Men don't read. Or that's something of a stereotype assigned by publishers that makes finding good books somewhat difficult at times. One can always pick up airport reads about lawyers (Grisham) spies (Clancy) or scary medical stuff (Crichton) and then of course there is fare for the intellectual (Franzen). What about the non-alpha male middle class white guy, somewhat in touch with his sensitive side who wants to pick up something that doesn't assume he is without brains, but doesn't necessaril More...

Post-One Day, I wanted to have at some more of David Nicholls' work. Starter for 10 is his first novel, and well....I finished it underwhelmed.

A few reasons why this one tripped me up when One Day (for me anyway) was so lovely:

1) The protagonist, Brian Jackson: A college freshman, Brian has fancy notions of what it means to head off to university. But he's nerdy and his face is pock-marked with acne and he's awkward. So, SO awkward. Every scene becomes slightly painful to read because it's Brian More...

This is a very funny book about an English lad during his first year at University. He has all the usual first year mishaps and, partly as a result of "falling in love" with a beautiful undergraduate, joins the team for University Challenge, a British quiz programme based on College Bowl. He pursues his relationship with "the beautiful girl" while at the same time crossing swords with a radical but much more rounded girl. The book was made into a film starring James McAvoy which is also very amu More...

When we were young -a long long time ago- a friend of mine and me joked about the continuous crises: the first-year-at-uni crisis, the mid-degree crisis and of course, the last-degree-year crisis. Hey, our life was so full!
This is a first-year-at-uni crisis novel, dissected by his protagonist and narrator, Brian. He presents himself as a working-class lad setting off on his big university journey, with all its appealing prospects: leaving home to live on your own -that is to say, in your shared More...

Brian Jackson is a grant student entering his first year at university. Coming from blue collar family and friends, he’s always been the oddball at home, and is hoping that at university he will find his niche. As a fan of the television show University Challenge, he is excited to make the team, even if it is only as first alternate – mostly because he gets to see the posh and beautiful Alice at team meetings. As his first year of college progresses, though, Brian learns the valuable lesson that More...

This was a First-Reads win, so I desperately wanted to like this book. It's a coming-of-age story about an awkward, nerdy main character. In fact, this character is like many a person I've known during my own coming-of-age period in my life. Unfortunately, unlike the many similar people I've known and liked and befriended, Brian Jackson lacks any redeeming quality that makes me, the reader, want to root for him.

The first forty pages of the book had me slightly interested in learning what would More...

"'Well...' says Alice '...we had some friends round, like we always do on Boxing Day, and we were playing charades, and it was my turn, and I was trying to do 'Last Year At Marienbad' for Mummy, and she was getting so frantic and over-excited, and shouting so hard, that her cap popped out and landed right in our next-door neighbour's glass of wine!'
And everyone's laughing, even Mr Harbinson, and the atmosphere is so funny and adult and amusing and irreverent that I say, 'You mean you weren't wea More...

O antes...
"Todos os jovens se preocupam com coisas, é uma parte natural e inevitável do crescimento e, aos dezasseis anos de idade, a minha maior angústia na vida era que jamais tornasse a conseguir algo tão bom, puro, nobre, ou verdadeiro como os resultados dos exames de nível básico."

Estou curiosa para conhecer a escrita deste autor, não tenho esperanças nenhumas pois já li críticas boas e más portanto estou no meio da balança. Quando acabar de ler a balança há-de pender para algum lado...

...e More...

I had high hopes for this book after reading One Day, but they turned out to be in vain. Starter for Ten has a cast of characters that I found generally repugnant, especially the main character. He's so obsessed with a girl who plainly doesn't like him and who uses him repeatedly, yet he never seems to learn from these lessons, so the reader is forced to roll their eyes as surprise!-she screws him over again. The story focuses more on his failed courtship of her than it does on his self-professe More...

E' questo il primo romanzo di David Nicholls, quotato autore televisivo inglese. Il libro ha avuto grande successo in patria e da esso è stato tratto un film non circolato in Italia. Nel nostro paese Nicholls è stato apprezzato maggiormente per il suo secondo romanzo, intitolato "Un giorno". Quest'ultimo è decisamente più sentimentale e rispondente al gusto femminile. Non so se voglia anche significare che le lettrici sono in numero maggiore dei lettori.
In questo romanzo, con grande umorismo, v More...

