Nina Stubbs has written a new bestseller. I really enjoyed Love Nina but this book is even better. I think that you have a be a woman of a certain age (I am) to fully understand and enjoy this book but everyone should read it . I laughed ,and cringed in places, all of the way through. I will buy the hardback version and keep it beside my bed, I can see me reading this on repeat.

Nina Stibbe's 'Went to London, Took the Dog' is an entertaining diary of a year (April 2022-March 2023) the author spent living in London twenty years after she left the city. By coincidence, Stibbe discovers that the author Deborah Moggach is looking for a new lodger after the journalist 'Empireland' Sathan Sanghera moves out. Finding herself at a crossroads as she is going through a divorce, Stibbe jumps at this opportunity to spend a year in the city.

Much like her splendid first book. 'Love, Nina' (letters to her sister about her time as a nanny living with the LRB editor Mary-Kay Wilmers and next door to Alan Bennett), this book is full of gossipy and irreverent anecdotes about many of the well-known literary with whom she rubs shoulders in London alongside more humdrum domestic details involving malfunctioning white goods and 'engorged' hosepipes. The book is full of laugh-out-loud observations ("Tom Cruise is in town. He's looking less like Tom Cruise these days and more like Sandi Toksvig."), but these are coupled with some more poignant reflections about ageing. Stibbe writes with particular candour about women's experiences as they grow older including incontinence, hair removal and HRT.

Readers who loved 'Love, Nina' are bound to enjoy this too, but perhaps not quite as much. I think this is mainly because Stibbe is no longer the naive outsider of her earlier book but is now definitely an established member of the London literati, caught up in the endless whirl of book launches and literary festivals alongside her pals Cathy Rentzenbrink, Nick Hornby, Meg Mason and others. She remains down-to-earth and self-deprecating but the world she describes is definitely viewed from within rather than without. Nonetheless, this is a hugely enjoyable volume - thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for sending me an ARC to review.

This is just so great, living alongside Nina and pottering about with her in her life. The very normal ness of it all is so cosy, I really did take the train, read the papers and worry about the dog at the parlour. This is somehow mundane and yet fascinating. The news paper headlines bring back memories that mingle in with Nina’s life, and events and choices deliciously. An easy read, yet I feel challenged and reassured that life is good out there.

"I can't help worrying about marmalade. I keep reading in the papers how it's losing the battle against sweeter jams and honeys and even chocolate spread. I just don't understand it. People are still eating toast. And they're grown-ups. I get why you might like chocolate spread, Nutella, honey and strawberry jam when you're twelve and under but once you get older, and you're smoking, drinking beer, wine and coffee, and eating olives, chili, stilton and pickled onions, surely marmalade is more to your taste, isn't it?"

I first came upon Nina Sibbe's writing in June 2020 when I picked up Reasons to Be Cheerful, little realising it was the third in a trilogy! I was instantly hooked on Nina's style of writing, the observational humour and finely tuned way of picking up on tiny things and examining them in great detail - such as the marmalade quote used above!

Reading this diary of Nina's year long sabbatical in London was like having a long, cosy, gossipy chat with a friend. Anything and everything is covered - from HRT to pop culture, to political upheaval and how to (humanely) deter mice from the kitchen. I really felt like I was being let into Nina's private world and that I also knew all her friends (Cathy Rentzenbrink, Rachel Dearborn, Deborah Moggach et al) and her adult children, Eva and Alf by the end (who Nina clearly loves and adores and thinks are wonderful people, not just because they are her children but because they are!).

I do wonder though, even as this is a diary, how much of her life during that time is recorded here and what is left out. The reason for the move back to London after 20 years is that Nina's marriage is breaking down but there is hardly any reference to her husband or the separation throughout. There must be a tension between publishing a diary in almost "real time" when the people involved are still very much emotionally involved in the "plot line" and conveying that what you are reading is wholly true. I thought at several points it's almost like a scripted reality TV show - how much is "actually" happening and what is being carefully guided onto the page.

