Nora Ephron is also the author of Wallflower at the Orgy. She received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally..., Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. Her other credits include the film Michael and the play Imaginary Friends. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Nicholas Pileggi.
"Nora Ephron, 65 years old in I Feel Bad About My Neck, pokes fun
at her own eccentricities and finds herself writing about 'lunch
with my girlfriends-I got that far into the sentence and caught
myself. I suppose I mean my women friends. We are no longer girls
and have not been for forty years.' But [I Feel Bad About My Neck
is a] girlfriend book, and in the best way. . . . Ephron, who is a
great wit, has made a career out of women's body anxieties. The
magazine piece that made her famous in the 1970s, 'A Few Words
about Breasts, ' is a long kvetch about her flat chest . . . Now,
though, Ephron kvetches about her wrinkled neck, the one part of a
woman's aging body that can't be resurfaced. She and the ladies who
lunch with her all wear scarves or turtlenecks to hide their
'shame.' . . . Ephron [is] unfailingly clever and often pokes fun
at our preoccupations while sharing them. . . . I Feel Bad About My
Neck has everything I want in an entertaining read: a breezy pace,
wry musings, copious doses of gossip, humor, and new information. .
. . Ephron produces perfect vignettes. . . . [When I finished I
Feel Bad About My Neck, I] felt the 'rapture' that Ephron says you
feel on completing a great book. . . . [Books] have always been
faithful pals, and [this one is] among the best. . . . [Get] your
friends of a certain age together, rent Silkwood (which I think is
Ephron's best film), read [her book] together, and argue and laugh
and cry. That's my prescription."
-Emily Toth, Women's Review of Books "The subtitle to this book of
autobiographical essays by the pithy, witty Ephron-'and other
thoughts on being a woman'-says it all. Chapters include brilliant,
biting essays on such things as wrinkly necks, bad handbags, and
being a parent. You'll laugh out loud at her spot-on observations,
but there's something wonderfully poignant about Ephron's list of
things worth knowing, and how to live out one's life feeling
satisfied. A heartwarming little book."
-Easy Living magazine (UK) "What's refreshing about Ephron is that
she refuses to entertain any illusions about the terrible fate that
awaits us. What's great about her is that she makes the truth about
life so funny when it should be so grim."
-Christopher Goodwin, The Sunday Times (UK) "Ephron's
laugh-out-loud collection tells the truth about aging-it's not
fun-and 'she does it with humor and satire and perspective, ' says
[Roxanne Coady of R. J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn.]. With
blithe charm, Ephron exposes all the vain ploys that she-and
we-would rather not admit we use to stave off another telltale
wrinkle or gray hair. Read her book as an antidote to despair."
-U.S. News & World Report "Now 65, the humorist offers a bracing
take on aging in 15 memorable essays. Her finely honed wit is as
fresh as ever."
-People magazine, Top 10 Books of 2006 "As if wrinkles and belly
flab weren't enough, women of a certain age have to fret about
their turkey necks, too-so says the sage, dry, and hilarious Nora
Ephron . . . Her droll take on traditionally gooey topics like
motherhood and marriage makes the tender observations that much
more unexpected . . . [A] sparkling series of essays."
-Ladies Home Journal "Delightful . . . [A] funny, sisterly
collection . . . Where books written for seniors are apt to be full
of unconvincing cheer, Ephron's charming book of self-questioning,
confession, and resolve faces the reality that she's sixty-five,
dyes her hair, and is not happy about her neck, her purse, her
failure at ambitious exercise programs, and other personal failures
shared by many of us . . . None of these confrontations with
mortality is arcane, all are universal, and people of either sex
can relate to them . . . Many readers of I Feel Bad About My Neck
will be familiar already with Ephron the accomplished human being .
. . She's one of only a few American essayists with a public
persona-one thinks of Will Rogers, or Calvin Trillin, maybe
Benjamin Franklin, Steve Martin, and Woody Allen . . . [She has] a
talent for incisive compression and accessibility confided in a
sort of plainspoken Will Rogers manner . . . . The hapless
character Ephron has presented over the years may be the real
Ephron, or not. The actual Ephron is praised by friends as smart, a
perfect housekeeper, much prettier than the person she began
depicting in Wallflower at the Orgy, her essays from the Seventies,
a wonderful cook, etc., etc. It's sound rhetorical strategy. Of all
the ways to be funny, self-deprecation is more endearing than
satire . . . . All in all, this funny book offers the pleasures of
recognition; in an anxious world, her epigrams have a serious,
consoling utility."
-Diane Johnson, The New York Review of Books "OK, so Nora Ephron is
65 now. Not to me, she's not. She's still that young smartass who
used to rule the pages of Esquire . . . That was entertainment.
She's still entertaining . . . Ephron's new look-back is a delight
of a book that you can inhale in a single sitting . . . . When
she's funny, as she is in I Feel Bad About My Neck, she becomes a
[writer] who won't give her readers a rest from the bellowing
laughter. Sixty-five ain't old when you're Nora Ephron."
-Dan Smith, Blue Ridge Business Journal "I like short books. In
fact, when I'm at the bookstore, I tilt my head to the right and
scan the shelves for books with the skinniest spines. I Feel Bad
About My Neck was one I wished were longer. Ephron, journalist,
novelist and screenwriter, bemoans getting old and all the
maintenance needed just to tread water. But she does it in her
inimitable, witty style. You don't come away depressed as much as
invigorated . . . [She] brings [her] funny but serious approach to
this latest work."
-Elizabeth Pezzulo, The Free Lance-Star "You might think that I
Feel Bad About My Neck is not a book for foodies. You would think
wrong. I Feel Bad About My Neck is so witty and so much about food
in our lives, that every Foodie should read it. This is the kind of
book that will make you laugh out loud on the Amtrak train to the
chagrin of other passengers buried deep in The Wall Street Journal.
You may have to force yourself not to wave it under their noses,
shouting, 'Get this book!' . . . . It rings funny and true at the
same time."
-Juliette Rossant, SuperChefBlog "Clever . . . . [I Feel Bad About
My Neck is] laced with wry observations, told in an intimate style
that makes Ephron seem like a close friend spilling details about
her life . . . [Ephron] has punctured many a bubble of conformity
and made audiences laugh in recognition . . . [She] will keep you
entertained."
-April Austin, Christian Science Monitor "Maybe Nora Ephron has
become timeless . . . Certainly she writes, for all her funny
commentary on modern life, like someone who has something useful
and important to tell her readers . . . She's figured something out
that she wants to let you in on, and to make it palatable she'll
make you laugh."
-Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Before Nora
Ephron the director, or Nora Ephron the screenwriter, or even
before Nora Ephron the novelist, there was Nora Ephron the
journalist and essayist. That Nora Ephron, known for her wit,
candor and vulnerability, has returned and is holding forth in I
Feel Bad About My Neck . . . Sales have been brisk, no doubt
because it's the kind of book women don't get only for themselves;
they purchase copies for their best friends and sisters, and buy
more to be given as birthday gifts and party favors. Women who find
themselves somewhere between the arrival of their first wrinkle and
death have to hear only the title to get the message. They get it
that she gets it, and thank God for that."
-Mimi Avins, Los Angeles Times "[A] stylistic tour de force . . .
Fireworks shoot out [of this collection] . . . The smaller blazes
are bursts of wit that cast the familiar so sharply as to make it
seem new . . . There are [also] passages where wit is used not to
entertain but to lament . . . to take arms against life or death
(where loss, however blithely sketched, is no joke at all) . . .
The comic and rueful are still there, but they take on
resonance."
-Richard Eder, The Boston Globe "Youth may be wasted on the young,
but everyone can enjoy the hurdles and highlights of aging with
Ephron's witty and deeply personal essays on getting older . . .
and yes, wiser."
-Life Magazine ("Life 5" Editors' Pick) "[W]ry and amusing . . . .
