Paradise Lodge - Hardcover

Stibbe, Nina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241240247 ISBN 13: 9780241240243

Publisher: Viking, 2016

Synopsis

This is the story of Lizzie Vogel, a 15 year old girl who finds herself working in an old people's home in Leicestershire in the 1970s. The place is in chaos and it's not really a suitable job for a schoolgirl: she'd only gone for the job because she wanted a new phase and it seemed too exhausting to commit to being a full-time girlfriend or a punk. Lizzie has some knowledge of old people (they're not suited to granary bread, and you mustn't compare them to toddlers) but she doesn't know there's a right way to get someone out of the bath, or what to do when someone dies. When a rival old people's home with better parking and daily chairobics threatens to take all their patients, Paradise Lodge's cast of staff and helpers, from the assertively shy Nurse who only communicates through little grunts to the son of the Chinese takeaway manager who's renowned for his erotic handholding techniques, have to come together to save the home before it's too late. From the bestselling author of Love, Nina comes a story of being very young, and very old, and the laughter, and the tears, in between.

About this title

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.

Review

LOVE it! Instant classic - funny, wise, touching, entirely delightful -- Marian Keyes A new Nina Stibbe?! Best day ever -- Emma Healey The funniest new writer to arrive in years -- Andrew O'Hagan The one problem with reviewing Stibbe is that I just want to quote entire pages: it's all so brilliant. She captures exactly what it's like to be a teenager, with all its contradictions, confusions, anxieties and ambitions. * The i * There is a laugh out loud moment in every chapter. Paradise Lodge brilliantly captures the internal panic of a teenager -- Kathy Burke A touch of Holden Caulfield in 1970s Leicestershire... I wouldn't mind fetching up at Paradise Lodge when my time comes: at least we'd all share a laugh, a hug and a terrible cup of tea before the dying of the light. -- Lee Langley * Spectator * There is never a dull moment in this lively, sensitive, roaringly funny tale * Daily Express * Stibbe looks at another chapter of her life through the prism of her trademark deadpan, acutely observed humour * Stylist * Irreverent, warm and hugely entertaining * Daily Mail * The whole book surprises and impresses... I'm not surprised to see that Stibbe's writing has been compared to Jane Austen's -- Emma Healey * Guardian * Stibbe is a terrific writer with a gift for sharp dialogue * Evening Standard * Laugh-out-loud funny and full of spot-on 1970s details * Good Housekeeping * Stibbe is herself becoming a worthy successor to Pym, that peerless chronicler of the melancholy pleasures and small struggles of 20th-century English life on the sort of days when, as Lizzie puts it, "there was nothing for lunch except ginger cake and tins of marrowfat peas * Financial Times * Winsomely naive yet confident * Sunday Times * Witty and thoroughly chortle inducing * The Lady * A dollop of nostalgia and very British humour * Glamour * Warm, funny story * Elle *

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0241240247
• ISBN 13: 9780241240243
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320