Rotters' Club (Penguin Books)

'One of those sweeping, ambitious yet hugely readable, moving and richly comic novels that you find all too rarely in English fiction... A masterpiece' Daily TelegraphUnforgettably funny and painfully honest, Jonathan Coe's tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends' coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up.Featuring, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock, punk rock, bad poetry, first love, love on the side, prefects, detention, a few bottles of Blue Nun, lots of brown wallpaper, industrial strife, and divine intervention in the form of a pair of swimming trunks.Set against the backdrop of the decade's class struggles, tragic and riotous żeby turns, packed with thwarted romance and furtive sex, The Rotters' Club is for anyone who ever experienced adolescence the hard way.'Very funny... A compulsive and gripping read. Coe has achieved that rare feat: a novel stuffed with characters you really care for' The Times'A book to cherish, a book to reread, a book to buy for all your friends' Independent on Sunday