Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life - Softcover

Stibbe, Nina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241976715 ISBN 13: 9780241976715

Publisher: Penguin, 2016

Synopsis

Being a nanny is great. Not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life. Today before breakfast Sam had to empty the dishwasher and Will had to feed the cat.

Sam: I hate emptying the dishwasher.
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns.
Will: I hate the cat.
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns.

In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There's a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs.

From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton.

About this title

Review

I adored this book, and could quote from it forever. It's real, odd, life-affirming, sharp, loving, and contains more than one reference to Arsenal FC (Nick Hornby The Believer)

Last year, we had Roger Mortimer's splendidly bufferish Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son. Love, Nina - funny, quirky, vivid and touching - is every bit its equal (Daily Mail (Book of the Week))

I loved this book. What a beady eye she has for domestic life, and how deliciously fresh and funny she is - a real discovery. (Deborah Moggach, author of 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel')

Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: Love, Nina might be the most charming book I've ever read (Maria Semple, author of 'Where’d You Go, Bernadette')

Funny, warm, life-affirming and accutely well-observed, Love, Nina is a gift that will keep on giving . . . A hoot (Metro)

The snippets of dialogue and vingettes evoke the characters and atmosphere brilliantly . . . Funny, sharp (Evening Standard)

Even if Adrian Mole wrote about the Primrose Hill set, it wouldn't be as funny and absorbing as Love, Nina (Psychologies)

Like a 1980s Mary Poppins with a sense of humour (Stylist)

The funniest new writer to arrive in years (Andrew O'Hagan)

Adrian Mole meets Mary Poppins mashed up in literary north London . . . Enormous fun (Bookseller)

From the Back Cover

'Funny and sharp and has a distinctive streak of wildness: no book this year has made me laugh more' John Lanchester, Guardian, Books of the Year

In 1982 Nina Stibbe, a 20-year-old from Leicester, moved to London to work as a nanny for a very particular family. It was a perfect match: Nina had no idea how to cook, look after children or who the weirdos were who called round. And the family, busy discussing such arcane subjects as how to swear in German or the merits (or otherwise) of turkey mince, were delighted by her lack of skills. Love, Nina is the collection of letters she wrote home gloriously describing her 'domestic' life, the unpredictable houseguests and the cat everyone loved to hate.

'A hoot. Funny, warm, life-affirming and acutely well-observed' Metro

'Hilarious' Mail on Sunday

'Hilarious' Sunday Times

'Hilarious' Financial Times

'By far the funniest, most genuinely heart-warming account of the everyday I've read. Stibbe is an unassuming comic genius' Independent

'Wonderful, extremely funny, with a sharp eye for human foibles and a novelist's eye for detail. Funny, quirky, vivid and touching' Daily Mail

'The hilarious confessions of a north London nanny. Deliciously crisp and funny' Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0241976715
• ISBN 13: 9780241976715
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352