An Awfully Big Adventure, Beryl Bainbridge

Shortlisted for the 1990 Booker Prize, a darkly comic novel of class, the long shadow of war and unrequited first love, now with a new introduction by Yiyun Li.

Liverpool, 1950. Sixteen-year-old Stella is hired as assistant stage manager by a repertory theatre company and soon falls into a heady infatuation with the director, Meredith - failing to notice how he shows not only no interest in her, but in any woman. When the celebrated actor O'Hara arrives to take the lead in their production of Peter Pan, it sets in motion a drama offstage of lost innocence, tragedy and miscommunication.

Peopled by a cast of eccentric characters and the air thick with the scent of greasepaint and cigarettes, An Awfully Big Adventure is an evocative and sharp-edged novel for fans of Penelope Fitzgerald, Muriel Spark and Camilla Grudova.