Nina Stibbe

* * * WINNER OF THE 2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR * * * 'I adored this book, and I 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 'Adrian Mole meets Mary Poppins mashed up in literary north London . . . Enormous fun' Bookseller 'What a beady eye she has for domestic life, and how deliciously fresh and funny she is' Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Nina Stibbe's Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life is the laugh-out-loud story of the trials and tribulations of a very particular family. 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. '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' 'Nina Stibbe is the funniest new writer to arrive in years. Love, Nina is her first book - a memoir so warm, so witty and so wise, it's like finding the friend you always deserved' Andrew O'Hagan At the age of 20 Nina Stibbe moved from Leicestershire to London to become a nanny. Later she studied at Thames Polytechnic and worked in publishing. In 2014 her debut novel Man at the Helm was published. Love, Nina won the 2014 National Book Awards for Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year. She now lives in Cornwall with her partner and children.

Despatches from Family Life

Love, Nina

An achingly funny tale of a teenager falling in love with the wrong person, in 1970s Leicestershire 18 year old Lizzie Vogel finds herself a new job in a dentist's surgery after answering a classified advert in the Leicester Mercury for a 'mature lady with a strong interest in dental issues'. Working for an eccentric dental surgeon who's obsessed with becoming a Freemason, Lizzie's life is uneventful, until Andy Nicolello turns up one day to deliver a crown. Lizzie seizes her chance to find love, and soon begins calling him her boyfriend even though they have never so much as kissed or even sat next to each other on the sofa. But Andy doesn't turn out to be quite what he seems... Reasons to be Cheerful is a painfully funny account of life as a hapless teenager in 1970s Leicestershire from the bestselling author of Love, Nina, Man at the Helm and Paradise Lodge.

Reasons to Be Cheerful

This is the story of Lizzie Vogel, a 15 year old girl who finds herself working in an old people's home in Leicestershire in the 1970s. The place is in chaos and it's not really a suitable job for a schoolgirl: she'd only gone for the job because she wanted a new phase and it seemed too exhausting to commit to being a full-time girlfriend or a punk. Lizzie has some knowledge of old people (they're not suited to granary bread, and you mustn't compare them to toddlers) but she doesn't know there's a right way to get someone out of the bath, or what to do when someone dies. When a rival old people's home with better parking and daily chairobics threatens to take all their patients, Paradise Lodge's cast of staff and helpers, from the assertively shy Nurse who only communicates through little grunts to the son of the Chinese takeaway manager who's renowned for his erotic handholding techniques, have to come together to save the home before it's too late. From the bestselling author of Love, Nina comes a story of being very young, and very old, and the laughter, and the tears, in between.

Paradise Lodge

My sister and I and our little brother were born (in that order) into a very good situation and apart from the odd new thing life was humdrum and comfortable until an evening in 1970 when my mother listened in to my father's phone call and ended up blowing her nose on a tea towel - a thing she'd only have done in an absolute emergency. Not long after her parents' separation, heralded by an awkward scene involving a wet Daily Telegraph and a pan of cold eggs, nine-year-old Lizzie Vogel, her sister and little brother and their now divorcée mother are packed off to a small, slightly hostile village in the English countryside. Their mother is all alone, only thirty-one years of age, with three young children and a Labrador. It is no wonder, when you put it like that, that she becomes a menace and a drunk. And a playwright. Worried about the bad playwriting - though more about becoming wards of court and being sent to the infamous Crescent Home for Children - Lizzie and her sister decide to contact, by letter, suitable men in the area. In order to stave off the local social worker they urgently need to find a new Man at the Helm. By the author of the much loved Love, Nina comes a wildly comic, brilliantly sharp-eyed novel about the horrors of being an attractive divorcée in an English village in the 1970s, and a family's fall from grace.

A Novel

Man at the Helm

One Day I Shall Astonish the World

From the prize-winning author of Reasons to be Cheerful comes a story about the ebb and flow of female friendship over half a lifetime 'Joyful. Stibbe's comedy probes what it means to become an adult' Daily Telegraph _________________________________________________ Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. Nina Stibbe's new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination. _________________________________________________ PRAISE FOR NINA STIBBE 'Funny, charming, odd-in-the-best-way and gorgeously uplifting! A delight from start to finish' Marian Keyes 'Stibbe is one of the great comic writers of our time' Irish Times 'Pitch perfect vintage comedy' Guardian

From perennially dry turkeys to Christmas pudding fires, from the round robin code of conduct to the risks and rewards of re-gifting, An Almost Perfect Christmas is an ode to the joy and insanity of the most wonderful time of the year. "My mother is not a foodie. But for as long as I can remember, once a year, she becomes possessed of a profound and desperate need to serve up a perfect roast turkey. Faced with a walk into the village though, she might think 'oh, f*** it' and decide to get a frozen one from Bejams on the 23rd and leave it to defrost in the downstairs toilet for not quite 48 hours.--Adapted from publisher's promotional description.

An Almost Perfect Christmas

"Born into a posh family, ten-year old Lizzie Vogel has lived a charmed life thus far, with a big sister who knows everything, a cute baby brother, and a full-time housekeeper who bakes jam tarts. But when, in 1970, Lizzie's father abandons her mother and packs his ex-family off to the tiny village of Flatstone, life for the Vogels veers catastrophically off-course. The new neighbors disapprove of divorcees and fatherless children, and Lizzie's theatrical mother provides constant grist for the gossip mill, letting the laundry pile up like Mount Sinai and spending her days drinking whiskey, popping pills and writing plays about how sad she is. Before long the family is shunned by village society. Deciding that only a "man at the helm" will restore order to their household, Lizzie and her sister take it upon themselves to secure a new husband for their mother. As the two girls make their way down a list of candidates that includes a charming con-artist, an idiotic vicar, and several married men, Lizzie confronts the downright craziness of grown-up love and learns that sometimes a family needs to veer catastrophically off-course in order to find true happiness"--

a novel

Man at the helm

A delightful story of growing up, getting old, and every step in between, from the acclaimed author of Man at the Helm and Love, Nina. After succeeding in her quest to help her unconventional mother find a new "man at the helm," fifteen-year-old Lizzie Vogel simply wants to be a normal teenager. Just when it looks as if things have settled down, her mother goes and has another baby. On top of that, Lizzie's best friend has deserted her for the punk craze, which Lizzie finds too exhausting to commit to herself. But Lizzie soon gets more commitment than she bargained for when she takes a job as a junior nurse at Paradise Lodge, a ramshackle refuge for the elderly that has seen better days. It's no place for a teenager, much less one with as little experience emptying a bedpan as Lizzie. What begins as away to avoid school and earn some spending money (for the finer things in life, like real coffee and beer shampoo) quickly turns into the education of a lifetime. Lizzie encounters a colorful cast of eccentric characters--including a nurse determined to turn one of the patients into a husband (and a retirement plan); an efficient but clueless nun trying to modernize the place; and Lizzie's unlikely first love--who become her surrogate family. When Paradise Lodge faces a crisis in the form of a rival nursing home with enough amenities to make even the comatose jealous, Lizzie must find a way to save her job before she loses the only place she's ever felt she belongs. A hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale, Paradise Lodge proves that it's never too early--or too late--to grow up.

From the author of Love, Nina, a hilarious account of the highs of lows of Christmas season "My mother is not a foodie. But for as long as I can remember, once a year, she becomes possessed of a profound and desperate need to serve up a perfect roast turkey. Faced with a walk into the village though, she might think 'oh, f*** it' and decide to get a frozen one from Bejams on the 23rd and leave it to defrost in the downstairs toilet for not quite 48 hours." From perennially dry turkeys to Christmas pudding fires, from the round robin code of conduct to the risks and rewards of re-gifting, An Almost Perfect Christmas is an ode to the joy and insanity of the most wonderful time of the year.

Zwei Schwestern auf der Suche nach einem Mann für ihre Mutter - Roman

Ein Mann fürs Haus

From the author of Love, Nina -- a hilarious ode to the joys and insanities of the most wonderful time of the year. Every family has its Christmas traditions and memories, and Nina Stibbe's is no exception. From her kitchen-phobic mother's annual obsession with roasting the perfect turkey (an elusive dream to this day) to the quest for a perfect teacher gift (memorable for all the wrong reasons); from the tragic Christmas tree ("is it meant to look like that?") to the acceptable formula for thank-you letters (must include Health Inquiry and Interesting Comment), Nina Stibbe captures all that is magical and maddening about the holidays.

From the beloved author of Love, Nina, a frank, tender, and poignantly funny story about the ebb and flow of female friendship over half a lifetime. Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. Nina Stibbe's new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination.

