A classic selection of the best of Stan Barstow's stories, covering the last five decades of British life. A group of young tearaways on a night out that begins with horse-play and ends in tragedy; the loneliness of a drunken miner's wife; a war-shocked ex-sailor forced beyond endurance, a widower is brought to grief by a woman outside his real understanding, and a factory worker finding his way through the physical world of his marriage. Real and involving, Barstow's stories are urgent slices of life, men and women struggling and succeeding to come to terms with The Likes of Us. Along with Alan Sillitoe and John Braine, Stan Barstow was considered one of the pioneers of the 1960s school of northern literary realism, paving the way for contemporary authors like Nick Hornby.