One Day I Shall Astonish the World

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Very funny…Nina Stibbe does gentle wisdom well.”— NELL ZINK, author of Doxology and The Wallcreeper Clever and funny, it takes a sharp look at the intricacies of marriage, friendship, work and driving. As with all Stibbe's writing there is a pleasingly perfect balance of wisdom with jokes' Cathy Rentzenbrink

One Day I Shall Astonish the World by the always entertaining Nina Stibbe is a story of female friendship' Irish Times, Books To Look Out For In 2022 I started off highlighting all the brilliant observations and one-liners but had to give up because there were so many. Nina Stibbe makes being funny look easy, but that's just because she's very, very good at it -- Clare Chambers, author of Small PleasuresNina Stibbe's very funny novels are full of charm, and her latest brilliantly captures the mordant humour of British suburban life. Through the 90s to the present day, it follows Susan from her job in a haberdashery shop to working at the local university, and the ebbs and flows of her relationships with her husband and best friend' Evening Standard, Best Fiction Books to Look Forward to in 2022

At the start, I felt the humour was forced, too many scenes where the author was trying to make the reader laugh. But I did warm to Susan and I laughed out loud a few times once we got going, and welled up once.

Nina Stibbe Press Reviews

I properly hooted with laughter reading this book and there are times when a single line gave me such a catch in my throat I thought I would cry. It's perfection. Susan – never Sue (“I’m like Susan Sontag in that respect,” she deadpans) – is the narrator. Talking is her way of coping with anxiety, yielding a richly digressive text with ample comic insights into everything from revenge (her brother uses his unfortunate wife as “a weapon with which he could punish the world for not respecting him the way it should”) to the difficulty of “nice” people (you always have to wonder if they “secretly despise you or feel bitterly jealous or just think you common but want someone to go to the cinema with”). While comparisons with Alan Bennett and Sue Townsend remain apt, Stibbe applies her own darkly distinctive touches