That aside, I loved reading this new instalment in Nina Stibbe's writing: the literary name dropping, the delight in people watching on the number 24 bus, her love of faithful dog Peggy, playing Scrabble in the local pub with her children and their friends, the madness of being menopausal and re-establishing yourself after the breakdown of a long-term relationship.

I also love a trip to Gloucester Services for a coffee and a cheese pie (I live about 45 minutes away from the services but any motorway trip south now involves a mandatory stop), feel that coffee isn't a "proper drink" and love her philosophy about going along to things and just "being happy to be involved and learning. That's what happens when you're old. You celebrate joining in."

I think that Charlie Bigham ready meals must have sponsored Nina to write this book given the number of references to eating their fish pies throughout the diary! I spotted one in my local Tesco and decided to give it a try for dinner on Friday evening. To be fair, it was a bloody good pie.

("People in London drink coffee as if it's a drink. Coffee is not a drink. It's not food but it's not a drink like tea is a drink. Coffee is a drug. It's like having a cigarette or a pill or just sprinkling salt into your mouth, or sugar or turmeric, but it's not a drink as such, so if I have cheese and biscuits for lunch and a coffee, I have to have a tea afterwards because I need a drink.")

‘Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary’ is a great companion piece to ‘Love, Nina’ by Nina Stibbe. Twenty years after leaving Primrose Hill for Cornwall she is back again to see if living in North London is as she remembers. Well, of course, it’s not. She’s now sixty and fed up with the litter-strewn streets and the dog shit that she notices as she walks her beloved Peggy. Lodging with the writer Deborah (Debby) Moggach, she wrestles with dripping pipes, new laundry equipment, voracious slugs and pesky mice but also enjoys copious fish pies and glasses of wine in front of The Crown with her new friend.
Nina loves having her children, Alfred and Eva, close by. Students in London, they live busy lives and are also happy to hang out with their mother – and why not when she’s as funny and astute as Nina is! However, Nina’s not wanting to re-live her youth. As she so memorably discovers: ‘…I am on the brink of maturity at last. No longer frozen at age eleven, I’m sixty-one and though I missed the fifty years in between, it feels great and positive. How to describe it? The eagerness to please, to agree, to smile, to endure, and to go along with other people, to be liked, seems to have reduced to a reasonable size.’ Hurrah for that!
This diary will remain with me mainly for Nina’s warm, funny descriptions of her female friendships and conversations deliciously flavoured with dark humour: ‘We discussed Stella’s Dignitas dinner again. [Stella not remotely unwell.] Sarah asked who pays, as if it’s a hen weekend, and suggested a budget option e.g. throw her off a bridge somewhere in the Highlands.’
I’ll be buying copies of this diary for my female friends, all around Nina’s age. They’ll appreciate her outlook on many aspects of life. Just felt a bit sad that Mark Nunney (her possibly ex-husband, only referred to obliquely in the book) seems to be no more than a footnote nowadays.
My thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

The diary of a London sabbatical, twenty years after she left. Equally funny and heartbreaking, it's the sudden realisation that, at sixty, Nina Stibbe may actually be an adult

I am a huge Nina Stibbe fan so I couldn’t wait to read this. Delivered in diary format, this is full of Nina’s trademark humour and wit as she fills us in on her day to day business and general musings. We need more Nina!

Nina Stibbe’s sense of humour is right up my street. I could relate to so much of what she wrote about and thoroughly enjoyed the way she darted about from one idea to another, entirely randomly, just like life! I also enjoyed understanding the references to so many things which have happened in society in the past couple of years, especially the parts that were very local to me and entirely convincing.

This is one of those books where you just want to snuggle up on the sofa and stay there till you’ve finished reading it. A laugh-out-loud and very encouraging book that I think every woman needs to read. Loved it!

This is first book I’ve read by Nina Stibbe & I couldn’t finish reading it. I just couldn’t get past the inane diary recording of every aspect to her day. Nobody needs to know you’ve give for a coffee or walked the dog. Sorry, just not got me.

