Starter For Ten - David Nicholls

In my opinion university days are the happiest days of our lives not school days. However they can be problematic especially at first as you deal with new freedoms, meeting new people who may or may not be similar to you and trying to work out who you are whilst trying so hard to be somebody else? Does this sound familiar? This was to an extent my experience of university as a Fresher and it must have been the same for Cold Feet writer David Nicholls His debut novel Starter For 10 is a witty, insightful comedy about university life including that television institution University Challenge. The year is 1985. Do you remember it? I sort of do. Brian Jackson ...  Read the complete review

Blockbusters. 15-1. Catchword with Paul Coia. All have been student staples in the past - before, after or instead of lectures and seminars and revision and awfulnesses like that, students have measured themselves against people on the gogglebox and at times have found themselves wanting. Of course, the curse of the modern age is that anything one may remember from one's youth, from sweets to television programmes and records, is now the subject of stand-up, as lame comedians witter on about how wagon wheels were larger back then, and wasn't Going for Gold crap? Should we shudder then, when one such meme from our past has become the subject of a ...  Read the complete review

Starter for Ten is a very funny, often touching book, that rings all too true. Set in 1985, during a massive recession and at the height of Thatcher's reign, working-class Brian Jackson enrols as a fresher at a redbrick university with hilarious - and sometimes disatrous - consequences. The son of a (deceased) double glazing salesman and a Woolworths cashier, Essex boy Jackson stands out like a sore thumb on campus. Despite his best efforts to blend in, he is socially inept in nearly all situations, so often falls flat. Armed to the teeth with ideas about what a student *should* be, Jackson stumbles through his first few days, making ...  Read the complete review

Going to university is often a life changing experience. For some it is a further step on the way to a chosen career that could last the rest of their lives. For others, it's a chance to expand their knowledge in a subject they may have enjoyed at school or never had the chance to study before. For even more, as it was for me, it's a lesson in life; a chance to live away from parents for the first time and to meet new people and new ideas. This last is certainly true for Brian Jackson, keen to get away from his clingy widowed mother and their house in Southend. Feeling intelligent by the standards of his closest friends, it's also a chance for him to mix ...  Read the complete review