One Day I Shall Astonish the World

Product Information

For beautifully funny and well-observed comic writing, Nina Stibbe is your go-to author. In her latest release, a tale of lifelong friendship between Susan and Norma, she explores the mistakes, rivalries and love we all experience in life * Stylist, Best Novels for 2022 * Stibbe ( Reasons To Be Cheerful) chronicles the 30-year friendship between Susan and Norma. Divided into three parts—friendship, work, and marriage—the story of their connection ebbs and flows in direct correlation to the success of their personal lives. When Susan aims to better herself or her career, Norma can be counted on to discourage her. When Norma disappears for regular intervals, traveling or falling in love with someone new, Susan steps up to cover her responsibilities. Throughout the decades of conversations about men, children, and sex, the division of power in their relationship remains uneven. It is Susan who begins to realize, as she matures, that she may never have really known Norma at all. When tensions convene at the women's main battleground, the college where they both work (whose motto is the same as the book's title), it is Susan's tenacity and humor that ultimately win the day, changing their dynamic once again. VERDICT Stibbe skillfully captures the humor that comes with everyday defeat, and the friendship of Susan and Norma will ring true for many women. —Tina Panik Library Journal For beautifully funny and well-observed comic writing, Nina Stibbe is your go-to author. In her latest release, a tale of lifelong friendship between Susan and Norma, she explores the mistakes, rivalries and love we all experience in life' Stylist

While there may be echoes of previous greats, however, Stibbe's voice is utterly her own . . . One Day I Shall Astonish the World is, u nsurprisingly, very funny. But it might also be Stibbe's most moving novel yet . . . so hilarious and rewarding * Irish Business Post *Nina Stibbe takes on female friendship and ambition in a novel that has all its predecessors' gossipy bookishness and quirky charm * Observer * The imbalance continues to grow as the years pass: Norma on the take, Susan the pushover. The characterisation of both women is deft. Susan’s amenable personality and her tendency to dither (“I need to explain myself at length, to take a long run-up to any announcement or news, however mundane, my need to talk, to ward off silence and bad feeling”) is no match for Norma, who is canny, ambitious, pragmatic to the point of unfeeling, the kind of woman who is calculating in all matters of life, even when choosing her bridesmaids: “Why would anyone want a younger, prettier version of themself, holding flowers, and looking bashful?” A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

Stibbe writes some of the best-turned comic sentences in contemporary writing. Like Susan, she makes it look easier than it must be' Sunday Times

Nina Stibbe Press Reviews

Funny, charming, odd-in-the-best-way and gorgeously uplifting! A delight from start to finish.”— MARIAN KEYES The wayward, wildly original and beautifully noticing sentences are perfectly cadenced . . . Despite the sparkling, satirical voice, and her laughter at the littleness of Little England, Stibbe creates a world in which tolerance and forgiveness are the key, even in these dark and scary times, to the possibility of a happy life * Daily Telegraph * In this tender and comical novel, a middle-aged woman navigates the changes in her life as her husband begins seeking immortality and her lifelong best friend is propelled to professional glory.”

Though Susan’s narrative style occasionally finds the novel ambling down cul-de-sacs (suburban dogging being one), Stibbe succeeds in depicting a character who truly evolves over the years. It’s not the crisply choreographed stuff of the classic bildungsroman, but instead a more gradual development driven as much by middle-age’s irascibility and impatience as by youthful dreams. Eventually, an administrative job at the local university (its motto provides the novel’s title) gets her once again within reach of the life that might have been hers. Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else).I’m such a big fan of Nina Stibbe’s memoir Love, Nina, but for some unexamined reason I had never read any of her fiction. There is the same warm voice in this book - narrated by a middle-aged female protagonist of middle age, presumably not so different from the author herself - and the same appreciation for life’s absurdities, but somehow it just wasn’t as successful at winning me over. A tale of two women. On one hand we have Susan, the dishwater dull protagonist who shows early academic and intellectual promise that she fails to live up to. On the other hand we have Norma, an almost sociopathically independent woman who excels at everything she touches. These two friends meet in their youth when Susan takes a job in the fabric shop owned by Norma's parents. Despite Susan's technical seniority, Norma is made manageress (Susan's/Stibbe's word, not mine) because of her family connection, and this sets the stage for the entirety of their relationship for the next two decades.

As a comic novelist, Stibbe is so truly incomparable, I can only describe this perfect novel as Stibbe meets Stibbe, with a touch of Stibbe. (And if you love Nina Stibbe ... you’ll love this.) For as long as I could make it last, the world just felt a bit nicer. A true gift of a novel, I utterly adored it' Meg Mason Emotional upsets and surprises are interleaved with eccentricity in this latest slice of offbeat Englishness.

Advance Praise

In One Day I Shall Astonish The World by gifted comic writer Nina Stibbe, Susan and Norma have been best friends for 30 years, but when Norma's life takes an unforeseen turn, Susan begins to wonder if she's followed the wrong path in life- and in friendship' Daily Mirror, Brilliant Books in 2022 Funny, kind, sad, relevant, and raucous in all the right places. I loved it so much -- Daisy Buchanan