He descubierto que esta mujer pertenecía al club de personas que hacen que escribir parezca fácil. Te ríes, piensas que ingeniosa, vaya idea, y piensas eso lo podría haber escrito yo, y mira pues no.

This was such a charming book. Aging is clearly very fraught and the sharp wit of the essays in this book is quite wonderful.

قسمتی از کتاب:
یکی از بزرگترین غصه های من این بوده که چرا وقتی جوانتر بودم، وقت بیشتری صرف نکردم تا حسابی به گردنم نگاه کنم. هیچ وقت فکر نمی کردم باید
شکر گذار آن نعمت باشم. اصلا به ذهنم خطور نمی کرد روزی برسد دلم برای عضوی از بدنم تنگ بشود که زمانی کمترین توجهی به آن نمی کردم.

Omgggggg!!! I just randomly borrowed this from my e-library, and didn't know what to expect, but this was wonderful. I didn't laugh this much reading a book in a looooong time. And I just realised that while laughing and giggling every two sentences with this one. Why aren't more books this funny? I need to find more books that have my humour.

Before I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, I had never heard of Nora Ephron, but this will definitely not be my last book from her.

There's a paragraph that I particularly loved, where she describes what reading means to her, and - wow - I had never thought about literature in that particular way and/or I could have never worded it that way.

Wonderful.

I've now read all five of Nora Ephron's non-fiction collections, and this one is my favourite.

It's deeper and more personal than anything else she wrote, except perhaps for a couple of pieces in her last, and (IMO) most uneven book, I Remember Nothing. Perhaps it's because in 2006, the same year this book came out, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and it forced her to look inward and to take stock of her eventful life.

The book begins with the title essay, written with the same kind of frank honesty that characterized A Few Words About Breasts," the 1972 essay that helped make her name in journalism. This time she's talking about why and how so many women her age cover up their unsightly necks. It's candid and devastatingly funny – all without an ounce of self-pity.

Elsewhere, she discusses why she hates purses (which, if memory serves, made its way into the play Love, Loss, And What I Wore, co-written with her sister Delia), all the maintenance that's required to look decent, and what it's like to be blind without reading glasses.

These are all written in Ephron's signature style: witty, wise, read-aloud-to-your-friends funny. (I should point out that these pieces are relatable whether you're a woman, man or non-binary. Everyone has some sort of bag they haul around, and we all try to look our best as we get older, even though it's an uphill battle.)

Then she gets more serious. A piece on raising children is infused with heartbreak. An essay on living with and then moving out of a fabulous rent-stabilized apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side is structured as if she's recounting a love affair. And a couple of political pieces – on being an intern during the JFK years and on falling out of love with Bill Clinton – are very clever.

And then there's a group of essays that are phenomenal. One synopsizes her life "in 3,500 Words or Less." Since she's done so many things, it's worth studying for the wisdom in its pared-down prose. Another is about her total love of getting lost and immersed in books; this one's a keeper and will be of special interest to Goodreaders. And the two final essays, "What I Wish I'd Known" and "Considering the Alternative," deal head on with mortality. Some of her writing here made me laugh and cry in the same sentence.

I don't often take baths, but when I do, I'm going to take the advice Ephron gives in the book's final sentences and just luxuriate in the experience. And God (or whomever) willing, I'm going to reread passages from this book for years to come.

***

Here are my reviews of Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women and Scribble Scribble: Notes on the Media

Here's the thing, I would've never listened to this book if it weren't for the fact that years ago I gifted it to someone in those last few moments of Christmas-oh-shit-I-forgot-to-buy-that-person-a-gift hysteria.

I was married at the time and was, by default, put in charge of figuring out what EVERYONE should be given. My mother-in-law and I had a so-so relationship. I mean she did accuse me of purposely putting pins in her bed when she stayed the night and got poked a few times with left over remnants of my latest creative pursuits, and we weren't exactly the lets-get-a-manicure-together type but she did tell me she loved me once (which caught me so off guard that all I could muster in my shocked state was an awkward, "thank you").

Sooooooo, I saw this book on audio, new she had a long drive home on Christmas, vaguely recognized the name Nora Ephron (honestly I think I kind of sort of confused her with Erma Bombeck), read that is was supposed to be funny and grabbed it. who doesn't like to laugh, right? Had I thought about it for 2.2 seconds it would have occurred to me that giving your 60 something mother in law a book about the horrors of aging (whether their offered up humorously or not) when you are only in your mid 30's is probably not in the best of taste.

And now, divorced, in my 40's and hating my own neck I couldn't resist when I saw it at the library. What exactly had my mother-in-law heard as she drove home that Christmas season?

Suffice it to say, I doubt she laughed out loud and mostly likely didn't exactly appreciate that the entire book ends with musings on death. oops.

