Mark Barrowcliffe

In this attempt to understand the true inner nerd of the adolescent male, Barrowcliffe relates how he and twenty million other boys grew up in the '70s and '80s absorbed in the world of fantasy role-playing games like Dungeon & Dragons.

Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange

The Elfish Gene

Dungeons, Dragons And Growing Up Strange

Harry's one ambition is to find the perfect girl for him. He doesn't ask for much; just a beautiful intellectual who doesn't mind his constant infidelity. Harry's best friend Gerrard did once find true love - but he didn't realise it until the day she left him. Even if he does find a woman who meets his exacting criteria, he's not sure he can trust her not to grow old eventually. Then they meet Alice. She's the only woman in the world Harry and Gerrard can agree on. Unfortunately, she seems to like both of them. Gerrard wants Alice for himself, but Harry will stop at nothing to win her. Friendship is forgotten and even a little light poisoning is on the cards. But can a man who thinks size ten is a bit on the chubby side grow up fast enough to win the girl of his dreams?

Girlfriend 44

Coventry, 1976. For a brief, blazing summer, twelve-year-old Mark Barrowcliffe had the chance to be normal. He blew it. While other teenagers concentrated on being coolly rebellious, Mark – like twenty million other boys in the ‘70s and ’80s – chose to spend his entire adolescence in fart-filled bedrooms pretending to be a wizard or a warrior, an evil priest or a dwarf. Armed only with pen, paper and some funny-shaped dice, this lost generation gave themselves up to the craze of fantasy role-playing games, stopped chatting up girls and started killing dragons. Extremely funny, not a little sad and really quite strange, The Elfish Gene is an attempt to understand the true inner nerd of the adolescent male. Last pick at football, spat at by bullies and laughed at by girls, they were the fantasy wargamers, and this is their story.

Men can sometimes be very charming and funny, and make you laugh out loud. Unfortunately, men also tend to spend rather a lot of their time being idiotic or infuriating; thoughtless, clueless and crap. Meet Mark Barrowcliffe. Mark has had over fifty girlfriends in all, depending on what your definition of a ‘girlfriend’ is. He’s now happily married – to girlfriend fifty-something – but why couldn’t he hold on to any of the others? From first kisses to Commitment, whirlwind affairs and heartbreak, Mr Wrong is the very funny, sometimes uncomfortable, true memoir of every girl Mark Barrowcliffe has ever been out with.

Mr Wrong

'You'd think that when you see someone hit the floor right in front of you that you'd remember some telling, cinematic detail. The arc of the cigarette through the air, for instance, or the expression on the man's face. All I remember, though, is the curly-tailed dog looking up at me with the sort of expression that says, "Well, that just about puts the tin lid on it."' After his mother's funeral, Dave Barker's life takes an unexpected turn. A total stranger drops dead in his office, for starters. A good deed leads him into the company of powerful men who want to be Dave's friend. His girlfriend can't get enough of him. So what exactly is Dave's problem? And then there's the dog...

Mark Barrowcliffe

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