[M]arvelous."
-Bunny Crumpacker, Washington Post Book World "I belly laugh[ed] at
this compilation of essays by Nora Ephron, a book that includes
subjects every woman can identify with, regardless of her age . . .
I [plan] to order multiple copies as gifts, knowing my girlfriends
[will] get as much of a charge out of the book as I have."
-Chris Stuckenschneider, The Missourian "This is a book about age
and regret. Since it's by Nora Ephron, it's funny . . . . This
delightful collection of personal essays . . . [is written] by a
truly smart woman [who] disarms . . . by mocking her own anguish in
a style that veers between hey-girlfriend coziness and wit . . . .
Ephron has me in her pocket: I'm absolutely on her side and feel
that she's on mine, that we're in this together . . . .
Sublime."
-Anna Shapiro, The New York Observer "We have Nora Ephron to thank
for this wonderful girlfriend's guide to aging. In I Feel Bad About
My Neck, Ephron perfects her 'vintage whine' in a series of essays
conveying everything from beauty regimes to Manhattan real estate.
There is little cheerleading here for the joys of acquired wisdom
or the age-defying results of botox and collagen-since the neck is
still a giveaway-hence the title . . . . There are small victories,
however, which Ephron chronicles along with her life as
overachieving cook, loyal friend and mother, hard-working writer
and fashion frump who disses purses but loves black turtlenecks . .
. . She shares heartfelt ardor for her friends-especially one who
passed away-her passion for cooking, including recipes for
successful dinner parties . . . Ephron's insights make the book an
enjoyable romp. [She'll] make you laugh at her laments. You'll also
be grateful for her honesty. One of her best lines is her retort to
a baby-boomer editor who complains that too many women over 60 talk
about how things were better 'in my day.' 'But it isn't our day, '
Ephron tells the editor. 'It's their day. We're just hanging on.'
For people who want a little candor and humor about not only
hanging on but getting on, this book is for you."
-Jill Brooke, New York Post "In her latest essay collection . . .
Ephron offers rearview reflections on her life as a talker and
writer, as well as a flinching but honest look at the image she
lately confronts in the mirror. Like her fellow Upper West Side
loyalist Jerry Seinfeld, she has found a lot of 'something' in the
'nothing' of everyday life. In the manner of all natural-born
embroiders, Ephron augments tales she has told before and also
divulges new insights, grievances, and gossip . . . . Nothing is
off limits to her, even personal humiliation-especially personal
humiliation . . . [But] Ephron has owned her laughs for several
decades . . . . [S]he doesn't wallow. Instead, she does what she
has always done-she buries . . . bad news under a barrage of
shareable anecdotes, humorous self-deprecation and womanly bravado
. . . . Through [30 years of writing], her focus has remained on
the heart. This current gatherum of hard and funny truths spares
neither the author's pride nor her audience's, but it does salve
wounds, and many of Ephron's insights are bound to come in
handy."
-Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review "Wickedly funny
. . . [Nora Ephron's] candid, witty tales about life and love will
put everything into perspective."
-Tango Magazine
"Witty. . . . sharp . . . . readily accessible to all . . . .
[Ephron] is as funny as ever . . . . What is so refreshing about
Ephron is that she doesn't take herself too seriously . . . . [She
has] a knack for finding the significant in the mundane, and for
making readers feel like they've been welcomed into [her] inner
circle of friends to share lipsticks and life's licks. [Her] best
lines probably get read aloud as often as 'Goodnight Moon.'"
-Newsday Sunday "Before Nora Ephron became a Hollywood maven with
her screenplays for movies such as 'Sleepless in Seattle, '
'Heartburn, ' 'You've Got Mail, ' and 'When Harry Met Sally...',
she was a wickedly witty and astute writer of essays and articles.
Ephron returns to her print roots with a new collection of essays
reflecting the perspective of an aging-but still crackling
sharp-cultural scribe."
-Boston Globe "I Feel Bad About My Neck is . . . long-overdue . . .
