Starter For Ten By David Nicholls (Hodder & Stoughton 2003)

Walking back along the High Street after the tutorial, I see Rebecca whats-her-name and a couple of the fuckingangryactuallys that she's always hanging around with. They're thrusting leaflets into the hands of indifferent shoppers and for a moment I contemplate crossing the road. I'm a bit wary of her to be honest, especially after our last conversatron, but I've made a promise to myself to make as many new friends as possible at university, even if they glve every indication of not actually liking me very much.

'Hiya,' I say

'It's the Dancing Queen! How you doing?' she says, and hands me a leaflet, urging me to boycott Barclays.

Actually my grant money's with one of the other caring humanitarian multinational banking organisations!' I say, with an incisive wry, satirical glint in my eye, but she's not really looking and has gone back to handing out leaflets and shouting 'Fight apartheid! Support the boycott. Don't buy South African goods! Say no to apartheid! . . .' I start to feel a bit boycotted too, so start to walk away when she says, in a marginally softer voice, 'So, how ya' settling in, then?'

'Oh, alright. I'm sharing my house with a rlght pair of bloody Ruperts. But apart from that it's not too bad . . . ' I had thrown in the hint of class war for her benefit really but I don't think she gets lt, because she looks at me confused.

'They're both called Rupert?'

'No, they're called Marcus and Josh.'

'So who are the Ruperts?'

'They are, they're, you know - Ruperts', but the remark is starting to lose some of its cutting edge and I wonder if I should offer to hand out leaflets instead. After all, it is a cause I'm passionate about, and I have a strict policy of not eating South Afrrcan fruit that's almost as strict as my policy of not eating fruit. But now Rebecca's folding up the remaining leaflets and handing them to her colleagues.

'Right, that's me done for today. See you later, Toby, see you Rupert . . . ' and suddenly I find myself walking down the street side by side with her, without quite knowing whose idea it was. 'So, where're we off to now, then?' she asks, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her black vinyl coat.

Joe College by Tom Perrotta (St Martin's Griffin 2000)

Only Howard Friedlin seemed oblivious to the now-public drama of my love life. He was too busy glowering at the copy of Reality he'd unearthed from the bottom of the coffee-table pile.

"What about Max?" Mrs. Friedlin asked. "Does he have a girlfriend too?"

Before I could answer, Mr. Friedlin raised the magazine like a kindergartner at show-and-tell. He tapped his index finger against the cover photo of the mangy constipated dog, hunched and grimacing.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded.

"A literary magazine," Sang replied cheerfully. "Danny here is one of the editors."

Mr. Friedlin gave me a look of incomprehension worthy of my own father.

"Did you intend it as some kind of statement?" He pronounced his last word with genuine distaste, as if we all knew about statements.

"It is what it is," I informed him, grinning like an idiot. I felt positively giddy. Polly wanted to sleep with me. She'd said so over the phone. "It's just reality."

"Why don't you just photograph some dog shit?" he asked. "That's part of reality, too."

"They're saving that for the spring issue," Ted explained helpfully.