Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary: From the Prize-winning Author of Love, Nina
£8.50
‘Painfully funny, but also deeply moving’ – Meg Mason
‘Vulnerable, sharp, funny, wise’ – Bonnie Garmus
‘A unique comic voice, endlessly funny’ – David Nicholls
Twenty years after leaving London, Nina Stibbe is back in town with her dog, Peggy. Together they take up lodging in the house of writer Deborah (Debby) Moggach in Camden for ‘a year-long sabbatical’. It’s a break from married life back in Cornwall, or even perhaps a fresh start altogether.
Debby does not have many demands – only to water the garden, watch for toads, and defrost the odd pie – so Nina is free to explore the city she once called home. Between scrutinising her son’s online dating developments, navigating the politics of the local pool, and taking detergent advice at the laundrette, this diary of a sixty-year-old runaway reunites us with the inimitable voice of Love, Nina, as the writer becomes, as she puts it, ‘a proper adult’ at last.
As heard on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour
‘An utter, UTTER treat! It was like spending time with my most clever, insightful, funny, FUNNY friend’ – Marian Keyes
‘No one writes heartbreak more hilariously, or hilarity more heartbreakingly’ – Katherine Heiny
‘So sharp and funny, blissfully gossipy, enviably well-observed . . . I loved it’ – India Knight
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Additional information
| Publisher | Picador (2 Nov. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 4154 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 346 pages |
by Steph
I kept going, hoping that this would get better but it didn’t really. Too much about incontinence and too much name dropping. She describes how someone got angry with her because he thought she was invading the privacy of his well-known partner, and you see his point. There are quite a few places where she mentions a name in an apparent attempt to spice up a banal account, for example of a pub quiz. And in some cases you wonder if the naming is a bit spiteful – for instance, when she notes that she saw X coming out of a Botox salon. So what?
by LibraryGeek12
What a pleasure to have another insight into the life and times of Nina Stibbe after meeting her younger self in her original memoir, “Love Nina.” As a naive and inexperienced nanny in London to the London Review of Books editor Mary Kay Wilmers, she mingled unknowingly with the great and good of the literary world while muddling through childcare and housework to hilarious effect. Now 61 and a successful author, she leaves Cornwall to spend a year in London as the lodger of the author Deborah Moggach, but she finds it a very different and disorienting experience. Full of witty observations and insights, with some lovely cameos of friends, family and of course famous writers, reading it is like having a catch-up with a delightfully gossipy (and sometimes indiscreet) friend. I think she could have cut out some of the details about menopause problems, prolapses and incontinence ( a bit of an obsession) but I enjoyed the inclusion of her student son and daughter and the preoccupations of their youthful circle. A light but fascinating read full of warmth and humour.
by Sparkie B
A brilliantly recorded memoir of Nina’s year in London. Her ability to render everyday happenings into gloriously funny prose is unrivalled, and the diary is a joy. Rarely does the act of reading induce such a feeling of warmth and happiness. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
by Michelle Graham
Reading Nina Stibbe’s new book ‘Went to London, took the dog’, and everyone she knows and her as well, wear Tena Lady pads and pants.
When did that become a thing?
Isn’t she the same age (or thereabouts) as me?
I don’t leak ????
Maybe it’s a mass hysteria thing.
by Dr. I.
Good book. Gentle middle class humour, which is fine by me now I’m middle class. A bit London centric, but given the title you’d be a bit lacking to expect otherwise. If you happen to live around Chalk Fram/Camden, good laundrette recommendation.
Sent my Amazon copy back. It was ripped. Got a new one from Waterstones – but is it better to give profits to amazon, or the investment bankers that own Waterstones? Middle class worries.
by Gail’s Books and Fashion
I wasn’t expecting to find this quite as addictive as it proved to be.
Writer Nina Stibbe, 60, goes back to London after several decades away to live as a lodger with author Deborah Moggach. She doesn’t know “Debby” but she has a big house and is often away. Stibbe takes her baleful sounding dog Peggy, who gets nervous on the underground. Her two children are also both in London at university.
The real reason she has left turns Cornwall turns out to be separation from her husband, although it doesn’t seem to be getting her too down. “Need to talk about possible divorce settlement, which I will do, but I can’t deny that feeling sad kills my creativity.”
Her daily diary includes snippets of the news plus memorable tweets and posts from Instagram and Twitter/X, as well as anecdotes about Debby and the many other writers who cross Stibbe’s path at breakfasts, lunches or trips to the garden centre.
She is sometimes a bit judgmental, but who isn’t when you reach your 60s with a wealth of experience behind you? I felt a bit slighted when she was scathing about someone who wasn’t a dog lover, as I could also be described thus.
Some of her assertions had me laughing and nodding. Yes, Paul McCartney did raise the bar very high for men. I’m less convinced about James Herriott, tending to think of a rather fraught Christopher Timothy, but Michael Palin would have been another candidate.
An excellent book for dipping in and out of. I enjoyed Stibbe’s wry take on life.
by Msfit
Can’t properly review without a spoiler alert, but I will say this. I don’t think Nina’s editor or agent advised her well to write this book as a memoir. It reads as if she couldn’t bear her children going away from her, so followed them to London, the better to hook up with her famous friends. Her abandoned husband barely gets a look-in. And I could have done without the relentless wee-talk.
by Sam
This is the most bizarre book – listening to it on Audible. Very easy, gentle humour. Nothing much happens. I was intrigued as I am also in Cornwall and occasionally (very rarely) wonder what it would be like to go back to London life – this has persuaded me it would be a Very Bad Idea, but Nina’s resolve and experiences are impressive and amusing.
I just wish I had somehow printed out the who’s who that was literally the first thing she read out. I paid no attention and now I mostly have no idea if she’s talking about her mother, her daughter, her friend, her dog or her literary agent – but it doesn’t really matter.
Aware this review is all over the shop, but so is the book. Basically I like it but don’t know why.