. [T]hese essays . . . [are] executed with overall sharpness and
panache . . . . [Nora Ephron] retains an uncanny ability to sound
like your best friend, whoever you are . . . . Some things don't
change. It's good to know that Ms. Ephron's wry, knowing X-ray
vision is one of them."
-Janet Maslin, New York Times "In her latest book of essays . . .
[Ephron] is as funny and poignant as ever. This time around she
rails against aging ('Oh, the necks . . . '), decides adolescence
is for parents and reveals her non-affair with JFK."
-Ms. Magazine "By the time Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck
comes out, in August, you'll be feeling the heat-or maybe just a
hot flash-in which case her reflections on looking at your saggy,
baggy neck in the mirror (she advises squinting) . . . will be just
the cool comfort you need. Use this wryly romantic book as a guide
to musing about mortality, or just curling up in your empty
nest."
-O: Oprah magazine "[S]parkling . . . [T]his collection is . . . a
thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else
is there?) . . . who 'can't read a word on the pill bottle, 'follow
a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after not being
able to read the pill bottle . . . . [R]efreshing . . . witty . . .
delightful . . . . While signs of mortality proliferate, Ephron
offers a rebuttal of consequence: an intelligent, alert,
entertaining perspective that does not take itself too seriously.
(If you can't laugh, after all, you are already, technically
speaking, dead.)"
-Tony Bentley, Publishers Weekly, signature review
"A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces revealing the
private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on the brink of
senior citizenhood. Ephron . . . . explores the woes of aging with
honesty-hair-coloring and Botox are standard treatments, as is
getting a mustache wax-but maintaining a 60-plus body is only her
starting point. Ephron includes breezy accounts of her culinary
misadventures, her search for the perfect cabbage strudel and her
dissatisfaction with women's purses. An essay on her love affair
and eventual disenchantment with the Apthorp apartment building on
Manhattan's West Side deftly captures both the changes in New York
City and in her own life . . . "
-Kirkus Reviews
Not going gently into that good night: funny essays on women resisting aging, baby-boomer style. With a nine-city tour. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
"Nora Ephron, 65 years old in I Feel Bad About My Neck,
pokes fun at her own eccentricities and finds herself writing about
'lunch with my girlfriends-I got that far into the sentence and
caught myself. I suppose I mean my women friends. We are no longer
girls and have not been for forty years.' But [I Feel Bad About
My Neck is a] girlfriend book, and in the best way. . . .
Ephron, who is a great wit, has made a career out of women's body
anxieties. The magazine piece that made her famous in the 1970s, 'A
Few Words about Breasts, ' is a long kvetch about her flat
chest . . . Now, though, Ephron kvetches about her wrinkled
neck, the one part of a woman's aging body that can't be
resurfaced. She and the ladies who lunch with her all wear scarves
or turtlenecks to hide their 'shame.' . . . Ephron [is] unfailingly
clever and often pokes fun at our preoccupations while sharing
them. . . . I Feel Bad About My Neck has everything I want
in an entertaining read: a breezy pace, wry musings, copious doses
of gossip, humor, and new information. . . . Ephron produces
perfect vignettes. . . . [When I finished I Feel Bad About My
Neck, I] felt the 'rapture' that Ephron says you feel on
completing a great book. . . . [Books] have always been faithful
pals, and [this one is] among the best. . . . [Get] your friends of
a certain age together, rent Silkwood (which I think is
Ephron's best film), read [her book] together, and argue and laugh
and cry. That's my prescription."
-Emily Toth, Women's Review of Books
"The subtitle to this book of autobiographical essays by the
pithy, witty Ephron-'and other thoughts on being a woman'-says it
all. Chapters include brilliant, biting essays on such things as
wrinkly necks, bad handbags, and being a parent. You'll laugh out
loud at her spot-on observations, but there's something wonderfully
poignant about Ephron's list of things worth knowing, and how to
live out one's life feeling satisfied. A heartwarming little
book."
