meticulously researched account of how the Bostonian scoundrel established the family fortune in the movie business and remained in influential contact with Tinseltown until his dying day. Antony Beevor's D-Day (Allen Lane) is a brilliantly organised, eye-opening epic about the world's greatest military campaign.

With his second brick-sized volume, Family Britain 1951-57 (Bloomsbury), David Kynaston magnificently continues his sociocultural history of postwar Britain, bringing my formative years into sharper focus on every page. Shami Chakrabarti – civil rights campaigner Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury) has reconfirmed my long-held view that great fiction is capable of inspiring progressive insight and action well beyond the reach of political polemic, philosophy, documentary or even law. Shamsie achieves the near impossibility of a truly intimate epic tale. The multiple identities of various members of her complex family of characters are explored across continents and decades. Cataclysmic world events from the atomic bomb at Nagasaki to the Twin Towers atrocity are treated with a subtlety and humanity often lacking from political writing. I challenge anyone to put this book down lightly or not to identify with at least one of its many flawed and yet irresistibly human characters.

Kirsty Wark – broadcaster Rarely do I read a new novel and immediately resolve to read it again, but Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn (Viking), the tender and spare story of a young Irish girl's emigration to the Brooklyn of the 1950s, merits revisiting. Tóibín has infused his group of female characters with humour and sadness, and his evocation of their precarious journey to a new life seems to me pitch-perfect. Nigel Slater's Tender Volume 1 (HarperCollins) – hurrah, there's more to come – is to be savoured as much as his baked onions, porcini and cream. David Cameron – politician Every once in a while, political diaries emerge that are so irreverent and insightful that they are destined to be handed out as leaving presents in offices across Whitehall for years to come. Chris Mullin's A View From the Foothills (Profile) is one such book. Its humour and self-deprecation more than make up for the nagging feeling it leaves behind that The Thick of It may not always be all that far from the truth.

All politicians need to read honest accounts of war – at no time more than now – and Patrick Hennessey's The Junior Officers' Reading Club (Allen Lane) is one of the very best. There is even some humour in it and plenty of insight. Its engrossing narratives on 21st-century warfare and its effects are guaranteed to remain in the mind long after the book is finished. Mary Warnock – philosopher The book that has interested me most this year has the rebarbative title Psychiatry as Cognitive Neuroscience: Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Matthew R Broome and Lisa Bortolotti (Oxford University Press). It is a collection of very varied essays on subjects such as the nature of mental illness, whether psychiatry is a science, and why so-called personality disorder can't be treated, all matters of great interest in themselves, but also of relevance to criminal law and sentencing policy. Despite its title, it is a gripping read. Not so gripping, however, as Robert Harris's Lustrum (Hutchinson). Ever since Imperium I've been longing for the next instalment and it doesn't disappoint. It's a marvellous novel.

Colm Tóibin – novelist Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man (Jonathan Cape) is the chilling story of the death in custody of an Aboriginal prisoner in Australia. It is told with a novelist's eye for detail and flair for narrative, but there is also a passionate engagement with the story in all its complexity and a sort of rage that make the book utterly compelling. David Vann's Legend of a Suicide (Viking) is equally gripping. For the imagery alone and for the sentences, the book would be a treasure, but the story it tells – the story of the suicide of the author's father – has an immediacy and sharpness made all the more special by the tone of distance in the narrative and the beauty of the writing. In poetry, Don Paterson's Rain (Faber) displays one of the greatest poets now writing anywhere at his most wise and wry and eloquent. David Kynaston – historian Arguably the finest British diarist since Virginia Woolf has now, in James Lees-Milne, found his fitting memorial.

Michael Bloch's biography (John Murray) is admirably judged: warm, but not hagiographical; sufficiently candid about Lees-Milne's many loves (including, in an often masochistic relationship, his ghastly wife, Alvilde); and acutely revealing about the demons that drove him. Lees-Milne may not have been quite a Pepys, and Bloch is not a Claire Tomalin, but subject and author are here perfectly matched. Sam Mendes – director I was touched by Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs (Harper US), an honest and funny account of the struggles of being a father; gripped by Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail (Allen Lane), a superbly researched and sobering take on the events surrounding the meltdown on Wall Street; and mesmerised by Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin (Bloomsbury), a wonderful book that puts its author right at the front rank of contemporary novelists. Michael Palin – broadcaster Sara Wheeler's The Magnetic North (Jonathan Cape) provides acute insights into life north of the Arctic Circle.

