Honest, funny, masterfully written, this book has been a friend to me since I picked it up. I have read it more times than I could possibly count. In it, Nora Ephron dispenses advice on all things from how much wine to drink (spoiler: 2 glasses is too much in her opinion) to how to honor your body (get comfortable with yourself in a bathing suit). Nora is the mom we wall wish we had - wise, sometimes cutting in a way that will push you, but always full of love. Highly, highly, recommend.

Por algún motivo, este librito (porque es corto), me conmovió. Me da la impresión de que ella (la misma que escribió "Cuando Harry conoció a Sally") o sabía que estaba enferma o presentía su muerte. Lo publicó el 2006, y el 2012 se murió de cáncer... hay una parte, al final, en que habla de su mejor amiga, que se murió de cáncer también, con tanta añoranza y da TANTA PENA que... lloré, la verdad. No tengo nada que decir. Pareciera que estuviera esperando reencontrársela.

Es una colección de ensayines chicos y demases. Habla de cosas de la vida, al principio es divertido (también, a veces, al final), y a mí me hizo reír en varias partes. Se nota que era una persona pudiente y chic, y una se la imagina como en la versión más old school de Sex and the City porque cita barrios de Nueva York, restoranes, estilistas, etcétera, pero... no es necesario conocerlos, para entender el libro, y tampoco habla de eso todo el rato. Además, también comenta cómo se le pierde todo, cómo odia las carteras, cómo tiene que taparse el cuello porque le salieron arruguitas (de ahí el título). Es divertida (y tragicómica).

A mí me gustó. Me pareció refrescante. No tuvo tapujos, ni se detuvo en remilgos a la hora de decir sus verdades. Habla de sus miedos y dolores, lo mismo que de sus glorias, y sin victimizarse y ni siquiera darle mayor análisis. Incluso tiene la bondad, al final, de dar una listita de las cosas que "hubiera querido saber antes". O sea, más claro echarle agua, que sabía que se iba a morir relativamente luego. Hay algunas de ellas en las que yo tengo que trabajar urgente.

Creo que es bastante recomendable, pero... para personas fuertes, al menos ciertos capítulos. O sea, son muy pero muy sinceros, y no todos aprecian tanta sinceridad. A mí me hizo llorar, como dije antes, pero no porque ella fuera infeliz, sino que porque uno se da cuenta de que, pese a su éxito y su fama, se hace todas esas preguntas que todos nos hacemos, y de que tiene la misma única existencia, con fecha de vencimiento, que tenemos todos los otros seres vivos sobre esta tierra. Excepto quizá que las medusas (que se reciclan y nunca se mueren, por si alguien le interesa saber, jajaja).

Tal vez deba agregar que en principio, este NO ES un libro divertido. O sea, quienes buscan una comedia, esto NO LO ES. Tiene sus partes chistosas, claro, pero creo que, en general, ella simplemente dice sus verdades y que, como dice lo que piensa, resulta divertido.

No por eso deja de valer la pena. Para mí fue una sorpresa. Y una sorpresa feliz.

Nora rambles on about the crap in her purse, dying her hair, plastic surgery and her neck insecurities. The specifics of her shallow, self-obsessed life were endless and dull. Oh the poor rich Manhattanite who spends too much on face cream. Yawn.

This book is not a candid hilarious honest truth of aging it is depressing, vapid, shallow, materialistic and so chock full of cynicism it was suffocating. If it is such a burden to keep your hair dyed then stop dying it and let it go grey. Her petty whining over the time it takes to dye her hair and get a manicure are just irritating. Seriously dying your hair and getting manicures are not mandatory!

There is a huge difference between self deprecating honest humor and just plain 'ole complaining. I found her writing to be simple and the essays to be poorly structured. I also found nothing new here - no new light to be shed on the subject.

It was a fast read but it sure as hell was not an interesting one.

-

http://fromichelle.blogspot.com/2008/...

I've finished another book...

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I like Nora. She's real. And she's smart. Nice combination. Add in the fact that she shares her wisdom freely, and also in a funny way, and it makes her even better.

I could have written her exact words on reading...

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss."

Truly, the book is a better read for someone about 10 or 20 years my senior, because what follows the above quote goes...

"But my ability to pick something up and read it... is now entirely dependent on the whereabouts of my reading glasses."

I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman is a collection of essays about all things woman... purses, maintenance, parenting, love...

Her chapter on Where I Live is something I'll be doing my own version of here sometime soon.

