Went to London, Took the Dog: An Evening with Nina Stibbe

Ten years after the publication of the beloved and prize-winning Love, Nina, Stibbe is back with her trademark wit in the form of a diary, charting her return to London in her sixty-first year. This evening will be the Cornish launch so join us for a night of laughs when Nina is in conversation with bestie Cathy Retzenbrink.

‘The funniest person who owns a computer’ - Ann Patchett

'Vulnerable, sharp, funny, wise' - Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

'Funny, warm, enlightening. The reading equivalent of getting the giggles in the back row of a school assembly' - Sathnam Sanghera

"Left Truro this morning in the T-Roc with quite a lot of bedding, books, swimming kit, Peggy and all her stuff. Possibly for ever (it couldn’t be denied) though it didn’t feel like that to me, so probably not. At the gate I glanced back (at the house we’ve lived in as a family since 2008), expecting to cry, but couldn’t conjure any emotion, only excitement. Stopped on the M5 at Gloucester Services to give Peggy a walk. Took some deep breaths and, instead of the usual lentil & butternut, got myself a cheese pie. New start, new pie."

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. Nina is not quite sure yet.

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. Hilarious, irreverent, joyful as well as poignant, Stibbe’s ear and eye are as uniquely sharp as ever on friendship, motherhood, independence, the menopause, branching out and growing up.

Nina Stibbe is the author of seven books. Love, Nina won the Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award at the 2014 National Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year. The book was adapted by Nick Hornby for BBC Television. She is the author of four novels, all of which have been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. Her third novel, Reasons to Be Cheerful, is the only novel to date to have won both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award for Comic fiction

‘Stibbe turns out more perfect, sharp, unique sentences than anyone else’ - Caitlin Moran

Saturday 28th October 2023 - 7.30pm

Tickets £6.00