-Easy Living magazine (UK) "What's refreshing about Ephron
is that she refuses to entertain any illusions about the terrible
fate that awaits us. What's great about her is that she makes the
truth about life so funny when it should be so grim."
-Christopher Goodwin, The Sunday Times (UK) "Ephron's
laugh-out-loud collection tells the truth about aging-it's not
fun-and 'she does it with humor and satire and perspective, ' says
[Roxanne Coady of R. J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Conn.]. With
blithe charm, Ephron exposes all the vain ploys that she-and
we-would rather not admit we use to stave off another telltale
wrinkle or gray hair. Read her book as an antidote to despair."
-U.S. News & World Report "Now 65, the humorist offers a
bracing take on aging in 15 memorable essays. Her finely honed wit
is as fresh as ever."
-People magazine, Top 10 Books of 2006 "As if wrinkles and
belly flab weren't enough, women of a certain age have to fret
about their turkey necks, too-so says the sage, dry, and hilarious
Nora Ephron . . . Her droll take on traditionally gooey topics like
motherhood and marriage makes the tender observations that much
more unexpected . . . [A] sparkling series of essays."
-Ladies Home Journal "Delightful . . . [A] funny, sisterly
collection . . . Where books written for seniors are apt to be full
of unconvincing cheer, Ephron's charming book of self-questioning,
confession, and resolve faces the reality that she's sixty-five,
dyes her hair, and is not happy about her neck, her purse, her
failure at ambitious exercise programs, and other personal failures
shared by many of us . . . None of these confrontations with
mortality is arcane, all are universal, and people of either sex
can relate to them . . . Many readers of I Feel Bad About My
Neck will be familiar already with Ephron the accomplished
human being . . . She's one of only a few American essayists with a
public persona-one thinks of Will Rogers, or Calvin Trillin, maybe
Benjamin Franklin, Steve Martin, and Woody Allen . . . [She has] a
talent for incisive compression and accessibility confided in a
sort of plainspoken Will Rogers manner . . . . The hapless
character Ephron has presented over the years may be the real
Ephron, or not. The actual Ephron is praised by friends as smart, a
perfect housekeeper, much prettier than the person she began
depicting in Wallflower at the Orgy, her essays from the
Seventies, a wonderful cook, etc., etc. It's sound rhetorical
strategy. Of all the ways to be funny, self-deprecation is more
endearing than satire . . . . All in all, this funny book offers
the pleasures of recognition; in an anxious world, her epigrams
have a serious, consoling utility."
-Diane Johnson, The New York Review of Books "OK, so Nora
Ephron is 65 now. Not to me, she's not. She's still that young
smartass who used to rule the pages of Esquire . . .
That was entertainment. She's still entertaining . . .
Ephron's new look-back is a delight of a book that you can inhale
in a single sitting . . . . When she's funny, as she is in I
Feel Bad About My Neck, she becomes a [writer] who won't give
her readers a rest from the bellowing laughter. Sixty-five ain't
old when you're Nora Ephron."
-Dan Smith, Blue Ridge Business Journal "I like short books.
In fact, when I'm at the bookstore, I tilt my head to the right and
scan the shelves for books with the skinniest spines. I Feel Bad
About My Neck was one I wished were longer. Ephron, journalist,
novelist and screenwriter, bemoans getting old and all the
maintenance needed just to tread water. But she does it in her
inimitable, witty style. You don't come away depressed as much as
invigorated . . . [She] brings [her] funny but serious approach to
this latest work."
-Elizabeth Pezzulo, The Free Lance-Star "You might think
that I Feel Bad About My Neck is not a book for foodies. You
would think wrong. I Feel Bad About My Neck is so witty and
so much about food in our lives, that every Foodie should read it.
This is the kind of book that will make you laugh out loud on the
Amtrak train to the chagrin of other passengers buried deep in
The Wall Street Journal. You may have to force yourself not
to wave it under their noses, shouting, 'Get this book!' . . . . It
rings funny and true at the same time."
