Books by Daniel Pennac

A humorous and incisive reflection on education - the autobiography of a dunce who became a brilliant teacher and a bestselling author.

A French counterpart to Adrian Mole, by one of Europe's best-loved comic writers

Benjamin Malaussene and family are far from happy when his fortune teller younger sister Therese marries the aristocratic Count Marie-Colbert de Roberval at a televised wedding - a ceremony from which Marie-Colbert has unceremoniously banned the madcap Malaussene clan.

A classic, essential read by master storyteller Daniel Pennac, with a new foreword written by Michael Morpurgo.

Benjamin is a scapegoat. Under the official title of Quality Controller, he works for the complaints department of a large Parisian department store where he bears the brunt of customer complaints. When a bomb goes off in the toy department, he finds himself the prime suspect.

Benjamin Malaussene is a downtrodden publisher at Vendetta Press. Treated as a scapegoat by Queen Zabo, doyenne of publishing, he finally resigns, only for Zabo to offer him a starring role. All he has to do is to impersonate the world's best-loved, but hitherto anonymous author, J.L.B.

Manuel Pereira da Ponte Martins, beloved dictator of the state of Teresina in Brazil, develops agoraphobia the day a fortune-teller predicts he will die being torn limb from limb by an angry mob.

Benjamin Malaussene, the Belleville scapegoat, and his family of half sisters and brothers are once again the target for a series of increasingly catastrophic mishaps which culminate in his imprisonment on 21 counts of murder.

A policeman on a mission of mercy is shot dead at point-blank range by a sweet old granny on a frosty morning. Maniacally inventive - some have called it deranged - Pennac's creations in The Fairy Gunmother have achieved cult status all over Europe.