Love, Nina

Despatches from Family Life

De: Nina Stibbe

Narrado por: Nina Stibbe

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014

A laugh-out-loud true story of the trials and tribulations of being a live-in nanny in 1980s London and inspired a major TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter.

*****

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.

*****

'I adored this book and could quote from it forever' Nick Hornby

'Funny and sharp: no book this year has made me laugh more' John Lanchester, Guardian

'The funniest book I've read in ages' Sunday Times

'An unassuming comic genius' Independent

Reseñas de la Crítica

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')

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

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')

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

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.

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.

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.