I didn't want to read another book by this author after being emotionally gutted by "One Day" but I had wanted to see the movie for years and when I found this in a charity shop for 2 pounds, I picked it up.

I didn't regret it, since it was an enjoyable and somewhat honest read. Brian is basically a clueless dork who feels that going to college is going to basically turn him into a person and help him escape his past. The University Challenge is a nebulous goal that in the end, sets him free from More...

I love David Nichols' writing but I've been putting this one off for a long time because I love the movie so much. I know books are usually (almost always?) better than the movie but in this case I wasn't sure I'd be able to picture anything other than James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch etc. The book definitely holds up on it's own as an entertainment, but I was fascinated by the changes that were made to put this story on screen - and I do think that some of the changes actually improved the st More...

So I gave this book a three star because it hadn't caught my attention so much. By that, it took me longer to finish this book than an average 400 pages novel. I read the reviews before i read this book and most people say its a funny story. It was quite inviting in the begininning as it starts to introduce the 'mysterious' plot (i love mystery) and the characters. the plot was based around a British guy and how he made friends with different kind of people. However it became a little bit too dr More...

I've read all of David Nicholls' books now and this is undoubtedly my favourite. Like all of his books, it's well-written, full of wit and insight and very easy to read. It is a novel of over 450 pages and I read it in just over a day, in only a couple of sittings and it was read with a real sense of pleasure and enjoyment in what I was reading.

Brian is just starting out on his university career and has a real knack for saying/doing the wrong thing. Socially awkward to the end, he is, neverthele More...

I did not like this book. At all. Perhaps I simply wasn't the intended audience for it, or I just don't understand this style of writing, but all I know is I found it to be a complete waste of my time.

Reading all the reviews, and even the synopsis of this book, I really thought I would like it. Brian falling in love with the University Challenge queen (as the synopsis says) gives us quite the false impression that Alice is some intelligent, sophisticated, savvy, smartass girl that will give Bria More...

Pues sí: me ha gustado bastante más de lo que esperaba... aunque supongo que eso tampoco era muy difícil, pues habiéndome gustado "Siempre el Mismo Dia" más bien poquito, poco era lo que esperaba de esta primer novela.

Afortunadamente, lo que me he encontrado ha sido la divertida historia de un joven en su primer año de universidad; y no un joven cualquiera, sino uno feucho (con graves problemas de acné), idealista, romántico y pseudointelectual... e inmaduro en gran medida.

Con semejantes ingred More...

I must be getting old. I'm quite sure that only a few years ago, the story of a spotty, insecure teenager with an ever-so-uncool obsession with University Challenge would have amused me no end. I would have nodded sagely at every confession of adolescent confusion and the constant feeling of one's own shortcomings. I would have pretended to know what it's like to live in a smelly student home and drink disgusting homebrew. I would have wanted in on it! But now, at the tail-end of my twenties, I More...

"All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results."


A poignant and raw look into the inner workings of the eighteen year old Brian Jackson, upon his entry into University, Starter For Ten by David Nicholls is not so much a straight forward coming of age as it is an uncovering of what University life really More...

Blogue: http://tempodler.blogspot.pt/


Acredito que quem lê Uma Questão de Atração porque leu, e gostou, de Um Dia pode acabar por se sentir desiludido, isto porque estes dois livros não têm nada a ver um com o outro. E é precisamente deste ponto que devemos avançar quando decidimos ler Uma Questão de Atração.

Até as suas estruturas são completamente diferentes. Em UmDia toda a história é colmatada no fim, enquanto que em Uma Questão de Atração o fim é negligenciável, até porque é ligeiramente dece More...

After reading novels about the Holocaust, slavery and attempted suicide recently, I felt it was time for a light-hearted read...and who better to turn to than One Day author, David Nicholls?

I think I related to the protagonist Brian Jackson a little bit too well- and not just because he is an English Literature student. Starter For Ten documents Brian's first term at university, and the lead up to his appearance on his favourite show, University Challenge. For my non-British readers, UC is a TV More...

