Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar was published in 1959, and captures brilliantly the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small town. It tells the story o...

Billy Fisher vive in una noiosa cittadina industriale dello Yorkshire degli anni '60, intrappolato tra un lavoro mortificante in un'agenzia di pompe funebri, una famiglia opprimente e tre fidanzate che non sa come gestire. La sua unica via di fuga è Ambrosia, un regno fantastico dove tutto è possibile. Ma quando Billy si convince di aver finalmente trovato l'occasione della vita – un lavoro come sceneggiatore a Londra per il comico Danny Boon – la realtà si scontra violentemente con i suoi...

'The work of a master' Sunday Times'Effortlessly brilliant...a comedy of London life' Sunday TelegraphNo London neighbourhood more resmbles the restless downstream tide of the Thames than the ragged square mile of Soho. Ask the people who live there, like Christine Yardley, drag queen by night and grey-suited accountant by day; or Len Gates, self-appointed Soho historian and bore; or Jenny Wise, former starlet and now resi...

In the early 1960s, a golden age for newly-discovered writers, Chris Duffywas something of a nearly man. His debut novel was reasonably successful;his second was turned down as being too like the first. Thanks to procrastinationand heavy drinking, he has published nothing since.Settled now in Brighton, where he ekes out a living running a market bric-a-bracstall, Duffy dreams of the blurred decades that seem to have slipped through hisfingers: whe...

Keith Waterhouse is one of Britain’s most popular writers in nearly every field. This collection brings together for the first time his most celebrated plays from a career spanning more than forty years.Our Song is a warm, tender, romantic drama, infused with moments of great humour. Pulling himself out of the rut of his middle-aged executive lifestyle, Roger Piper stumbles into a sixteen-month tempestuous affair.Billy Liar tells the story ...

Returning from the memorial service, June Pepper, middle-aged widow of a tough tabloid editor cut down in his prime, sets about following her late husband's instructions to keep a journal of her bereavement, as therapy.But he did not say anything about writing it down. It is therefore in the form of a stream-of-consciousness monologue to the departed Sam the June records her reflections on her new status of widowhood.She is to find that this business of grieving is not the ...

Keith Waterhouse's long-running column, which began appearing in the Daily Mail in 1986, won him numerous national press award. His characters Sharon and Tracy became a national institution, as did that venerable acadamy of English letters, the Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe. The phlegmatic councillors of Clogthorpe and British Rail's brother-in-law Arnold are among the other regulars featured in this collection which distils the with and wisdom of a j...

'Among the few great writers of our time' Independent'An exceptionally talented novelist' Sunday Times'Remarkable for the deep and unwavering insight it gives into child behaviour' The TimesSeen through the eyes of a young boy living on a council estate in a northern town, a pre-war childhood emerges that is universal in its everyday adventures, shifting allegiances, mysteries and occasion...

Now it can be told. The biggest majority of the Debra Chase by Herself series in the Sunday Shocker, which I am sposed to of written, was a load of rubbish, a virago of lies from start to finish.'Thus does Page Three celebrity Debra Chase set out to put the record straight about her life in the tabloid fast-lane and the early years when she was still known as Marjory Linda Chase, growing up in Seathorpe with her Dad and Step-Mum Babs, 'in those far-off days of the forgotte...

As editor of the local newspaper in the small, pleasant town of Badgers Heath, Oliver Kettle is expected to join in the locals' constant efforts to raise money for good causes, from karaoke marathons to sponsored funerals.But with Bananaskin Week, the biggest fund-raising drive of them all, the hapless Kettle finds himself drawn into a spiralling nightmare of adultery, blackmail and intrigue. Too late, he realises that charity is the last consideration of his fellow citizens.

I knew, logically, that you were bad for me, that you demoralised me,destroyed my peace of mind, deflected me from the things I should havebeen doing, distorted my sense of perspective; yet at the same time youkeyed me up, made me feel alive.'Roger Piper is married, middle-aged and middle-rung; he is a man whohas elevated failure to an art form. His wife thinks he is up all night writinga novel. In fact, he's wr...

For William 'Billy' Fisher, an energetic imagination makes life tolerable, but well-nigh intolerable for all around him. He lies his way into and out of every situation, making any promise to get him out of trouble, thereby creating ever more tortuous entanglements to be wriggled out of in the future.Billy dreams of escaping the dull drudgery of his life at home with his parents and grandmother in the monotony of his stifling Yorkshire hometown. He has three fiancees and a truly de...