'How cool was Will Freeman?'

Too cool! At thirty-six, he's as hip as a teenager. He's single, child-free, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear. He's also found a great way to score with women: attend single parents' groups full of available (and grateful) mothers, all hoping to meet a Nice Guy.

Which is how Will meets Marcus, the oldest twelve-year-old on the planet. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, looks after his mum and has never owned a pair of trainers. But Marcus latches on to Will - and won't let go. Can Will teach Marcus how to grow up cool? And can Marcus help Will just to grow up?

This astonishing novel, now a modern classic, was adapted for the acclaimed 2002 film About A Boy, starring Hugh Grant and Nicholas Hoult. Fans of One Day by David Nicholls and Any Human Heart by William Boyd will devour this book, as will lovers of fiction everywhere.

'A stunner of a novel. Utterly read-in-one-day, forget-where-you-are-on-the-tube-gripping' Marie Claire

'About the awful, hilarious, embarrassing places where children and adults meet, and Hornby has captured it with delightful precision' Irish Times

'It takes a writer with real talent to make this work, and Hornby has it - in buckets' Literary Review