"I Feel Bad About My Neck", a Book Review

"I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts On Being A Woman" by Nora Ephron is a collection of 15 essays on being a woman. Not just any woman, but a woman who just discovered her neck. The first essay is about necks and how suddenly, it seems, all her friends are wearing turtle neck sweaters or "wearing scarves, like Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond ". Ms. Ephron might have titled this book: You Know You Are Getting Old When You Notice Your Neck. But, "I Feel Bad About My Neck" is less a book about refusing to grow old gracefully and more about "Thoughts On Being A Woman".

Even a man could write about the contents of a female's purse and make both males and females nod their heads in agreement. Ms.Ephron's tale, "I Hate My Purse", echoes my own. We hate them, do not carry them and shake our heads in amazement at the amount of money women will spend to get a Gucci bag. The bag in her essay is actually called a "Kelly bag" and tells the adventure in Europe on finding an original used Kelly bag. In the chapter titled "On Maintenance" Nora deals with hair, nails and bikini waxes. She points out that her friends who spend an hour a day on just washing and blow-drying hair have used up "nine workweeks" in the course of a year. She explains why that might have made sense when we were young and does not when we have necks. The types of necks described in the frist chapter "I Feel Bad About My Neck".

The essays take the reader on a fun journey through marriages, divorce, falling out of love, children, her writing career and relationship with JFK when she was an Intern at the White House. Ms. Ephron talks about when she became a writer (a magazine article about small breasts), how she was hired to work for the New York Post and shares antidotes about New York City real estate, writing her first fiction novel, writing screen plays and directing movies. Nora Ephron's screenplay credits include "When Harry Met Sally", "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Silkwood".