Category: general life updates

a quick follow to the first book (bought them in the same sale). this was a series of short essays. her authoring voice is amazing – a consistent view into new high society, even thought that wasnt the objective of the book. (reminded me of swans of fifth avenue, in that sense).

made me want to live in new york, a bit more, again, just for a little while.

in this book she is writing first person as herself, its more of a memoir, and she definitely confirms that heartburn was based on her real life. (noting that she replaced cats in real life into hamsters in the book, that for some reason really entertained me.)

a lot of things stuck out to me: she has been twice divorced, third marriage clearly worked out. she reminisces about the mistakes that she made when she was younger, but in a really delightful way (writing about how as a younger woman when she was friends with an older lady, they fell apart and how she felt then versus now). my favourite essay was probably the one about how she started working in journalism; and her casual and on-the-nose callouts of discrimination and normalcy of it at the time.

Really enjoyed this.

a book about a pregnant lady whos getting divorced for a second time. the author, nora ephron, is the writer of sleepless in seattle, when harry met sally, and a bunch of other famous rom-coms.

apparently the book is based on her actual life: her husband, cheated on her while she was 7 months pregnant. also her husband is one of the two reporters who dissolved Watergate.

anyway the book is short, and surprisingly funny given the dark subject matter. also published in 1983, it takes place in the 70s, and the (7 month pregnant) author drinks without a second glance. I had to google the regulations – turns out until 70s it was not even a THING and only in the 70s did the pregnancy/drinking link started to become established.

4 stars for brevity, cleverness and recipes inserted here and there.

• what a delight to finally stumble on to a short book; so many of my recent reads felt like slogs. maybe im just out of practice reading
• the book was interesting; i liked learning that the author is a poet – the use of “negative space” in the structure of the book was cool.
• but i was confused and had to google the ending. i dont know how i feel about that.

i am on the fence about which style of book i enjoy most – so far i think my favourite type of reading is sci fi, horror, or murder mystery. and non fiction. this kind of pure fiction is a real hit or miss.