Hers goes:

1. I live in New York City...

2. I live in an apartment...

3. I live in my neighborhood...

4. I live at my desk...

5. And of course, I live in my kitchen."

And following each of those statements is a string of perfect explanations.

And I'll also steal her "What I Wish I'd Known."

My favorites of hers are:

"You never know."

"Whenever someone says, 'Our friendship is more important than this,' watch out, because it almost never is."

"There's no point in making pie crust from scratch."

"There are no secrets." (Paying attention to that John Edwards?)

But my very favorite part of this book also appeared in Oprah Magazine's Aha Moment series. Nora reveals her Aha Moment...

"We can't do everything."

I adopted this way of life a long time ago. As Nora says, "You would be amazed at how often things sort themselves out without any help from me whatsoever."

There is someone I would love to give this book to, but I would be afraid someone might think it an insult... not even sure why!

But it is up for grabs to anyone who'd like it! Just say the word!

"Osećam se loše zbog svog vrata" sam kupio (svojevremeno na nekoj Deretinoj akciji na kojoj je dotična knjiga bila na neverovatnom popustu) prvenstveno kao posledicu ponovljenog gledanja skoro pa kultnog filma "When Harry Met Sally".
Iako je tekst na koricama obećavao kako će Norin humor da razoruža čitaoca i da će postojati momenti kada će se čitaoci smejati na sav glas - ti momenti su kod mene izostali. Bilo je momenata kada su se usne blago izvile u neki poluosmeh (ili je to možda bio grč jer je na momente Efronova brutalno direktna) ali njen humor je ipak previše suv za mene...
Nema one dvosmislenosti i "prpošnosti" iz WHMS i ne mogu a da ne ostanem pomalo razočaran...
Ima tu interesantnih misli/eseja ali ipak nije dovoljno za više od dve zvezdice.

a book to read in your 20s, but especially in your 30s and 40s

I have a love-hate relationship with Nora Ephron. On the one hand, she's a Democrat, so I feel a certain allegience with her. I want to like her. Sometimes I actually get what she's saying.

Other times I think, can you hear yourself? Is that really what you think? Are you that vapid? She makes a point, a brilliant point, then suddenly punctures it with a denigrating remark - perhaps to keep us from taking her too seriously, perhaps to make us laugh - but it detsroys the momentum and lets us down.

So she goes on here about aging when you are rich and famous. I suppose it's meant to be aging for all women, but she clearly has no understanding of how the majority of women live. She had a privileged upbringing and career that has pretty much kept her safely separated from how people making less than $30,000 a year live. Here she describes the pursuit of a grossly expensive handbag, something called eyebrow weaving, an apartment building she used to live in where the rent per month was more than I make in a year, and - of course - necks revealing age as surely as the rings in the stump of a tree.

Perhaps it's me. Perhaps I just am not equipped with a sense of humor subtle enough to appreciate her turns of phrase. I mean, I loved When Harry Met Sally, though it was filled with recycled Ephronisms - "pesto is the quiche of the '80s," "thin, pretty, big tits, your basic nightmare." I should love her books. Instead, I love/hate them.

باید بگم من عاشق نورا افرون هستم. نورا فیلمنامه های جولی و جولیا ، شما یک نامه (ایمیل)دارید. رو نوشته.
این مجموعه داستان‌ها مدتهاست دوست داشتم بخونمشون که بالاخره خوشحالم از اینکه خوندمشون.
این مجموعه در مورد کیف،روابط،آپارتمان،تربیت فرزندان،مرگ و زندگی که در قالب طنز نوشته شده به جز داستان آخر
پیشنهاد میکنم حتما بخونین

Every now and then, I need a book that makes me laugh. It became even more imperative when I was wading knee-deep in the philosophical maze in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Each chapter in this collection of humorous essays served as a refreshing palette cleanser when I needed lighter fare.

This is my first acquaintance with Nora Ephron (1941 – 2012), an American journalist, writer, and award-winning filmmaker. I was thrilled to learn that she wrote the screenplay for two movies I loved: ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and ‘Sleepless in Seattle.’ I most appreciated these essays for giving me a glimpse of the person behind the writer. Her tone was candid, disarming, and charming.

The thrust of these personal essays is on aging and the indignities women suffer when they are no longer looking their best. The eponymous title story is a grand introduction to a problem any women past their prime will find relatable. ”We all look good for our age. Except for our necks.” According to Ephron’s dermatologist, ”the neck starts to go at forty-three, and that’s that.” Oh help!