Abundant energy resources and the alarmingly swift effects of global warming make this a fascinating and relevant journey; she uses human stories to inform and enlighten us. Roy Hattersley – politician and historian Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Penguin) is a biography of Abraham Lincoln, a history of the American Civil War, vignettes of half-a-dozen 19th-century American politicians and a textbook on good government. It is written in such a compelling style that, despite the complexities of the characters and the subtlety of the arguments, the reader zips through. The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Allen Lane) confirms, scientifically, what social democrats have always hoped was true: the better-off have much to gain from redistribution of wealth, since the more equal societies are spared much of the social evil that afflicts modern society. The confirmation that morality and expediency do coincide comes as a great relief in a disturbing year. Geoff Dyer – novelist The Music Room (Picador) is William Fiennes's memoir of growing up in a rambling old castle.

This unusual home and upbringing are evoked with great beauty and poignancy (his epileptic brother, Richard, is an increasingly vulnerable and volatile presence), in ravishing prose, but the book has another, strangely hypnotic effect, enfolding the reader in memories of a child's view of the world that seems universal. Well, maybe not if you grew up in the drug-ruined ghettos of west Baltimore. The Corner (Canongate) by David Simon and Ed Burns came out in the US in 1997, but had to wait until we all went gaga about The Wire to be published here. It's an unforgettable, devastating account of neighbourhoods and generations in the process of being laid waste. Geordie Greig – journalist The greatest living master of the short story, William Trevor, has written a jewel of a novel with Love and Summer (Viking). It is a story set in 1950s Ireland where the small-town characters are torn by love, disappointment, revenge and compassion. At 81, this brilliant Irish author still demonstrates his ability to show the subtler shades of unrequited passion.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali – writer Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (Allen Lane) zooms in on the challenges of Muslim migration to Europe, telling the story with an outsider's eye. It's a disturbing read but a necessary wake-up call. Curtis Sittenfeld – novelist I really enjoyed the essay collection Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman (Doubleday). A friend sent me the book after I had my first baby last spring, and I found Waldman – who graduated from Harvard Law School and worked as a public defender before having four children – to be frank, insightful, and very funny. Waldman's a somewhat controversial writer in the US, known for being outspoken and also for being married to the novelist Michael Chabon, and as I read I did sometimes think, wow, you're really revealing that about yourself and your family? But her honesty kept me turning pages, and after each essay, I felt like I'd just had a conversation with a smart and outrageous friend.

Jeremy Paxman – broadcaster There are three books that I have particularly enjoyed recently: I was gripped by Simon Mawer's The Glass Room (Little, Brown), chortled through Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (Michael Joseph) and learned a lot from Allan Mallinson's The Making of the British Army (Bantam). Malcolm Gladwell – writer I cannot remember enjoying a book as much as Iain Pears's Stone's Fall (Jonathan Cape). It's more adventurous even than Pears's earlier classic, An Instance of the Fingerpost. We should stop calling Pears a genre writer of thrillers and, as we have done for John le Carré, simply call him a great novelist. Eric Hobsbawm – historian In its original German version, I found Hans Magnus Enzensberger's The Silences of Hammerstein a virtuoso combination of research, reportage and imagination, as good an introduction as any to the Weimar Republic, impossible to put down.

This is the story of Kurt von Hammerstein, the last (and anti-Nazi) general commanding the German army before Hitler came to power, and his children, divided between communists, ex-communists and 1944 military conspirators. It has now been beautifully published in English by Seagull Books in, of all places, Calcutta. Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso) is both a welcome and, in the case of Israel, much needed exercise in the dismantling of nationalist historical myth and a plea for an Israel that belongs equally to all its inhabitants. Perhaps books combining passion and erudition don't change political situations, but if they did, this one would count as a landmark. Philip Hensher – novelist Two blockbusters, made out of writing of brevity and concision, were the highlights of my reading year. Blake Bailey's exemplary life of John Cheever (Picador) was full of its subject's inimitable voice, ruthless, hilarious, cruel and drink-sodden.