-Juliette Rossant, SuperChefBlog "Clever . . . . [I Feel Bad
About My Neck is] laced with wry observations, told in an
intimate style that makes Ephron seem like a close friend spilling
details about her life . . . [Ephron] has punctured many a bubble
of conformity and made audiences laugh in recognition . . . [She]
will keep you entertained."
-April Austin, Christian Science Monitor "Maybe Nora Ephron
has become timeless . . . Certainly she writes, for all her funny
commentary on modern life, like someone who has something useful
and important to tell her readers . . . She's figured something out
that she wants to let you in on, and to make it palatable she'll
make you laugh."
-Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Before Nora Ephron the director, or Nora Ephron the screenwriter,
or even before Nora Ephron the novelist, there was Nora Ephron the
journalist and essayist. That Nora Ephron, known for her wit,
candor and vulnerability, has returned and is holding forth in I
Feel Bad About My Neck . . . Sales have been brisk, no doubt
because it's the kind of book women don't get only for themselves;
they purchase copies for their best friends and sisters, and buy
more to be given as birthday gifts and party favors. Women who find
themselves somewhere between the arrival of their first wrinkle and
death have to hear only the title to get the message. They get it
that she gets it, and thank God for that."
-Mimi Avins, Los Angeles Times "[A] stylistic tour de force
. . . Fireworks shoot out [of this collection] . . . The smaller
blazes are bursts of wit that cast the familiar so sharply as to
make it seem new . . . There are [also] passages where wit is used
not to entertain but to lament . . . to take arms against life or
death (where loss, however blithely sketched, is no joke at all) .
. . The comic and rueful are still there, but they take on
resonance."
-Richard Eder, The Boston Globe "Youth may be wasted on the
young, but everyone can enjoy the hurdles and highlights of aging
with Ephron's witty and deeply personal essays on getting older . .
. and yes, wiser."
-Life Magazine ("Life 5" Editors' Pick) "[W]ry and amusing .
. . . [M]arvelous."
-Bunny Crumpacker, Washington Post Book World "I belly
laugh[ed] at this compilation of essays by Nora Ephron, a book that
includes subjects every woman can identify with, regardless of her
age . . . I [plan] to order multiple copies as gifts, knowing my
girlfriends [will] get as much of a charge out of the book as I
have."
-Chris Stuckenschneider, The Missourian "This is a book
about age and regret. Since it's by Nora Ephron, it's funny . . . .
This delightful collection of personal essays . . . [is written] by
a truly smart woman [who] disarms . . . by mocking her own anguish
in a style that veers between hey-girlfriend coziness and wit . . .
. Ephron has me in her pocket: I'm absolutely on her side and feel
that she's on mine, that we're in this together . . . .
Sublime."
-Anna Shapiro, The New York Observer "We have Nora Ephron to
thank for this wonderful girlfriend's guide to aging. In I Feel
Bad About My Neck, Ephron perfects her 'vintage whine' in a
series of essays conveying everything from beauty regimes to
Manhattan real estate. There is little cheerleading here for the
joys of acquired wisdom or the age-defying results of botox and
collagen-since the neck is still a giveaway-hence the title . . . .
There are small victories, however, which Ephron chronicles along
with her life as overachieving cook, loyal friend and mother,
hard-working writer and fashion frump who disses purses but loves
black turtlenecks . . . . She shares heartfelt ardor for her
friends-especially one who passed away-her passion for cooking,
including recipes for successful dinner parties . . . Ephron's
insights make the book an enjoyable romp. [She'll] make you laugh
at her laments. You'll also be grateful for her honesty. One of her
best lines is her retort to a baby-boomer editor who complains that
too many women over 60 talk about how things were better 'in my
day.' 'But it isn't our day, ' Ephron tells the editor. 'It's their
day. We're just hanging on.' For people who want a little candor
and humor about not only hanging on but getting on, this book is
for you."
