Ephron, Nora "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman"

Ephron, Nora "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" - 2006

Nora Ephron. I have loved and admired her during all her creative years. "When Harry Met Sally" is one of my favourite films ever, I love her sense of humour but I had never read any book by her. So, when she sadly passed away earlier this year, I thought it was time to fill this incredible gap. "I Feel About My Neck", the title itself is very promising already.

There are so many great thoughts in this book. I was particularly struck when Nora Ephron asked whether anybody still reads "The Golden Notebook". Well, we read it in our international book club in January 2009 and most of our younger members did not really like the book very much. We had the feeling that the younger readers couldn’t really follow the reasons this book was written for.

Her book is also full of quotes. If you want a little taster, check out these links:

BrainyQuote
Nora Ephron's 27 Best Quotes On Love, Life, And Death

One of my favourites (from this book):
"Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter."

But it's so much better to read the whole book. Great thoughts, great humour, a lovely memory of a wonderful woman.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Academy Award-winning screenwriter and director Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, Heartburn, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail) turns her sharp wit on to her own life. 

* Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from 
*If the shoe doesn't fit in the shoe store, it's never going to fit 
*When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you 
*Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of thirty-five you will be nostalgic for by the age of forty-five
*The empty nest is underrated 
*If only one third of your clothes are mistakes, you're ahead of the game."

de Winter, Leon "Zionoco"

de Winter, Leon "Zionoco" (Dutch: Zionoco) - 1995

If you didn't know Leon de Winter was Jewish, you would guess after reading a couple of his books. In most of them, the main character seems to search for his Jewish roots in one way or another, which makes me think whether this is the author himself.

I love reading about those sort of topics. Only, de Winter seems to digress a lot from his original purpose. Sex is always in the way. And so, this novel is a mixture between a porn novel including the description of alcoholics and the search for an identity, for a normal life. It's a mixture of a lot of subjects, a trial to bring them all together. But in the end, the search for the Zionoco, the mountain of Zion, is just as unsuccessful as this book. I found it flat and boring. This is my second and probably last book I have read by this author. I didn't care much for "De Hemel van Hollywood" either.

Book Descripition:

"De Winter describes movingly the tragicomic search for the unattainable father. Rabbi Sol Mayer sells absolute truths in New York, but he still doubts: about God, about his marriage, and about the miracle he had experienced, which had made the bon vivant and good-for-nothing to become rabbi like his father. When he falls in love with a young singer, it does not just mess up his hormones."

de Winter, Leon "The Hollywood Sign"

de Winter, Leon "The Hollywood Sign" (Dutch: De Hemel van Hollywood) -  1997

Three unsuccessful actors try to get back into "business" by planning the big coup, not entirely legal but with a chance of success. Apparently, the novel is supposed to be a satire about the American film business. I didn't really see that. I didn't like the plot (too far-fetched), the writing (neither funny nor intelligent), frankly, I don't understand the success of this author.

This was my first novel by de Winter. I gave him another chance and read "Zionoco" which did not change my opinion of his writing.

Book Description:

"When three great, has-been actors meet at the funeral of a legendary Hollywood agent, their alcoholic reunion leads them to visit the Hollywood Sign. There they find the body of a man – leading them to uncover an in-progress scam for stealing millions from a Las Vegas casino – which originated as a movie plot written by one of the actors' ex-girlfriends – who could not get her script produced. Desperate to make a comeback, the three risk their lives for production capital ... by writing themselves into the 'script."'

Tademy, Lalita "Red River"

Tademy, Lalita "Red River" - 2007

A couple of years ago, we read Lalita Tademy's account about her ancestors from her mothers side ("Cane River") in the book club. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, a great story about the history of African-Americans since slavery.

Well, she's done it again. This time, she tells the story of her father's ancestors, the Tademy family that came all the way from Egypt as free men only to be turned into slaves in the States. The story begins after the Civil War when the slaves have officially been freed but white supremacists don't want to accept that, so there is still a long struggle ahead of them.

As a European, I am shocked again and again when I read that "people of colour" were not allowed to vote until a hundred years after the war. I mean, right until the middle of the last century there were people in a modern country denied the most basic rights. Unbelievable.