From the prize-winning author of Reasons to be Cheerful comes a story about the ebb and flow of female friendship over half a lifetime 'A true gift of a novel, I utterly adored it. For as long as I could make it last, the world just felt a bit nicer' Meg Mason 'Stibbe turns out more perfect, sharp, unique sentences than anyone else' Caitlin Moran 'Stibbe has an extraordinary gift' Marian Keyes 'Nina Stibbe makes being funny look easy, but that's just because she's very, very good at it' Clare Chambers ________________________________________________ Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. Nina Stibbe's new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination. _________________________________________________ 'Nina Stibbe's very funny novels are full of charm, and her latest brilliantly captures the mordant humour of British suburban life' Evening Standard 'I absolutely loved every single page of it! I honestly think it's the funniest thing she's ever written' Garth Jennings 'I'm not surprised to see that Stibbe's writing has been compared to Jane Austen's' Emma Healey 'I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book' Observer 'Stibbe is one of the all-time greats' Daisy Buchanan 'Clever and funny, it takes a sharp look at the intricacies of marriage, friendship, work and driving. As with all Stibbe's writing there is a pleasingly perfect balance of wisdom with jokes' Cathy Rentzenbrink 'Nina Stibbe is not just very funny but absolutely life-affirming' Jenny Colgan 'For beautifully funny and well-observed comic writing, Nina Stibbe is your go-to author. In her latest release, a tale of lifelong friendship between Susan and Norma, she explores the mistakes, rivalries and love we all experience in life' Stylist 'One of the great comic writers of our time' Irish Times

Non è facile essere una madre divorziata nell’Inghilterra del 1970. Quando un’eccentrica drammaturga mancata, con una certa inclinazione per le sregolatezze, si trasferisce dalla città in un villaggio insieme ai tre figli, al cane e ad alcuni pony, la minuscola comunità locale accoglie il loro arrivo con un misto sconcertante di ostilità e sospetto che li sospinge ai margini di qualunque evento. Lizzie, la voce narrante, mette subito a fuoco il problema, complice la savia sorella maggiore: per essere credibili, i Vogel hanno bisogno di un capofamiglia, di un nuovo uomo al timone. Le due ragazzine stilano così una lista dei partiti più appetibili della zona e si adoperano per attirarli a casa loro, uno alla volta, e offrirli in pasto alla bellissima, imprevedibile madre. Chi scegliere tra il pragmatico dottor Kaufmann e il reverendo Derek, il “piccolo vicario idiota”? Forse meglio puntare su Mr Longlady (a spese della povera Mrs Longlady)? O sul veterinario, che per una famiglia fornita di parecchi animali è una risorsa preziosa? Tra amicizie tentate ed evaporate, truffe, piccoli drammi quotidiani e guai seri, mentre Piccolo Jack, il fratellino minore, patisce più di tutti l’isolamento forzato e lo manifesta in modo vistoso, l’impresa guidata da Lizzie sembra destinata al fallimento.Ma forse l’uomo giusto non è sulla lista, e per trovarlo bisognerà imparare a guardare meglio, o semplicemente un po’ più in là. Disarmante onestà, umorismo inglese e disincanto per una commedia sulla difficile arte di crescere tra adulti che non si comportano come tali.

Un uomo al timone

Daisy Buchanan

Irvine Welsh

John Niven

A.L. Kennedy

Mike Gayle

Christopher Brookmyre

Meera Syal

Murray Lachlan Young

Pauline Melville

Barney Farmer

Zoe Venditozzi

In the early hours of 14 June 2017, a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London, killing at least 72 people and injuring many more. An entire community was destroyed. For many people affected by this tragedy, the psychological scars may never heal. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that affects many people who have endured traumatic events, leaving them unable to move on from life-changing tragedies. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the focus was rightly placed on providing food, shelter and health care for those left homeless – but it is important that we don’t lose sight of the psychological impact this fire will have had on its survivors. 24 Stories is an anthology of short stories, written on themes of community and hope, by a mix of the UK’s best established writers and previously unpublished authors, whose pieces were chosen by Kathy Burke from over 250 entries. Contributors include: Irvine Welsh, A. L. Kennedy, Meera Syal, John Niven, Pauline Melville, Daisy Buchanan, Christopher Brookmyre, Zoe Venditozzi, Nina Stibbe, Mike Gayle, Murray Lachlan Young, Barney Farmer.

of Hope for Survivors of the Grenfell Tower Fire

24 Stories

Um ihr Taschengeld aufzubessern, jobbt die 15-jährige Lizzie Vogel neben der Schule in einem Altersheim. Auch wenn sich ihre Kenntnisse über den Umgang mit Senioren auf zwei Regeln beschränken: Man sollte ihnen möglichst kein Vollkornbrot servieren und sie nicht wie Kleinkinder behandeln. Als plötzlich ein neues Heim aufmacht, ist Lizzies Arbeitsplatz allerdings in Gefahr. Denn die Konkurrenz macht dank des schöneren Parkplatzes, der Bingoabende und regelmäßigen Pfarrerbesuche dem maroden Paradise Lodge die Pensionisten streitig. Ein Plan muss her – und zwar schnell ...

Nina Stibbe

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