Man at the Helm: The hilarious debut novel from one of Britain’s wittiest writers
Aug 2014 · The Lizzie Vogel Series Book 1 · Penguin UK
3.8star
6 reviews
Ebook
320
Pages
About this ebook
The very start of Lizzie Vogel's story. From the much-loved author of Love, Nina, discover a wildly comic, brilliantly sharp-eyed novel about one family's fall from grace.
'All hail a book that's funny!' Barbara Trapido
*****
Meet Lizzie Vogel, 9.
Lizzie is concerned about her newly divorced mother; thirty-one years old and trapped in a hostile village in the English countryside with only three young children and a Labrador for company. It isn't that having a husband is good, but in 1970s rural Leicestershire, not having one is bad. The women in the village think Lizzie's mother is after their husbands - and no one will let the children into the Brownies!
Worried about their mother's drinking, her (bad) playwriting and social workers sending them off to the infamous Crescent Home for Children, Lizzie and her sister embark on a misguided campaign to find their mother a new husband.
LIZZIE'S STORY CONTINUES IN PARADISE LODGE AND REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL!
*****
'[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book' OBSERVER
'Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy. Read it and be charmed' INDEPENDENT
'A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness' SUNDAY TIMES
NINA STIBBE'S NEW NOVEL ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
'All hail a book that's funny!' Barbara Trapido
*****
Meet Lizzie Vogel, 9.
Lizzie is concerned about her newly divorced mother; thirty-one years old and trapped in a hostile village in the English countryside with only three young children and a Labrador for company. It isn't that having a husband is good, but in 1970s rural Leicestershire, not having one is bad. The women in the village think Lizzie's mother is after their husbands - and no one will let the children into the Brownies!
Worried about their mother's drinking, her (bad) playwriting and social workers sending them off to the infamous Crescent Home for Children, Lizzie and her sister embark on a misguided campaign to find their mother a new husband.
LIZZIE'S STORY CONTINUES IN PARADISE LODGE AND REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL!
*****
'[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book' OBSERVER
'Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy. Read it and be charmed' INDEPENDENT
'A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness' SUNDAY TIMES
NINA STIBBE'S NEW NOVEL ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW
Ratings and reviews
3.8
6 reviews
micheal o neill
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October 22, 2014
Lovely read. Funny, moving, frustrating, sad, human. Ending just right. My kind of book.
2 people found this review helpful
Josephina Ballerina
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January 12, 2020
Endearing and comical
About the author
Nina Stibbe was born in Leicester. She is the author of Love, Nina, which was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year Award and won Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2014 National Book Awards, and the massively acclaimed novel Man at the Helm, which was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. She lives in Cornwall with her partner and two children.
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