In some ways, the story is a terrifying one – Cheever descended to psychic depths few of us will even witness – but it should always be remembered that this greatest of American novelists was, above all, extremely funny. The only thing wrong with the new, two-volume Collected Stories of William Trevor was the repulsively cheap paper Penguin printed it on – the ink smeared underneath my fingers, which is no way to treat the greatest living exponent of the short story in English. The Booker panel might, too, have found a space for Trevor's miraculous Love and Summer (Viking), a late-period summation of thought and expression if ever I saw one. But the best novel of the year was Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (Faber), both traumatic and dazzlingly witty; scenes you wish you could forget, sentences you were grateful for. Fergus Henderson – chef My nomination is Fernand Point's Ma Gastronomie (Duckworth). It's a collection of the great man's (he truly was a great man) recipes, thoughts, menus. Point was the chef of La Pyramide restaurant near Lyon, a legend and mentor to a generation of chefs.

He started his day with the barber coming to shave him and two magnums of champagne. Not bad. Tim Adams – Observer writer As a reminder of why great journalism has not much to do with Twitter updates and round-the-clock opinion, I've carried a couple of volumes with me: Michael Frayn's Travels With a Typewriter (Faber) and Ian Jack's The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain (Jonathan Cape). Both collections are testament to a lifetime of intimate looking and to the hard labour of getting the world out there on to the page. The patience and intelligence of their storytelling is a good antidote to all that buzzes. Daljit Nagra – poet At this time of year, Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice (Allen Lane) is a sober analysis of how we arrive at notions of justice. Sen uses examples from eastern and western traditions to help elucidate his abstract arguments. Sobriety is also maintained through two remarkable poetry collections. Both Christopher Reid's A Scattering (Areté Books) and Don Paterson's Rain (Faber) are haunted by the loss of loved ones.

While Reid's heartbreakingly spare narrative about the death of his wife is moving for its simplicity of expression, Paterson's collection has an Augustan frankness, an Elizabethan elegance and a postmodern playfulness. Melvyn Bragg – novelist and broadcaster Diarmaid MacCulloch's monumental A History of Christianity (Allen Lane) is essential reading for those enthralled by Christianity and for those enraged by it, while those who protest indifference may be ambushed by surprise at its force in world culture over the millenniums. Francis Wheen is a superb, idiosyncratic chronicler of our times and Strange Days Indeed (Fourth Estate) is a glittering, pinpointed view on the 1970s. Wheen has a scholar's mind, the energy of a supercharged magpie and a lofty wit that never sours. Nicholas Hytner – director This year, I've read some wonderfully enjoyable novels. The fastest page-turner, dry-mouthed and sweaty-palmed, was William Boyd's Ordinary Thunderstorms (Bloomsbury). Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate) was every bit as good as they said it was.

And Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn (Viking) moved me more than any other book this year: a miraculously empathetic journey across the Atlantic and back again with a young Irish woman, ordinarily lonely, ordinarily in love, ordinarily fickle – but her every thought and action quite extraordinarily truthful. A short masterpiece. Joan Bakewell – broadcaster and novelist A View From the Foothills by Chris Mullin (Profile) is a political diary that stands with the best, alongside Alan Clark and Chips Channon. Mullin never made it to the political heights, but his experience of being a junior minister under Tony Blair – referred to throughout as "the Man" – is full of cunning humour. We know from his earlier Austerity Britain how thorough David Kynaston is, but I was apprehensive that the 1950s, which he tackles in Family Britain 1951-57 (Bloomsbury), would simply be too dull. Far from it. Kynaston has dredged reminiscences, diaries, political archives, newspapers and magazines for every scrap of interest and detail. Bidisha – critic I've been getting into some dark, thoughtful adult mystery fiction this year.

One of my favourite books has been The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland (Michael Joseph), which is about a superstitious, uptight, pagan village of mad paranoiacs tormented by the arrival of a community of women. Think Wicker Man meets The Handmaid's Tale with a whiff of Deliverance. I was also extremely impressed by The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the debut novel by Carrie Ryan (Gollancz). It's a post-apocalyptic political zombie allegory with a gothic flavour. Vivienne Westwood – fashion designer My recommended read is The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock (Allen Lane). At somewhere between 400 and 500 parts per million (ppm) of CO² in the atmosphere, the Earth will settle down to a new equilibrium of 5C hotter than now. Our luscious, comfortable world will be gone. What is left will support about a fifth of the present population. We must plan.

