Nina Stibbe, WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG: The Diary of a 60-Year-Old Runaway
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zibby is joined by beloved British author and National Book Award winner Nina Stibbe to discuss WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG, an endlessly funny, blissfully gossipy, and enviably well-observed memoir of a woman changing her life at 60. Nina shares the story behind her sabbatical in London (prompted by an empty nest and the need for creative renewal!), and explains how her private diary turned into this funny and vulnerable book about midlife, marriage, motherhood, and reinvention. The two also discuss the emotional risk of writing a memoir and the often-dismissed importance of women’s inner lives.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.5 | Nina Stibby is the author of Went to London Took the Dog, the Diary of a 60-year-old Runaway. |
| 0:51.1 | Nina is the author of six books. |
| 0:53.1 | Love Nina won nonfiction book of the |
| 0:55.2 | year award at the 2014 National Book Awards and was shortlisted for Waterstone's Book of |
| 1:00.4 | the Year. The book was adapted by Nick Hornby for BBC Television. She is the author of four |
| 1:05.7 | novels, all of which have been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for |
| 1:10.0 | comic fiction. Her third novel, Reasons to be cheerful, is the only novel to date to have won have been shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. |
| 1:11.1 | Her third novel, Reasons to Be Cheerful, is the only novel to date to have won both the Bollinger |
| 1:15.8 | Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award for Comic |
| 1:21.0 | Fiction. Her latest novel, One Day I Shall Estonish the World, was published in April 22. |
| 1:27.7 | Welcome, Nina. |
| 1:28.5 | Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zivie to talk about |
| 1:31.5 | when to London took the dog, the diary of a 60-year-old runaway. |
| 1:35.6 | Congrats. |
| 1:36.1 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:37.0 | Thank you. |
| 1:37.5 | This is probably the best title ever, I think. |
... |
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