Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Lad Lit

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Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Lad Lit

• Seven Troop

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• Brute Force

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• Crossfire

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• The Life and Soul of the Party

  Mike Gayle

  
  
   

• Slam

  Nick Hornby

  
  
   

• Bravo Two-Zero

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• Meltdown (Boy Soldier)

  Robert Rigby, Andy McNab

  
  
   

• The Grey Man (Quick Reads)

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• Avenger (Boy Soldier)

  Andy McNab, Robert Rigby

  
  
   

• Payback (Boy Soldier #2): Payback No.2

  Andy McNab, Robert Rigby

  
  
   

• High Fidelity

  Nick Hornby

  
  
   

• Riddley Walker

  Russell Hoban

  
  
   

• Recoil

  Andy McNab

  
  
   

• Boy Soldier

  Andy McNab, Robert Rigby

  
  
   

• Spanish Short Stories: Cuentos En Espanol (New Penguin Parallel Text Series): 0

  
  
   

• Are You Experienced?

  William Sutcliffe

  
  For anyone with the slightest curiosity about travelling, or even if you've been, William Sutcliffe's tremendously funny Are You Experienced? will have you in stitches. The protagonist is Dave, a 19-year-old Londoner on a gap year before starting university. He had no intention of leaving Europe, until his best mate James, who's about to go on a trek through the Himalayas, challenges him. "Do you want to learn Fwench David? Something pwactical for your CV?" he taunts when he hears Dave is going to be a waiter at a Swiss ski resort.

  Admitting his fears, ("Suffering, danger and poverty are all fine by me, but dirt and disease are two things I happen to hate") Dave is determined to prove he's not a coward and accepts an invitation to go to India with James's girlfriend Liz (in anticipation of consummating their burgeoning relationship). But by the time they get on the plane it all goes downhill. Bickering constantly, their adaption to India couldn't be more different. Liz embraces it--hugging beggars and wearing saris, while Dave's dry-humoured rants, scepticism and fear of the unknown eventually drive her away in search of her "centre".

  The characters the pair meet along the way draw upon all the old hippy-traveller stereotypes, but there's also a few new ones in keeping with the times. There's Ranj--a British-born Indian who hates Indians; Jez--a public-school-educated undergraduate whose travels are being funded by daddy; and Caz and Fee who experience the side-effects of "Intimate Yoga".

  While this story is ultimately a funny piece of fiction, it also addresses more serious considerations, such as cultural stereotypes, peer pressures and making life-changing decisions.

  This book is irresistible and seasoned travellers will empathise with the situations Dave finds himself in, (his graphic description of a bout of Dehli-belly is guaranteed to make you feel sorry for him, and nauseous too). Be prepared to laugh out loud. --Angela Boodoo

  
   

• Ham On Rye

  Charles Bukowski

  
  Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, Ham on Rye, is the semi-autobiographical story of the early years of his alter ego Henry Chinaski. It is a finely written and honest account of the painful childhood of a boy marked out from his peers. Regularly beaten by his father, Chinaski is shown growing through his difficult and violent adolescence (struck with the worst case of acne his doctors have ever seen) through to the first jobs he can't and won't hold down. In this moving story of growing up Bukowski disciplines his muscular, concentrated writing and creates a novel that distils his poetry into the finest full-length piece of prose that he ever wrote. Bukowski is often good but in Ham on Rye he's great.

  Sadly, best known as the alcoholic inspiration for the film Barfly (an experience he reflected on in his book Hollywood), it is as a poet, rather than a drunk, that Bukowski should be best remembered. His bitter, caustic, direct, humane, damaged poetry reflects a life dominated by poverty and booze. His poetry stretches over many, many volumes but Bukowski also wrote great novels: all of them have many faults but the first four books he wrote shine for similar reasons. Post Office and Factotum both dissect, quite brilliantly, the life of an angry, poor man forced to do mindless jobs, pushed around and considered mindless by the fools who force him to do them. Women, as Roddy Doyle points out in his short introduction, continues the themes but focuses on the numerous women who share his hero's bed and bottle. --Mark Thwaite

  
   

• The Beach

  Alex Garland

  
  
   

• Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking

  Neil Browne, Stuart M. Keeley

  
  
   

• The Woman Who Walked into Doors

  Roddy Doyle