Ken Livingstone – politician Seth G Jones's In the Graveyard of Empires (Norton) is a devastating critique of the mismanagement of the Afghan war by the US and Britain, whose argument is all the stronger because his perspective is not from the left. The book reveals that things are worse than we suspect and even an old cynic like myself was shocked at some of the revelations. In The Spirit Level (Allen Lane), Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett offer proof that most of the ills of our "broken society" arise out of the growing inequality of the past 30 years. If Tony Blair had known this, his could have been one of the three great reforming governments of the last century to stand alongside 1906 and 1945. And Mandelson would have known why he shouldn't have been so relaxed about the filthy rich. Nick Hornby – novelist Wells Tower's superb collection of short stories, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Granta), is dark and funny, and in Tower's case, the former quality does not negate the latter.

When, in one of the stories, a woman finds out that her husband is having an affair because the footprint on the car windscreen does not match her own, you know you're reading somebody who doesn't come along very often. My favourite work of non-fiction this year was written by the Observer's art critic – I'm sorry, but there we are. Laura Cumming's brilliant book about self-portraits, A Face to the World (HarperPress), positively fizzes with ideas; just about every single paragraph contains a fresh observation, not just about art but about human nature. The author has got me running around galleries I haven't been to in years. Colum McCann – novelist Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's Books; published here in February by Hamish Hamilton) is an examination of America in the time of Katrina, an indictment of bureaucracy, a testimony to the possibility of goodness, a level-headed look at Muslim America, a heartbreaking rap sheet for the Bush years, all this and more... I was completely enthralled by this book from one of the most socially engaged and provocative writers of our times. The Infinities (Picador) is John Banville's best book, I think.

The prose is honed, as always, and every word matters, but the book breathes with humour and shines with a lovely discursive wink. It's also the sort of novel that you nod along to, then it swerves and you don't quite know where you are, but you experience the thrill of being suitably lost. Mariella Frostrup – writer and broadcaster This year's Booker winner, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate), caught my eye early on when I interviewed her about it on Open Book on Radio 4. Having spotted its potential, I wish I'd followed through with a call to William Hill! Two novels by Antipodean authors also figured highly this year: Richard Flanagan's Wanting (Atlantic Books), a brutal evocation of the fate of a young Aboriginal girl, adopted by the governor of Van Diemen's Land and his wife, and later discarded; and David Malouf's Ransom (Chatto), a wonderful retelling of the encounter between Achilles and the Trojan King Priam in prose that's so good you want to eat it.

Andrew Rawnsley – Observer columnist Chris Mullin produced an account, both highly hilarious and deeply depressing, of the futility of much ministerial life in his diaries, A View From the Foothills (Profile). Politics on a much grander canvas was brilliantly brought to life by Doris Kearns Goodwin in her superb Team of Rivals (Penguin) about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. A timely and penetrating audit of authoritarianism around the world came from John Kampfner's Freedom for Sale (Simon & Schuster). While highly critical of the trajectory of the present government, he does not level the lazy charge made by some that we already live in "a police state". David Vann – novelist Elegant and controlled, Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn (Viking), the tale of Eilis, a young woman who emigrates from Ireland to America in the 1950s, is the book that broke my heart this year. Eilis is so close and intimate. I'm scared for her, homesick, become thrilled as she falls in love and then, when tragedy strikes her family back in Ireland, the world has gone empty and I'm grieving with her. This is not the end, though.

It's only the beginning of what becomes a choice straight out of Greek tragedy, a choice that cannot be made. What's at risk is everything: the new world and the old, family, love, self, belonging. I tend to like stylists, lyrical landscapes, showier stuff and I forget that the most ambitious landscape, finally, is the human heart. Chris Mullin – writer and politician John Campbell's Pistols at Dawn (Jonathan Cape) is a masterly account of great political feuds of the past two centuries, starting with William Pitt and Charles James Fox and ending with Brown and Blair. And something completely different was Dead I May Well Be (Serpent's Tail), part one of a gripping trilogy by Adrian McKinty, introducing Michael Forsyth, a young hoodlum escaping the troubles of Belfast only to find himself embroiled in the murky, violent underworld of New York's Irish gangsters. Taut, lean prose and dialogue up there with Elmore Leonard. McKinty hasn't had the attention he deserves.

