By Joanna Nadin (author)
"This superb ode to swinging Soho explores coming-of-age giddiness at the dawn of a new decade, through a year of saying “yes” to everything."
Paperback In Stock £9.99 £8.99
View All Editions (1)
A suitably brilliant companion to A Calamity of Mannerings , Joanna Nadin’s Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' is an enormously pleasurable coming-of-age page-turner that swings with the thrills of 60s Soho as it follows a year in the life of Birdy — a fabulously-conjured character who’s impossible not to love.
As a new decade dawns on New Year’s Eve 1959, Birdy (real name Margaret) dreams of literature-related romance and glamour (think Bonjour Tristesse). Unfortunately, reality is somewhat different: “Even my name – Margaret – is average (Princess Margaret notwithstanding, as she is a goddess amongst women). Why can I not be a Calypso? A Viola? A Genevieve?”
While Cambridge University is on the cards for Birdy, she wants “a life more like the fictional ones I keep reading about and less like the actual one I seem destined for – the dull suburbs, the safety of university in a honey-bricked city, then back to the suburbs to marry a Clive or a Colin and waste said education by having children who will repeat the process all over again.” After resolving to say ‘yes’ to everything, she befriends Charlie, a runaway aristocratic actress who secures her lodgings and a job in a Soho bookshop.
While Birdy’s Soho adventures are a blast, and often funny as they reveal the swell of 60s liberalism, the book also explores conservative constraints of the era. In Birdy’s words: “There are some things that even today, in 1960, no matter one’s background, are considered ill behaviour: being homosexual is one, falling pregnant out of wedlock another.”
Also brilliant on the tricky liminality of being a young adult (“I am all for being grown up, but it’s such a shame we have to leave all the childish things behind”), Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' is an absolute joy.
'I suspect that in Soho anything can happen and frequently does.'
Read the full description
1960 is knocking on the door, and eighteen-year-old Margaret 'Birdy' Arbuthnot, presently of Surbiton, wants more than her current existence in the dull suburbs. She wants to LIVE - in capital letters! Could Soho, with its bright lights and dark corridors, hold the key to a life more novel-like and less… Surrey? (Even if Mummy thinks it is a square mile of vice, full of men with overly shiny shoes.)
At the cusp of the new year, Birdy resolves to only say 'yes' to everything for the next twelve months. She can't possibly realise that her biggest 'yes' will launch her directly into the London orbit of the aristocratic Mannering family, and transform her life into one worth writing novels about.
The joyfully funny companion novel to A Calamity of Mannerings , by Carnegie-nominated bestselling author Joanna Nadin.
Praise for A Calamity of Mannerings:
‘This book is bliss’ Hilary McKay
‘Besides the sharp wit, this also has wisdom and warmth.’ The Sunday Times
‘I couldn't put it down. Wodehouse is alive and she’s beautiful!’ Emma Carroll
'So much fun! So clever, with such wonderful characters who I can still feel breathing and squabbling around me. I kept on guffawing with laughter.' – Natasha Farrant
Joanna Nadin is a winner of the Fantastic Book Award, the Surrey Book Award, Blue Peter 'Book of the Month' and Radio 4 Open Book 'Book of the Year'. She has been shortlisted for the Booktrust Best Book Award and Queen of Teen, and Spies, Dad, Big Lauren and Me was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club. In 2011, Penny Dreadful is a Magnet for Disaster was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Joe All Alone was nominated for the 2016 C ILIP C arnegie Medal. She writes the Flying Fergus series with Sir Chris Hoy. Joanna previously worked as a policy writer for the Labour Party and a special adviser to the Prime Minister. She continues to freelance as a speechwriter and editor, and lectures in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
40 Funny Children's Books for World Laughter Day
Longlists Announced for the Carnegies Book Awards 2026
The LoveReading4Kids Best Children's Books of the Year 2025
The Cafe at the End of the World
Amie Kaufman and 1 more
A Knight Before Christmas
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
'I suspect that in Soho anything can happen and frequently does.' 1960 is knocking on the door, and eighteen-year-old Margaret 'Birdy' Arbuthnot, presently of Surbiton, wants more than her current existence in the dull suburbs. She wants to LIVE - in capital letters!
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' and determined it is suitable for children aged 15-18 years old
Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' features in the following genres: Featured Books for Young Adults, Recommendations, Star Books, Historical Fiction, Funny, Romance / Relationship Stories, Children’s / Teenage fiction: Romance and love stories, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational
Paperback. £8.99, down from the £9.99 cover price. In Stock.
Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' was written by Joanna Nadin and published by UCLan Publishing
Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of 'Yes' has 431 pages
£8.99, reduced from £9.99. In Stock.
©PTC International Ltd T/A LoveReading is registered in England. Company number: 10193437. VAT number: 270 4538 09. Registered address: 157 Shooters Hill, London, SE18 3HP. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer
The National Year of Reading starts here. Join thousands of families and schools supporting reading for pleasure across the UK.