-Jill Brooke, New York Post "In her latest essay collection
. . . Ephron offers rearview reflections on her life as a talker
and writer, as well as a flinching but honest look at the image she
lately confronts in the mirror. Like her fellow Upper West Side
loyalist Jerry Seinfeld, she has found a lot of 'something' in the
'nothing' of everyday life. In the manner of all natural-born
embroiders, Ephron augments tales she has told before and also
divulges new insights, grievances, and gossip . . . . Nothing is
off limits to her, even personal humiliation-especially personal
humiliation . . . [But] Ephron has owned her laughs for several
decades . . . . [S]he doesn't wallow. Instead, she does what she
has always done-she buries . . . bad news under a barrage of
shareable anecdotes, humorous self-deprecation and womanly bravado
. . . . Through [30 years of writing], her focus has remained on
the heart. This current gatherum of hard and funny truths spares
neither the author's pride nor her audience's, but it does salve
wounds, and many of Ephron's insights are bound to come in
handy."
-Liesl Schillinger, The New York Times Book Review "Wickedly
funny . . . [Nora Ephron's] candid, witty tales about life and love
will put everything into perspective."
-Tango Magazine
"Witty. . . . sharp . . . . readily
accessible to all . . . . [Ephron] is as funny as ever . . . . What
is so refreshing about Ephron is that she doesn't take herself too
seriously . . . . [She has] a knack for finding the significant in
the mundane, and for making readers feel like they've been welcomed
into [her] inner circle of friends to share lipsticks and life's
licks. [Her] best lines probably get read aloud as often as
'Goodnight Moon.'"
-Newsday Sunday "Before Nora Ephron became a Hollywood maven
with her screenplays for movies such as 'Sleepless in Seattle, '
'Heartburn, ' 'You've Got Mail, ' and 'When Harry Met Sally...',
she was a wickedly witty and astute writer of essays and articles.
Ephron returns to her print roots with a new collection of essays
reflecting the perspective of an aging-but still crackling
sharp-cultural scribe."
-Boston Globe "I Feel Bad About My Neck is . . .
long-overdue . . . . [T]hese essays . . . [are] executed with
overall sharpness and panache . . . . [Nora Ephron] retains an
uncanny ability to sound like your best friend, whoever you are . .
. . Some things don't change. It's good to know that Ms. Ephron's
wry, knowing X-ray vision is one of them."
-Janet Maslin, New York Times "In her latest book of essays
. . . [Ephron] is as funny and poignant as ever. This time around
she rails against aging ('Oh, the necks . . . '), decides
adolescence is for parents and reveals her non-affair with
JFK."
-Ms. Magazine "By the time Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About
My Neck comes out, in August, you'll be feeling the heat-or
maybe just a hot flash-in which case her reflections on looking at
your saggy, baggy neck in the mirror (she advises squinting) . . .
will be just the cool comfort you need. Use this wryly romantic
book as a guide to musing about mortality, or just curling up in
your empty nest."
-O: Oprah magazine "[S]parkling . . . [T]his collection is .
. . a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who
else is there?) . . . who 'can't read a word on the pill bottle,
'follow a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after
not being able to read the pill bottle . . . . [R]efreshing . . .
witty . . . delightful . . . . While signs of mortality
proliferate, Ephron offers a rebuttal of consequence: an
intelligent, alert, entertaining perspective that does not take
itself too seriously. (If you can't laugh, after all, you are
already, technically speaking, dead.)"
-Tony Bentley,
Publishers Weekly, signature review
"A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces
revealing the private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on
the brink of senior citizenhood. Ephron . . . . explores the woes
of aging with honesty-hair-coloring and Botox are standard
treatments, as is getting a mustache wax-but maintaining a 60-plus
body is only her starting point. Ephron includes breezy accounts of
her culinary misadventures, her search for the perfect cabbage
strudel and her dissatisfaction with women's purses. An essay on
her love affair and eventual disenchantment with the Apthorp
apartment building on Manhattan's West Side deftly captures both
the changes in New York City and in her own life . . . "
-Kirkus Reviews
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