Julie Myerson – novelist I loved the energy, humour and fizz of Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs (Faber) – so oddball in places that it ought not to have worked, but it did, totally. Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger (Virago) is proper, muscle-flexing storytelling – I was in awe and I just did not want it to end. And the very first novel I read this year was Anita Brookner's Strangers (Fig Tree). No one writes with more skill and honesty about the human condition and this book is possibly her finest. Nigel Slater – food writer I have been trying to read Monty Don's The Ivington Diaries (Bloomsbury) in short daily segments, so that the beautifully written story of his astonishing Herefordshire garden will last all year. I cannot bear to think I will come to the end. Phyllida Law's Notes to My Mother-in-Law (Fourth Estate) is something I wolfed in one glorious bite: funny, tender and deeply touching, it is something for the Christmas stocking of anyone who has ever had to look after an elderly relative.

Robert McCrum – Observer writer David Kynaston's series Tales of New Jerusalem grows in confidence with each volume. Family Britain 1951-57 (Bloomsbury) takes us back to the post-austerity world of Supermac, Suez, Kenwood mixers and the Comet that now seems like a cloudless idyll. But the great quality of Kynaston's astonishing research is his cool, unsentimental eye for telling anecdote – for instance, the vicious press hysteria that surrounded the hanging of Ruth Ellis. Romola Garai – actress The Complete Stories of JG Ballard (published in a new edition by Norton in the US) offers the reader a minute dissection of the human heart and mind. It has been on my bedside table for months, as I couldn't bring myself to move it; I couldn't let it go. The Rapture by Liz Jensen (Bloomsbury) also got under my skin. It is one of the very few books I have dreamed about. It is a powerful and violent novel and also a terrifically gripping read.

Ross Raisin – novelist I bang on about David Vann's Legend of a Suicide (Viking) at the slightest opportunity, so this seems like a particularly good place to do it. Much of the review coverage has concentrated on form – whether the book is a novel, memoir or a collection of short stories, and how our preconceptions about these things affect our reading. Interesting as this question is, I first read the book in an unmarked dustjacket with no idea what it was and it turned out to be the most powerful and lucid piece of writing I have read for more years than just this one. Rachel Cooke – Observer critic Like everyone, I loved Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate), but I was spooked by it, too. The voice is so true: I have my suspicions that Hilary Mantel actually is Thomas Cromwell. The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Fig Tree) is set in segregated Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, and it's an exciting and atmospheric story about what happens when one privileged white woman gets just a little too close to the town's maids – the "help" of the title.

Anna Minton's Ground Control (Penguin) is a short but thought-provoking polemic about 21st-century Britain, with its gated communities, its privately owned shopping centres and its "regenerated" cultural and business districts. A book that will make you as mad as hell. Tristram Hunt – historian Three very important books for the intellectual regeneration of the left hit the shelves this year. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's The Spirit Level (Allen Lane) delivered a statistically clinical account of the benefits of social democracy for living longer, happier and more fulfilled lives; Susan Neiman's Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists (The Bodley Head) was a powerful wake-up call for the progressive left to have some faith in its Enlightenment project; and the great Amartya Sen provided a political route-map for delivering social justice in his compelling work, The Idea of Justice (Allen Lane). For sheer historical enjoyment there was Christian Wolmar's Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World (Atlantic Books), which chronicles the railway's global growth with characteristic brio.

Craig Raine – poet William Golding by John Carey (Faber) is a trove of astonishing new facts and a timely reminder of what a great, unflinching, unsparing, unorthodox, consistently surprising writer Golding was. The last hundred pages of the 800-page The Letters of TS Eliot Volume 2 1923-1925 (Faber) put us at the centre of the Eliot marriage as it detonates. Not everything is clear. It is an explosion after all – so, an eerie sensation of stillness, brute shock waves and the intimate dust still settling on the skin.

Question: Published in 2009 and set in 2006-2007 complete the title of the last book in the series Adrian Mole:
Answer: The Prostrate Years