Love, Nina, has become one of my favourite books and I’ve read everything Stibbe has written since and (mostly) enjoyed it. This book is quite different. Aged twenty, Nina left Leicestershire for London to become a nanny for MK as Sam Frears’ carer. Forty years later, she leaves her home in Cornwall for what she is telling herself is ‘a year’s sabbatical in London’. Is it? Or is she leaving her husband? Arrived in London, she rents a room in Deborah Moggach’s house (handy). Why would a woman of sixty decide to try living like a twenty-year-old again, when she has a perfectly good home of her own? London, she finds, is littered with fast food debris. London is very expensive. This is hot news!

Since this is a diary, she records everything and I mean, everything. She goes out for a coffee, writes it down. Meets up with son/daughter/MK/Sam Frears/ old friends/ her sister, writes it down. She takes the dog for a walk, goes for a swim, reads something in a newspaper or on Twitter and so on. None of these events is remotely interesting or amusing. I suppose the moral is that you can’t pull off the same trick twice. The whole experience is so inexplicable and, I’m sorry to say, boring that I couldn’t finish the book. I did skim to the end to find that London doesn’t love her any more and she can’t afford to live there alone, although it’s great for her children for a few years. She goes back to Cornwall. The title, of course, has echoes of Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took my Dog; the difference is that Atkinson’s book is brilliant and this one isn’t. Shame.

I read this thanks to NetGalley and it’s out on 2nd November.

So many social events and people to mention makes this book fairly entertaining and saved by a sprinkling of amusing moments.

I found this book hard going and definitely id not hold my attention. Even though the synopsis appealed to me i don not think I am the correct audience.
It is well written and offers an insight in to the world of an author and book festivals and events.
I hope other enjoy it but not for me.

I have never read anything written by Nina Stibbe before and so did not know what to expect. I found her diary of returning to London aged 60 for a sabbatical mildly amusing but I was not inspired.

I enjoyed her interactions with her offspring enjoying London life and their friends. I also found her house sharing stories fun.

An enjoyable read but perhaps not my favourite genre.

The format of the book being in diary style didn’t work for me and I couldn’t get into the story..Thank you for the opportunity to read the book.

really enjoyed this diary style book of a 60 year old with the discussions about menopause and full of gossip
it’s like a real life soap opera but is in fact just her life!

I like Nina Stibbe’s books and she often makes me laugh. This one is a diary of her return to London 40 years after her first stay there as a naive nanny which gave us ‘Love Nina’, a great hit.

Of course, 60 year old Nina is no longer a naive young thing. She now knows and mentions lots of authors. She is part of the intelligentsia rather than a youngster just up from the country. She is still funny and describes events with the sort of detailed detachment which creates this humour.

She often mentions her family, her adult children and her sister, but I began to worry about the absence of her husband, the love interest in “Love Nina’. Still not resolved by the end of this book.

Engaging and perfect to pick up, dip into and put down. Just this nagging doubt that all was right in her world.

I read a copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers but my views are my own.

Went to London, Took the Dog - Nina Stibbe

Nina at the age of 60 and 20 years after she left London for Cornwall decides to spend a year in North London at the home of Deborah (Debby) Moggach, with Peggy her dog. She kept me amused and chortling away with her antics and her chronicling her every day incidents and thoughts in her diary.

We meet various author friends / acquaintances on Nina's book tours, hear how her children get on and with no holds barred see how life in town feels after so long away. I laughed out loud on many occasions and was completely drawn in to the every day conversations Nina had with those living nearby.

I didn't find it as easy to read as a straightforward novel and found I was better dipping in and out rather than reading on straight through. But still a very funny enjoyable read.

A light-hearted, witty read. Low stakes, peppered with quips and humour - a quirky insight into Nini's literary world and life. For those who like fiction, it reads similarly to Joyce of the Thursday Murder Club's diaries - complete with tales of the dog. I wish Peggy had a more prominent role!

Perfect for anyone approaching a crossroads in life and worried about taking a risk - just do it!

I'm a huge fan of Nina Stibbe and I love diaries so this was absolute catnip for me. She writes realistically and humorously about her struggles with menopause and includes a few insights into the lives of the London literary scene. A great read, thanks NetGalley!