Love, Nina

Despatches from Family Life

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Love, Nina

By: Nina Stibbe

Narrated by: Nina Stibbe

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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

Letters & Correspondence

Literary History & Criticism

Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence

Funny

Feel-Good

Heartfelt

Witty

England

Letters & Correspondence Literary History & Criticism Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Funny Feel-Good Heartfelt Witty England

Critic reviews

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

Most relevant

This is sweet, warm, and very very funny. This is about Nina's job as a nanny in London in the early 80's and living on a street where all the houses appear to be occupied by an intellectual celebrity.
Nina describes a household where the extraordinary is turned into the ordinary and everbody's viewpoint is ruminated over with hilarious results. It is wonderful to hear about famous highbrow people agonising over noisy fridges, turkey burgers and unreturned saws. Nina doesn't appear to be troubled by hard work but instead seems to adopted into the family as a sort of eccentric and slightly churlish big sister.
I should hate Nina for landing what must have been the best job in the UK while I was doing something much more mundane in another part of London, But the truth is, she is impossible not to love and she did us a great service by recording it all in these marvellous letters to her sister.