Literature has long concerned itself with the past, childhood and what might have been, but in recent years a particular brand of nostalgic reminiscence has become popular among British writers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of these studies of youthful joys and terrors focus on friendships, from the gung-ho gangs of Glue, deadkidsongs or The Madolescents to the intense partnership anatomised in My Summer of Love. Another common motif is an almost fetishistic interest in the toys, music and television of the era evoked: the Eurovision kitsch of All the Rage typifies this. But as many of the novels listed here make clear, the good old days weren’t always that...

Armitage, Simon Little Green Man

Viking, 2001, £12.99, ISBN 0-670-89442-7, hbk

Simon Armitage, an established poet, launched his fiction career with this tense story of four reunited friends attempting to recapture their 1970s childhood through a game of 'dares' that become increasingly extreme. Melvyn Bragg said in The Observer that the novel was written with 'the salty prose of an original poetic voice'

Atkinson, Kate Emotionally Weird

Doubleday, 2000, £16.99, ISBN 0-385-40882-X, hbk
Black Swan, 2001, £6.99, ISBN 0-552-99734-X, pbk

Family history and identity are at the centre of the third novel by Whitbread-winning author Kate Atkinson. Exploring the relationship between Effie and her mother Nora, who exist together in a windswept tumbledown house on a remote Scottish island, Emotionally Weird is also an examination of our relationship with our ancestors and of the tricky nature of storytelling: the intertwining of truth and fiction, of untrustworthy memories and deliberate lies.

Burnside, John The Locust Room

Vintage, 2001, £14.99, ISBN 0-670-89252-1, pbk
Penguin Books, 2002, £6.99, ISBN 0-14-029466-X, pbk

During the summer of 1975 a rapist is stalking young single women in Cambridge. An unnerving and sensitive look at male sexuality, based around a young photographer who, in the light of the murders, must examine his relationship with women.

Coe, Jonathan The Rotters' Club

Viking, 2001, £14.99, ISBN 0-670-89252-1, hbk
Penguin Books, 2002, £6.99, ISBN 0-14-029466-X, pbk

Jonathan Coe uses the microcosm of a Birmingham school to explore the politics of the 1970s, running through the administrations of Heath, Wilson and Callaghan and ending on the day of Margaret Thatcher's election victory. The novel is a commentary on life in the UK at this time and a study of childhood in both worlds, lust, jealousy and racism all play their part.

Cross, Helen My Summer of Love

Bloomsbury, 2001, £9.99, ISBN 0-7475-5276-2, pbk

A dark and brooding tale of two teenage girls during a hot Yorkshire summer in the 1980s. Left to their own devices while house-sitting, the two girls create their own world as the novel builds to a climax of violence and danger. Despite the tense atmosphere, the novel has some lively humorous moments as the two tuck into After Eight sandwiches, sleep the mornings away and dance the nights into oblivion.

Eaves, Will The Oversight

Picador, 2001, £12.00, ISBN 0-330-48139-8, hbk
Picador, 2002, £6.99, ISBN 0-330-48140-1, pbk

A witty coming-of-age novel which shuttles between 1980s Bath and present-day south London. Daniel Rathbone is a gawky and isolated teenager attempting to come to terms with his sexuality and face up to family secrets. 'His warm appraisal of fallibility, motive and mishap makes for a promising debut.' The Guardian

Freud, Esther The Wild

Penguin Books, 2001, £6.99, ISBN 0-14-023895-3, pbk

Set in the 1970s, The Wild is a detailed and closely observed novel about 'new' families and step-families, and is a clear evocation of the collision of adult and childhood worlds. William Sutcliffe described it in The Independent on Sunday as 'one of the very few great contemporary novels about childhood'.

Glazebrook, Chrissie The Madolescents

Heinemann, 2001, £16.99, ISBN 0-434-00886-9, hbk
Heinemann, 2001, £9.99, ISBN 0-434-00985-7, pbk

Set in Newcastle, The Madolescents is the anarchic story of Rowena, a confused teenager working as a funeral parlour make-up artist. Along with other members of her therapy group, Rowena embarks on a series of madcap adventures. Incorporating the language of streetwise North-east teenagers, The Madolescents is a humorous, if angst-ridden, tale of teenage paranoia and escapism.

Greenlaw, Lavinia Mary George of Allnorthover

Flamingo, 2001, £12.99, ISBN 0-00-710595-9, hbk
Flamingo, 2002, £6.99, ISBN 0-00-710594-0, pbk

The mood of poet Lavinia Greenlaw's first novel is sombre and oppressive as she recalls a 1970s teenage summer in a small village in the South-east of England. Greenlaw skilfully captures the feel of the era, sensitively reflects the emotions of a teenager and gently exposes the nature of English village life.

Knight, Martin Common People

Mainstream Publishing, 2000, £6.99, ISBN 1-84018-332-2, pbk

John Hay grows up on a council estate in a London suburb in the 1960s and 1970s. Youthful interests in football and comics are supplanted by more threatening things as John passes through comprehensive school and moves into the world of work, alcohol and drugs. A coming-of-age story concerned with a loss of innocence and the inevitability of a grim adult future.

Litt, Toby deadkidsongs

Hamish Hamilton, 2001, £9.99, ISBN 0-241-14070-6, hbk
Penguin Books, 2001, £6.99, ISBN 0-14-028578-4, pbk

A disturbing and shocking novel which leads the reader deep into the heart of boyhood. deadkidsongs follows in the tradition of Lord of the Flies and The Wasp Factory, and Toby Litt is frighteningly good at depicting the raw and methodical violence of which boys are capable. The novel centres on the four members of 'Gang' and the saga of their escalating war games, both against each other and the adults in their lives.

Magrs, Paul All the Rage

Allison & Busby, 2001, £9.99, ISBN 0-7490-0536-X, pbk

A camp expose of the 1980s, detailing the fashion disasters, the musical fluff and the all-round bad taste that characterised the decade. The novel follows a Eurovision band and the attempts by its ex-members to cash in on the present-day exploitations of their work. As well as being a humorous take on pop culture and tribute bands, the novel also captures the darker and more difficult sides to fame.

Miller, Harland Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty

Fourth Estate, 2001, £6.99, ISBN 1-84115-283-8, pbk

A comic and touching story of growing up in the north of England in the early 1980s, recalling the era's music, fashion, crime, politics and drug scene. However, there is also a convincing darker side to this unconventional rites-of-passage novel as it examines the impact that the Yorkshire Ripper had on the lives of ordinary people.

Traynor, Joanna Bitch Money

Bloomsbury, 2000, £9.99, ISBN 0-7475-4792-0, pbk
Bloomsbury, 2001, £6.99, ISBN 0-7475-5326-2, pbk

From the criminal subculture of Manchester's council estates to the Costa Blanca, Traynor's novel marries violence and humour in a well-constructed thriller. Against the backdrop of Thatcher's Britain, Traynor makes acute observations on the greed and excess of the time.

Welsh, Irvine Glue

Jonathan Cape, 2001, £16.99, ISBN 0-224-06172-0, hbk
Jonathan Cape, 2001, £12.00, ISBN 0-224-06126-7, pbk

The glue of the title refers to the ties that bind together a group of friends through the lively 1970s, the poverty and unemployment of the 1980s and the drug-raddled days of the 1990s. In spite of some harsh and violent scenes, this is a tender novel that sensitively chronicles the enduring friendships between four men.