Charming and bittersweet, with a very English flavor, this social comedy is distinguished by Stibbe's light touch and bright eye." - Kirkus Computer-based ship simulators provide a training environment for learning skills to steer a ship. Training can be programmed to replicate a variety of ship sizes and environmental conditions. Scenarios depicted in 3-D graphics range from making course corrections in open waters to maneuvering in port, rivers, or other shallow waters. Cost compared to a real vessel is low. Mariners learn responses to dangerous situations, such as steering failure, in the safety of a virtual environment. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. It just doesn't have anything spectacular going on, it's paced quite slow and that does not alter at all and after a while it's a bit like the same story on repeat. It's certainly not as funny as indicated it might be, which is a shame as I was looking forward to that. Overall it was a very average and "okay" read in my opinion. It has some moments that are great but the majority is as bland as watered down custard.

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe | Goodreads

La scorsa estate mi sono imbattuta, quasi per caso, in 'Love, Nina' e siccome non facevo altro che piangere, l'avevo trovato una boccata di ossigeno, un pomeriggio in cui ho riso abbastanza, mi sono divertita e ho trovato una mini serie tv piacevole e divertente. Mi sono lanciata, quindi, sul questo libro certa di ritrovarvi la stessa atmosfera e lo stesso spirito. Beh mi sbagliavo, pure noiosetto a tratti. Nina Stibbe was born in Leicester. She is the author of the hugely acclaimed 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. She lives in Cornwall with her partner and two children. Man at the Helm is her first novel. The tone at times reminded me of Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle with its opinionated innocence. There is a lurking wisdom here, too – moments when you recognise the truth in an observation, such as: "busy-body actions are often selfish at heart and mostly don't help the intended recipient". Some of the wisdom is inherited. At one point the mother says one of the worst things in life is trying to get over bad things you have caused yourself. This is followed, without missing a beat, by: "She knew this – most of the bad things in her life having been her own fault." This ought to be devastating, but in the context of this uplifting book the remark manages to be light, unjudgmental – nearly a joke. I adore this book. Apparently I'm drawn to stories of hapless, overwhelmed mothers. I don't want to examine why!

Stibbe scores many hits with this undoubtedly funny setup: her ear for off-kilter dialogue is as brilliantly tuned as it was in Love, Nina; and she is a maestro of bathos, continually undercutting vivid gaiety with moments of horrible sadness. But the novel is also problematically episodic, going from one hair-raising drama or sharp vignette to another without enough regard for the importance of pacing and tempo. Her conversational tone both muddies our sense of who the narrator is – a child, or an adult recollecting childhood? – and gives the impression of a writer uncertain of how to get to the next thing. I think one of the biggest issues for me was the way the book was written. I felt as if Lizzie was just talking at me the whole time and that there was no depth at all to any of the character interactions or indeed the scenery and setting in the book. The village didn’t ‘come alive’ for me and I couldn’t really picture in my head any of the conversations the characters were having. That's always a red flag for me.

Summary and reviews of Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe Summary and reviews of Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe

Although narrated by the adult Lizzie, the voice is still that of a nine-year-old and there gives emotional tug and pull between what a child sees and feels and what the wisdom and hindsight of adulthood give. Noel, John V. Jr. (1991-01-16). Knight's Modern Seamanship. John Wiley & Sons. pp.259–260. ISBN 978-0-471-28948-7. A brilliant find...It is full, free, outlandish. And I can't remember a book that made me laugh more. [Stibbe] doesn't take anything seriously. Or rather, she does, and yet her eye and ear for the absurd never desert her - they are part of who she is." - The Guardian (UK) It doesn’t help that their wealthy ­father, after a brief fling with “Phil from the factory,” has established a new household with a new wife and child, and has shunted off his old brood to a rural village where outsiders are barely tolerated and a woman with a drinking problem and a pill problem and (at least at the beginning) a flagrantly disposable income is bound to be monitored with a great deal of suspicious interest.I love it's observations of relationships. Whether it's the big vs little sister dynamic, or the brutal disappointment of love gone wrong, Stibble does a great job of writing honestly and with a lot of humor. I struggled with Lizzie 's mom and her status as helpless victim -- but there's a payoff that probably wouldn't have worked any other way.