Love, Nina

Despatches from Family Life

By: Nina Stibbe

Narrated by: Nina Stibbe

Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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. She now lives in Cornwall with her partner and children.

©2013 Nina Stibbe (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“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)

“Despatches from Family Life is the laugh-out-loud story of the trials and tribulations of a very particular family. 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)

Immensely clever and very funny.

Would you listen to Love, Nina again? Why?

Book was read by the writer herself; hence, she knew exactly how to deliver the lines. Really brilliant.

What other book might you compare Love, Nina to and why?

_I Capture the Castle_. Witty and irreverent.

What about Nina Stibbe’s performance did you like?

See answer to question 1.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I was laughing out loud quite often.

Any additional comments?

Was really annoyed by other reviews with "nanny" in the title and /or "you-can-do-it-too" type of implications. This is a very clever and talented human being, with a terrific sense of humour and incredibly observant of the mores of her time. Let's give her the praise she deserves.

An hilarious and joyful look into an era

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I have already told my friends about this book - and even Twitter. It ws witty, charming and hilarious. I wish it had been longer.

What other book might you compare Love, Nina to and why?

A grown-up female Adrian Mole, perhaps. Or maybe early Nick Hornby.`

What does Nina Stibbe bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Nina Stibbe read her book and she was excellent. One knew where the emphasis was meant to be. Her sense of timing was superb. I felt as if I were in the same room as Nina.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I do not compare novels to films and do not watch Hollywood films.

Any additional comments?

The pacing, brevity of the sentences, incredible detail and humour made this book one I will most definitely listen to again. I couldn't get enough. I loved the literary scene and references to literature. Rare these days, but most welcome.

So clever and enjoyable

Nina Stibbe writes letters to her sister, Vic, about daily life with a young family in London in the late 1980s. Her writing is quirky and well observed. I’ve read the book before and now listened to on Audible. It’s fun, not upsetting at all, and v enjoyable. I love it.

Brilliant, Funny, Refreshingly Original

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Applause! Applause! Applause! Absolutely brilliant! I am amazed at the narrative quality of these letters, considering that they were written when Nina Stibbe was still very young! These are the work of a born writer, someone who has a brilliant sense of character construction, story manipulation and scene staging… Fantastic.

The way in which Nina describes her London life as a bay-sitter and undergraduate (i.e., her coming of age story at the right place surrounded by just the right people) in her correspondence with her sister is engaging, hilarious, clever, astonishingly original.

I'm usually against writers (yes, including poets) reading their own material: but this is a fortunate exception. This is due to the nature of an epistolary memoir: I believe that only the actual author of those letters(reproduced without any contextual addition) knows the intention or spirit with which each was written, and therefore only the writer behind the correspondence can correctly render the emotions the girl was trying to communicate (often through irony) to her sister. I think that an actor/narrator might have easily misinterpreted many passages (mistaking irony for brattishness, or vice versa, for example), because it is hard to guess the emotional context of each missive when this context is not explicitly provided by the text (unlike conventional novels and memoirs). For this reason, I suspect, this book is particularly effective in its audible version, and I would probably appreciate it less in its print edition… Although I am going to try it too.

I would highly recommend this audiobook to everyone I know.

BEST BOOK EVER

Funny. Clever. Amazing. It was a great book and i i LOVED it. Please read this wonderful book.