Starter for Ten – David Nicholls

Starter for Ten – David Nicholls

This is my favourite David Nicholls novel so far.

Here’s the blurb …

The year is 1985. Brian Jackson, a working-class kid on full scholarship, has started his first term at university. He has a dark secret—a long-held, burning ambition to appear on the wildly popular British TV quiz show University Challenge—and now, finally, it seems the dream is about to become reality. He’s made the school team, and they’ve completed the qualifying rounds and are limbering up for their first televised match. (And, what’s more, he’s fallen head over heels for one of his teammates, the beautiful, brainy, and intimidatingly posh Alice Harbinson.) Life seems perfect and triumph inevitable—but as his world opens up, Brian learns that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

This was fun – it was light-hearted and entertaining (and there was no tragedy!). There is also a great adaptation. Definitely worth a read if you remember the 80s.

Another review …

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/12/fiction.geraldinebedell