This book had me crying... with laughter. It is so funny and the characters are so relatable. It is easy to relate with each and every character in the book.
Starter For Ten’ is a brilliant read however the main character is a bit of an oddball! Brian Jackson is a lanky and rather geeky boy that is unbelievably socially inept. ‘Starter For Ten’ is filled with cringe-worthy lines and moments that I even flinched at on several occasions! However, because the story is told by this adorable moron, i More...

This book made me glad that there are such things as libraries.Had I wasted a nickle buying this book I would've been furious.
It's not very good.
The first thing I want to say is that once you're onto David Nicholl's gimmicks - the whole book falls apart. Here it is- his gimmick: He seems to lead you to this great climax in the plot and then whammo- he lets you drop-flat on your face. All his plots have bad endings. That's how he engages you- with bad endings.
Yes One Day was fabulous- but that wa More...

Fate is a great provider. As a book addict, I’m always looking for the next book to buy and read, although I have a gazillion unread books on my shelves already. A couple of months ago, I randomly came across the title Starter For Ten on some blog and looked it up on Wikipedia; I liked the plot and decided to order all three books by David Nicholls. I hardly ever buy all books by one unknown author at once but the books were cheap so I thought, what the hell?

Starter For Ten is the story of Brian More...

Starter for Ten started out to be the prose equivalent of a British John Hughes film. The year is perfect; The Breakfast Club year of 1985. Something like this book had been badly needed and I was so grateful to Mr. Nicholls for having written a deliciously long book. Like his protagonist( and himself), I read English in college. Accordingly, I developed all the pretentiousness and affectations of a literature student. I cannot remember any other reading experience that made me feel so profoundl More...

British humour is something I really fancy so I reckon that would explain why I gave this book such rating... Okay, stopping now because I suck at pretending to be English. Now, I haven't read One Day, which is the better rated book of David Nicholls, but I thought this was a really good debut for him. It's a coming-of-age story that centers on Brian, a dermatologically challenged nerd, who left home to go to university and met Alice, the too-perfect blonde beauty (and brains), who turned his li More...

Starter for Ten by David Nicholls is the first book in the STV’s Book Club; I am very excited and honoured to be part of it.
This story is done in a humorous narrative and being a child of the 80’s I found this book quite nostalgic, I think I would have found it more so if I had been a teenager in the 80’s. From the free glasses at the petrol station to University Challenge to Skol Lager to the Rubik’s cube, what more can you want from the 80‘s.
The book is based around Brian Jackson; he’s finis More...

Love, romance, relationships, trivia questions, games, friends, "student-life", akwardess, heart-ache, happy ending. An OK read, but more akward than funny. **2,5 stars**

Story of Brian, who moves away from home and friends to go to University and begin an independent life. In University he falls in love with a girl who seems to be "perfect", and the only way to get to know the girl is to sign up for the Quiz Team. Be prepared to read about lots of awkward situations when Brian tries to be funny More...

As un-put-downable as my previous experience of David Nicholls' writing (I sped through One Day in exactly that), "Starter For Ten" took me back to my days as a Fresher at the University of Portsmouth. I was chuckling throughout at Brian Jackson's resolutions to be cool and sophisticated and not miss any of his lectures, because it reminded me so much of myself.
I really find I can relate to Nicholls' writing in a way that make his works highly addictive. I loved the character of Brian and also More...

This was nice comic relief I guess, I was expecting more from it as I absolutely loved "One Day". As this was written first I can see where some of the aspects of "One Day" developed, but the story certainly doesn't have the same impact and the characters aren't very likeable at all, particularly the central character. I did laugh out loud at certain moments, but I got a bit tired of cringing for him all the time and I didn't find the story very plausible, that a girl like Alice, or even a girl More...

Since I saw so many reviews about how funny it was and seeing that it was a book by the bestselling "One Day" author, I thought, why not try it out.

What was the result?

(view spoiler)[
1) Didn't find it that funny. I admit I laughed at some times, but a humor book? No.

2) It was all about getting the girl who was actually a cheating bitch. The other romance prospect (as I had been suspecting to be the main one in the end) was pretty much negligent. One scene in between and something at the end which might have (hide spoiler)] More...