"One Day" by David Nicholls

Emma and Dexter spend the night after their graduation together in bed (but without having sex) in Edinburgh. The book then revisits their relationship every year for twenty years.Although clearly meant for one another and clearly each in love with the other, they never quite get it together ... but will they by the end. Dexter shags his way through life and becomes a shallow TV presenter; Emma becomes a teacher who wants to write.

Selected quotes:

• "balls of steel that's what you need to be a TV presenter and a mind like a like a well quick thinking anyway"
• "can I just explain something about the telephone? You don't have to shout into it? The phone does that bit for you..."
• And the best bit is when Dexter finds out that Emma has been writing poetry about him. She is very cross with him but he wants to know more: "What rhymes with Dexter?" he asks and she says "Bastard. It's a half-rhyme."

A light weight and slightly predictable comedy of our time, it nevertheless had me weeping before the end.

August 2010; 435 pages

Book of the Year in the British Book Awards 2010

It has been made into a great TV series. David Nicholl also wrote the hilarious Starter For Ten. 

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God