As for me - I like a good musing on death and watching my body change is a never ending source of fascination. And as self absorbed as I can be, as much as I think the world is looking and noticing my every new wrinkle, I grew tired of Ephron's endless lamenting about all things physical and material in her life. She spent an entire chapter on the loss an apartment in NY but completely glossed over her 2 divorces. Not that she has to bear her sole about every aspect of her life (If she had the book would have been longer than 3 CD's and I wouldn't have listened to it anyway) but still....an occasional grappling with SOME sense of moral obligation to the world outside herself would have been a little reassuring.

The over all message at the end seemed to be spend money on yourself, indulge, you only live once. And don't get me wrong, It's not like I'm toiling away at soup kitchen's during the day and spending my vacations bettering conditions at refuge camps. No. no. I just like to *feel guilt* about NOT doing that. (In real life I'm day dreaming about a pair of boots that I'm pretty sure make me look 39 instead of 40 and according to the salesman at Nordstrom showed that I "have nothing to hide" - what? that had NOTHING to do with the commission! He was just an honest guy doing an honest days work).

*also Nora Ephron throws paper away and I'd like to know what the F that is about - who the hell THROWS PAPER AWAY?! Answer up NY!

**also a 25 year old guy was in my car last night and not only picked up and glanced at the cover of this but further went on to read the description of how she "speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age". And that shit was em.bar.ass.ing!!!

Honestly, most of this book was pretty good. Now you’re thinking: why the one-star rating? While Ephron’s writing is insightful and introspective generally, the one thing she fails to do (and it’s a big thing) is interrogate her own privilege. One comment in particular about a homeless woman’s unkempt and unclean appearance made me cringe at the cruelty of the comment. White Lady Privilege tainting otherwise flawless writing is also an issue I’ve encountered reading Joan Didion. I would like to believe that she did not mean this in the way it came across. Unfortunately, I cannot ask her. The only privilege I can interrogate is my own. I could not in good conscience rate this book higher. If anyone has any thoughts on this, feel free to share them.

me ha encantado pero no es porque el libro sea increíble si no porque ella lo es. me cae genial, es una tía divertidísima y me gusta mucho que se atreva a decir cosas de “mala feminista” que todas pensamos y que muchas veces no nos atrevemos a verbalizar. no sé simplemente es la mejor y solo quiero saber más sobre ella

I have spent a ridiculously large amount of time wondering whether I should be embarrassed about listening to a book titled "Thoughts on Being a Woman" and then, in turn, wondering what is wrong with me that I even think about this, what all this says about what I previously thought was a personal blindness-to-the-sexes kind of outlook on people.

Anyway, outside that little personal issue, the book was terrific, probably ten times better in audio while sitting in traffic, then in text form. Traffic isn't supposed to be enjoyable. She was just a very direct and funny personality, with what comes across as a natural charm.

She talks a lot about New York, and about her life and history and her various marriages, and about getting old and all the efforts she goes through to try to do what is expected of woman her age. A lot of other stuff too. I liked that she touches, although only a tiny bit, on things that led her to journalism, and that later led her away from it.

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron is an audiobook read by the author. This is my second reading and it seems that I have enjoyed it more than I did the first time. Could it be that I am now at an age closer to the author’s? Ephron’s humor is as sharp as ever and listening to her had me nodding my head in agreement with many of her ways of looking at life in the midlife lane. The same wit that we enjoyed in her movies is present in this book. Because this is an audiobook, I had the pleasure of listening to a voice like no other: her tone makes her views so serious and yet so comical. Nora Ephron, you are missed, especially in these so unfunny times. Highly recommended.

I read this to have a frivolous, light audiobook during travel. And it does fit the bill. Yet I seem to have lost some of my ability to enjoy frivolous memoir. It was not all that way. I enjoyed very much the section on food, which had hefty helpings of pride and self-deprecation in good measure.

I think younger women will not enjoy this book as much and it has nothing to do with much of the subject matter being aging. I want to talk more about aging! I found much of it insightful. The problem is that Ephron is of a particular feminist generation that enjoys very much saying that choices other women have made are bad choices. Ephron's chapter on parenting, for example, is just ridiculing the modern overinvolved helicopter parent. I myself am not that parent, my style is more like Ephron's, and yet I felt so uncomfortable at it. Younger feminists tend to accept differences in choices and styles more easily.

There is also just a lot of privilege here, Ephron has certainly had her ups and downs but generally lives a charmed life, but still talks about herself as though she is just a regular person rather than a very rich person who writes movies. Perhaps others find this charming, I don't particularly.

And yet, I still enjoyed listening to her very much.

Nora Ephron just gets it. Such a funny / relatable easy read on the random struggles of being a woman.