Suburbia

You don't get to choose where you grow up, and for more than 80 per cent of the population, the boring, unadventurous and thoroughly unfashionable suburbs serve as their childhood stomping grounds. Much derided in literature and popular culture, acclaimed author David Randall turns his eagle eye and sharp wit on growing up in Suburbia - and his own childhood through the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

From the predictable naming conventions to the unambitious juvenile crime, and from the social misfits to the snobs in the detached houses, Randall recounts it all in this funny and often poignant anecdote-filled book. Exploring such vital questions as why milkmen were the only daytime callers to be suspected of charming housewives, and just how to hide the New Car (more out of concern for the neighbours than anything to do with crime), no stone is left unturned (although each is placed neatly back onto its manicured lawn). Most important, were the suburbs so extraordinarily cliché as they are portrayed to be? Well, yes, probably. But so what?

16 b/w illustrations

About the Author

David Randall is a Cambridge-educated history graduate who worked for more than 30 years as a writer and editor for The Observer and both Independent titles. He is the author of five titles, including 'The Universal Journalist' (5,212 Nielsen), which has been in print for more than 20 years, translated into 22 languages, and named by Press Gazette as one of the top ten books on journalism of all time. He lives in a suburb, in Surrey.