With self-deprecating good cheer, Ephron regaled us with anecdotes of her life, crises, and challenges. She told us unabashedly about her failed marriages, divorce, and the horrors of parenting. She shared the inspiration behind her first job as a journalist and then as a writer. A chapter I greatly enjoyed, titled ‘Rapture’, extolled the joy of reading. I learned about her most rapture-inducing book, which I must now read. I was amazed at how much honesty there was in these stories and I nodded in appreciation. A hilarious chapter, ‘I Hate My Purse’, sent such a shock of recognition, I promptly re-organized mine.

Below are snippets I enjoyed:
‘I Feel Bad About My Neck’
“Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn’t have to if it had a neck.”

Parenting
“Your adolescent has changed… And you have changed too. You have changed from a moderately neurotic, fairly cheerful human being to an irritable, crabby, abused wreck.”

“The worrying is forever.”

The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less
“I can’t get over this aspect of journalism. I can’t believe how real life never lets you down. I can’t understand why anyone would write fiction when what actually happens is so amazing.”

What I Wish I’d Known
”Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of thirty-five you will be nostalgic for at the age of forty-five.”

Considering the Alternative
‘Why do people write books that say it’s better to be older than to be younger? It’s not better.

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman is a fun read. I dare say the gentlemen may like it, too, though I doubt they ever have to worry about their necks. I have to admit, I do.

This is hands down my biggest disappointment of 2020. Thank god it was only 200 pages and I could just power through in one sitting because it left such a sour taste in my mouth. Just didn’t vibe with this at all. It’s described as funny, feminist and a must read but I didn’t get any of that from this. Ephron has a talent for writing, sure, but that’s about it.

These essays held no substance for me. It was just very off topic ramblings of a rich white woman. It wasn’t relatable, only a handful of sentences were funny, and it didn’t feel very feminist. Honest to god I actually found myself bored halfway through reading this. Full of random celeb name drops and talking about how much money she has and prices of things and blah blah blah.

I’m a tad concerned nobody in these reviews has also highlighted the racism in this book? I mean she literally says she gets lip fillers, then describes herself as looking like a member of an African tribe so she never wants to do that again. Like???? Here:

“Once I even had my lips plumped up with a fat injection, but I looked like a Ubangi, so I never did it again.”

Add to this – saying she’s never seen Asian people have bad hair and she wishes she were Asian and dragging down the physical appearance of a homeless lady. Unnecessary quips that just makes me really dislike the person writing it. Bleurgh.

If you want no-so-engaging discussion of ageing, handbags, cookbooks, divorce and relationships go for it. But I wouldn’t recommend.

I like Nora Ephron. I find her humourous, somewhat cantankerous and unapologetic in ways.

I found this book a funny go between while reading some heavier other things. It made me laugh, it picked me up, it was self-absorbed in the ways that New Yorkers talking about their lives in the city are self-absorbed. It was fun.

There was a lot of commentary about the aging process and while I understood where she was coming from, it’s a little annoying to hear some folks talk about their problems surrounding aging like they think they’re immortal or were meant to be here forever. If you live to 70 with minor problems, yo you’re young while being old, but you’ve lived! She’s not always that way in this book, but sometimes she comes across that way. More than often than not in this book - she’s encouraging young women to enjoy themselves, all their beauty and flaws, all their confusion and mistakes, she's encouraging young women to enjoy it all. All the way throughout our lives. I appreciate that.

It’s human to fly between being sad about aging and being glad about what you’ve learned. I’ll never pay 10K for rent anywhere, so that story was wild.. her divorce stories were wild.. her story about JFK, wild. Overall, it was a good read.

I loved her quote about how deeply she gets into reading, that was a standout element of this book because I felt exactly the same and she worded it so beautifully:

“... the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book is one of the main reasons I read, but it doesn’t happen every time, and when it does happen, I’m truly beside myself.” — 83% in I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

.... same Nora, same! RIP.

Nora Ephron, best known for her screenplays When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Silkwood and best sellers Heartburn and Crazy Salad, has written a sort of Ephron retrospective. Though humorously self-deprecating and poignant, critics agree that the essays, some published previously,are uneven. Readers may love "I Hate My Purse"__unless they find it outdated. Other essays came off as vain, stale, or elitist in their carefree attitude toward luxury items. Only "Considering the Alternative" received uniform praise for its generous introspection. Despite the collection's lightweight feel, Ephron still writes "like someone who has something useful and important to tell her readers" (Los Angeles Times). "When your children are teenagers," for example, "it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you."

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.