Friday, March 12, 2010

More books for Old Ladies

Remember how I spent like a ridiculous amount of time reading a Barbara Walters biography, and it mostly just left me fearful of being a serial marryer and dying alone? This time at least the book was funny and a quick read. (I read it last night in the bath.)

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron. It was a very funny book on aging. Ephron reviews her approach to looking good, a cooking history, thoughts on New York city and apartments, stuff like that. Boy do I wish I were a successful script writer director living in New York. She has gobs of cash to spend on her hair and waxing and Maintenance (one of the chapter names.) Plus her old apartment had eight rooms. My old house didn't have eight rooms. This book was really fun to read, and refreshingly light and silly and at moments poignant, but would I spend the list price of $21.95? Nope. I got it at the Friends of the Library book sale for $1.50.

As I read it, I was also a little puzzled by the flow of the individual chapters, and when I went back to read the front material, she had previously published all the essays in separate publications, then grouped them together for this book. The chapter on food and cooking is sort of funny, but wasn't a great follow up to the neighboring chapter on aging and beauty. The chapter on falling in and out of love with Bill Clinton "Me and Bill: The end of Love". Not so funny.

If this little book finds it's way into your field of vision for a reduced price, should you read it? Yes. Do you need to rush to the bookstore to find a cute book about aging? No.

1 comment:

Swistle said...

I completely agree. I got it out of the library and thought it was weird how there were just a few chapters related to the title and then all the rest was about how expensive it was to live in New York, and that Bill Clinton weirdness.