Starter for Ten
David Nicholls
 The story, told in first-person narrative, is set in 1985 and chronicles the misadventures of student Brian Jackson in his first year at an unnamed university. A somewhat obsessive collector of general knowledge, Brian has been a fan since childhood of the television quiz show University Challenge which he used to watch with his late father, and on arriving at university, he seizes upon the opportunity to join its University Challenge team. He is initially unsuccessful, but is selected after one of the other team members is forced to drop out because of ill health. The TV show's famous catchphrase — "Your starter for 10" — gives the book its title. Brian promptly falls for his glamorous teammate, Alice Harbinson, although the attraction is not mutual, and he may have more in common with a counterculturalist chum, Rebecca Epstein. Additionally, Brian finds himself caught between his new life, amongst the middle-class university set, and his old, with his working-class family and friends in the seaside town of Southend, Essex.