A Hay Festival and The Poole VOTE 100 BOOKS for Women Selection The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 is the first book in Sue Townsend s brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It s my mother s fault for singing My Way at two o clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children s home. Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and misunderstood intellectual , Adrian s painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared. Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain s favourite comic writer for over three decades. I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading Tom Sharpe A satire of our times. Very funny indeed Sunday Times We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful Heat