And this is exactly why I think books like this are so important, to show us what we did wrong and how we can avoid those kind of mistakes in the future.

Great book!

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2023.

From the back cover:

"Hailed as 'powerful,' 'accomplished,' and 'spellbinding,' Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time... and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... RED RIVER 

For the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives.Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would 'take back' Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, RED RIVER is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours."

Rasputin, Valentin "Farewell to Matyora"

Rasputin, Valentin (Распутин, Валентин Григорьевич) "Farewell to Matyora" (Russian: Прощание с Матёрой/Proschanie s Materoj) - 1976

A wonderful account of what development and progression can do to people. Matyora is a village in Siberia, a village like there are millions in this world. The people have lived there all their lives and everybody knows anyone, life goes on like it has hundreds of years ago, here and there we find new additions that make life easier, machines are introduced but for the ordinary people, life goes on as it always has. People get married, have children and die.

This is what most people in Matyora are looking at, this is there life. Or, in this case, it has been. The government decides to build a dam and float the whole area. The inhabitants of the village are to be relocated to other places nearby. While the younger generation welcomes the opportunity to get out of their destiny, the older members struggle, their whole world falls to pieces. Both parties portray what we all know, we have to make sacrifices for progress but how much is too much?

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"A fine example of Village Prose from the post-Stalin era, Farewell to Matyora decries the loss of the Russian peasant culture to the impersonal, soulless march of progress.

It is the final summer of the peasant village of Matyora. A dam will be completed in the fall, destroying the village. Although their departure is inevitable, the characters over when, and even whether, they should leave. A haunting story with a heartfelt theme, Farewell to Matyora is a passionate plea for humanity and an eloquent cry for a return to an organic life."

I have also read "To Live and Remember" by this great author.

Spyri, Johanna "Heidi"

Spyri, Johanna "Heidi" (German: "Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre" and "Heidi kann brauchen, was es gelernt hat") - 1880-1881

I think everyone remembers their first books. In my case, it was "Heidi". We didn't have that many books at the time, I had to spend a week in hospital when I turned seven, I got my appendix out. I don't remember any of the other presents I received but I clearly remember "Heidi". The very first book I owned. I still have the copy today and it looks pretty well read.

Heidi was everything I wasn't. She lived in the mountains, I lived in Northern Germany where the highest elevation was probably just a little over 100 meters. She loved the outdoors, I loved sitting inside reading my books. She was an orphan, I had my parents and three brothers and hundreds of cousins (well, "only" fifty, but who's counting).

Still, I loved Heidi, maybe because she was so different from me. We all have to have our fictional heroes, Heidi was mine. If I had had a daughter, I might have been able to transfer my love for this book to her but my two boys were not too keen. (I suppose that weird Japanese cartoon series didn't help, either.)

I recently asked my friends what their favourite childhood book was and "Heidi" was the most popular answer.

In any case, give this to your children, it's like time travelling for them, to a country that existed a long long time ago.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"A classic tale of childhood joys and friendships, it has delighted and inspired generations of children."

Orphaned Heidi lives with her gruff but caring grandfather on the side of Swiss mountain, where she befriends young Peter the goat-herd. She leads an idyllic life, until she is forced to leave the mountain she has always known to go and live with a sickly girl in the city. Will Heidi ever see her grandfather again?"

Sedaris, David "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

Sedaris, David "Me Talk Pretty One Day" - 2000

A story about the author's childhood. He is trying to tell it in a funny way and somehow he manages. But only somehow.

I was expecting this to be ironic which I would have liked. But it wasn't. This book was just the complete opposite of what I expected it to be. It was childish, that's probably the best description I can come up with if I don't want to get too insulting. The author didn't come across as a very likeable person, either. I just did not care for him or his life or anything he wrote down. At all.

I have no idea who awarded him the prizes for humour or what kind of humour they are talking about.

Will I read another book by David Sedaris? I doubt it!

From the back cover:

"A delightful comedy of atypical life stories that only David Sedaris can describe in such humorous detail.

David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section. His family is another inspiration. You Can't Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails."