- Dishonesty Is The Second-Best Policy and Other Rules to Live By” by David Mitchell
- “Michael Palin In Venezuela” by Michael Palin
- “Happiness: Lessons From A New Science” by Richard Layard
- “The People on Platform 5” by Clare Pooley
- “Encyclopaedia of Narrow Gauge Railways of Great Britain and Ireland” by Thomas Middlemiss
- “Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System” by Martin Sixsmith
- “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three-Quarters” by Sue Townsend
- “The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole” by Sue Townsend
- “Adrian Mole: The Collected Poems” by Sue Townsend
Started: 23rd February 2026
Finished: 23rd February 2026
3/5 stars
A slim volume published in 2017, to mark Adrian Mole’s “50th birthday” (according to his fictional biography, Adrian was born in April 1967).
These are all poems that have appeared in the various books that make up his diaries, and there’s not really much else to it besides the letters that (fictional) John Tydeman wrote to him. I found out recently that there really was a BBC employee called John Tydeman who was an early champion of Townsend’s work, so his name being used in the books was a tribute to him. He died in 2020.
This book will be fairly meaningless to anyone who hasn’t read the diaries, and of course the poems are deliberately very bad indeed. One for the fans – the publication was a nice idea.
Sadly, of course, any hope of further Mole diaries or poems died with Sue Townsend back in 2014, although I have to be honest and say that I’m only really a fan of the first two books. Adrian never really seems to grow up properly, or become anything of a success, and the things that made him endearing and funny as a teenager make him a rather tragic adult. Anyway – it’s a nice little book, and a tribute to Townsend’s best-known creation.
