BOOKS BOUGHT:
- The Flamethrowers—Rachel Kushner
- Mo’ Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove—Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson
- Modernity Britain: Opening the Box, 1957–1959—David Kynaston
- The Orphan Master’s Son—Adam Johnson
- Bough Down—Karen Green
- Meeting the English—Kate Clanchy
BOOKS READ:
- Love, Nina: A Nanny Writes Home—Nina Stibbe
- Raise Up Off Me: A Portrait of Hampton Hawes—Hampton Hawes
- The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright—Jean Nathan
- A Summer Bird-Cage—Margaret Drabble
So this I wasn’t expecting. I am sent a book by my publishers. It’s called Love, Nina, and it’s subtitled A Nanny Writes Home. On the cover is a cute sketch of a kitchen table: teapot (in a tea-cozy), a can of tomatoes, a plate, a mug, some writing paper, a bottle of milk. There’s a can of Heineken there, too, but it’s not jarring enough to make you think that the book is going to rock in any way—it’s clearly aimed at genteel ladies of a certain age and above. So I am about to place it in the recycling box when I think, Hold on. Why are my publishers sending me books aimed at genteel ladies of a certain age and above? I know it’s been a while since I wrote a book, but surely there are some people there who remember that I am of the male persuasion, and that my tolerance for gentility is limited. I dig the book out, find a note in it from an editor I know and trust, and, still somewhat suspicious, begin to read. Well, it turns out that Love, Nina is the funniest and most eccentric book I have read this year, and I am certain that it will be very loved for many years to come. And that wasn’t the only surprise it threw me.
Nina Stibbe came down to London from Leicestershire in 1982, when she was twenty, to work for a complicated family, and the book is a collection of the letters she wrote to her sister Victoria over the next few years. (The incoming letters are not reproduced here, although sometimes Nina’s elliptical first and last lines help you to imagine her sister’s voice, and the cheerful, easy intimacy the two of them share. “Firstly, about your boss walking around in the nude… I don’t think it’s anything to do with him being Swedish or Norwegian,” Nina begins one letter. “Surprised about Gordon Banks” is how she ends another. (Gordon Banks was England’s goalkeeper during the 1960s, but knowing that won’t help you with the reference any more...
You have reached your article limit
Sign up for a digital subscription and continue reading all new issues, plus our entire archives, for just $1.50/month.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
contributor
contributor
Nick Hornby is the bestselling author of eight novels, including High Fidelity, About a Boy, and, most recently, Just Like You. He has also published several works of nonfiction including his ground-breaking debut, Fever Pitch, and has written numerous award-winning screenplays for film and television including Brooklyn, Wild, and State of the Union.
