I Feel Bad About My Neck [Kindle Edition]

Nora Ephron (Author)

Book Description

With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age. Utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of truths, laugh out loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

[Signature]Reviewed by Toni BentleyThe honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, 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. Ephron drives the truth home like a nail in your soon-to-be-bought coffin: "Plus, you can't wear a bikini." But just as despair sets in, she admits to using "quite a lot of bath oil... I'm as smooth as silk." Yes, she is. This is aging lite—but that might be the answer. Besides, there's always Philip Roth for aging heavy.Ephron, in fact, offers a brief anecdote about Roth, in a chapter on cooking, concerning her friend Jane, who had a one-night stand, long ago, with the then "up-and-coming" writer. He gave Jane a copy of his latest book. "Take one on your way out," he said. Conveniently, there was a box of them by the front door. Ephron refuses to analyze—one of her most refreshing qualities—and quickly moves on to Jane's céleri remoulade.Aging, according to Ephron, is one big descent—and who would argue? (Well, okay—but they'd lose the argument if they all got naked.) There it is, the steady spiraling down of everything: body and mind, breasts and balls, dragging one's self-respect behind them. Ephron's witty riffs on these distractions are a delightful antidote to the prevailing belief that everything can be held up with surgical scaffolding and the drugs of denial. Nothing, in the end, prevents the descent. 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.) She does, however, concede that hair maintenance—styling, dyeing, highlighting, blow-drying—is a serious matter, not to mention the expense. "Once I picked up a copy of Vogue while having my hair done, and it cost me twenty thousand dollars. But you should see my teeth." Digging deeper, she discovers that your filthy, bulging purse containing numerous things you don't need—and couldn't find if you did—is, "in some absolutely horrible way, you." Ephron doesn't shy away from the truth about sex either, and confesses, though with an appropriate amount of shame, that despite having been a White House intern in 1961, she did not have an affair with JFK. May Ephron, and her purse, endure so she can continue to tell us how it goes. Or, at least, where it went. Toni Bentley is the author, most recently, of Sisters of Salome and The Surrender, an Erotic Memoir. She is writing about Emma, Lady Hamilton, for the Eminent Lives series.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

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."

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 184 KB
• Print Length: 160 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0307388956
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (August 1, 2006)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000JMKNBA
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,408 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #3 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Aging
  • #11 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies
  • #13 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Aging

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

330 of 361 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Enough with denial - embrace it ;-) August 2, 2006

By Little Miss Cutey

Format:Hardcover

I've loved Nora Ephron ever since Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail. Heartburn (which she wrote) turned into a hit film, and so I knew when I saw that she wrote another book again, I thought I'd pick it up. It's a collection of amusing essays all about growing older.
She says that there are so many books out there about what to do after menopause etc, but none addressed your neck change as you age so she thought this was a cute and funny title.
She talks about maintenance being a second career because a lot of women are pre-empting age. For example, hair dying, botox etc. She talks about her husbands theory of women either being birds, muffins or horses and that is the shape of your face. If you are a muffin, you can have a zillion face lifts and be fine, but other shaped faces - not so much.
She talks more seriously about reaching 60 and start loosing friends. You have to come to grips with reality and realise that we aren't invincible and won't die - it's getting closer to being on the cards.
She also mentions things she wishes she'd known; You can't be friends with people who call after 11pm, Write everything down, Back up your files etc. She's very funny (a very dry sense of humour) and it shows through this book. It's a good read that is sometimes serious but overall will be thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. If you are a fan of her movies, you will definately love I Feel Bad About My Neck ...

108 of 115 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Witty, clever but leightweight... December 15, 2006

By Cynthia K. Robertson TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Nora Ephron is witty, clever and has her finger on the pulse of American women everywhere in her delightful book, I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. My only complaint is that at 137 pages (and small pages at that), it's a rather lightweight book.

Ephron writes about so many of the problems we women face: hairstyles, maintenance routines, raising children, empty nesting, reading glasses, cooking, purses, living in New York City, aging, and the death of good friends. Some of her observations are brutally honest. She talks about how a neck is a telltale sign of aging. "The neck is a dead giveaway. 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 do that if it had a neck." She has a refreshing list of "What I Wish I'd Known" including "Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from" and "The empty nest is underrated."

I' m not real big on make-up routines, I wear glasses all the time and love my poker-straight hair. So some of her musings I found funny but didn't necessarily relate. But where Ephron and I see eye to eye is about reading. "Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person." One of my favorite chapters is "On Rapture," about the state of rapture she feels when she discovers a good book. She also lists some books that changed her life. The chapters where she discusses reading are the best in the book.

I Feel Bad About My Neck got raves from most of the book critics that reviewed this book. While I enjoyed it, I just was expecting more from Ephron.

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars WE ARE NOT GETTING OLDER; WE ARE GETTING BETTER...AND MORE TOLERANT OF OURSELVES August 5, 2006

By Sandra D. Peters

Format:Hardcover

I liked this book from start to finish. It is a fairly quick read but filled with an unusual tongue-in-cheek style of wit and humour. After all, we cannot change the aging process, so why not come to terms and make the best of it. I, too, am approaching that big 60 year and as I was reading this book, kept saying to myself, "Yep, that's me!" The book will win the hearts of female readers, especially those who are going through or already beyond the menopausal years. You are bound to find a part of yourself in here somewhere. Growing older may bring a few wrinkles and a lot of things that once worked now leak, creak and squeak, but life is only what you make it. The author has a way of making you feel that growing old is not all that bad after all. You can't recapture youth, but you can get more than a few laughs from this book - go for it!

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of Time September 24, 2007

By Ann Parker

Format:Hardcover

I really feel cheated out of several hours of time and the cost of the book. Instead of funny and insightful, it was whiny and shallow. I should have read the reviews at Amazon instead of seeing her on Oprah and thinking the bookI Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman would be worth my time and money.

109 of 129 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious and true, what a combination! August 21, 2006

By Barbara Jackson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Nora Ephron verbalized my thoughts about purses and especially necks. What happens overnight? Suddenly you look in the mirror and realize, "Omigod, it's my grandmother's neck!Who drew those lines?" Thank God for winter, I used to hate it but how else can you wear turtlenecks everyday? I am considering volunteering for Antarctica for the summer so I can live in polarfleece.This is so humour filled but also validating. We are all in this together and I swear, I will be buried in a turtleneck

54 of 62 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Now I feel bad too. August 29, 2007

By G. K. Halseth

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I wish I had read some of the reviews before wasting valuable summer reading time and money on this. It seemed like endless pages (amazingly only 139) of complaining about things that are well within someone of her means control. If it is such a burden to keep your hair dyed, stop dying it and learn to love it gray. Hey, you know what, if you're over 60 we all know that its not your real hair color anyway. No one cares if you hate the time it takes to get a manicure, most of us don't care or will never see your manicure, please don't bore us any further with your petty whining. This book depressed me. Thankfully the next book on my reading list was Jen Lancaster-now she was funny, same topics, appartment hunting in the big city, hair dying, but way, way funnier.

More About the Author

Nora Ephron has received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Nicholas Pileggi.