There are few characters that have stayed with me through the years, with the ability to come alive off the pages. Adrian Mole is one such character – I can picture him living his life in the English Midlands, with his delusions of intellectual grandeur, his quest to be a writer in the absence of talent, and his long-suffering love for Pandora. I first read his diaries when I was in my early teens, and found humor and common bonds in his teenage angst. Adrian has grown up over the years, with Sue Townsend chronicling the passages of his life in various books. The latest one, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, has us once again reading his diary as the latest war in Iraq is announced and his eldest son, Glenn, is sent off to war. Once again Townsend mixes current affairs and her subversive commentary throughout the books, with hilarious results. In the 1980s it was Thatcher; in the 21st century, it’s the moral issues of the Iraqi ‘conflict’.

Adrian falls in love again, still has issues with his parents, and still craves the recognition due a published intellectual. But things turn out okay, and I closed the book feeling good about where this longtime friend ended up – and I’ve love to check back in on him again in a few years. I hope Townsend feels the same.