by Nora Ephron
fn1 Nora changed certain names in this piece out of tactful affection.
What I Won’t Miss
Dry skin
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
E-mail
Technology in general
My closet
Washing my hair
Bras
Funerals
Illness everywhere
Polls that show that 32 percent of the American people believe in creationism
Polls
Fox
The collapse of the dollar
Joe Lieberman
Clarence Thomas
Bar mitzvahs
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
E-mail. I know I already said it, but I want to emphasize it.
Small print
Panels on Women in Film
Taking off makeup every night
—November 2010
What I Will Miss
My kids
Nick
Spring
Fall
Waffles
The concept of waffles
Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
The park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Reading in bed
Fireworks
Laughs
The view out the window
Twinkle lights
Butter
Dinner at home just the two of us
Dinner with friends
Dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives
Paris
Next year in Istanbul
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Thanksgiving dinner
One for the table
The dogwood
Taking a bath
Coming over the bridge to Manhattan
Pie
—November 2010
These pieces originally appeared in:
Esquire: “How to Write a Newsmagazine Cover Story,” “The Assassination Reporters,” “The Palm Beach Social Pictorial,” “The Boston Photographs,” “Russell Baker,” “The Detroit News,” “The Ontario Bulletin,” “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” “The Making of Theodore H. White,” “Vaginal Politics,” “Miami,” “Reunion,” “Helen Gurley Brown: ‘If You’re a Little Mouseburger, Come with Me …’,” “Dorothy Schiff and the New York Post,” “Dorothy Parker,” “Baking Off,” “Gourmet Magazine,” “A Few Words About Breasts,” “The Mink Coat,” “Fantasies”
Harper’s Bazaar: “I Hate My Purse”
The Huffington Post: “I Just Want to Say: The World Is Not Flat,” “I Just Want to Say: The Egg-White Omelette,” “I Just Want to Say: Teflon,” “The First Annual ‘Tell Us What You’re Cooking This Year for Thanksgiving Dinner That You Didn’t Cook Last Year,’ ” “Hello. By the Way. Whatever.,” “Deep Throat and Me: Now It Can Be Told, and Not for the First Time Either,” “The Curious Incident of the Veep in the Summertime,” “Hooked on Anonymity,” “One Small Blog,” “On Bill Clinton,” “A Million Little Embellishments,” “Scooter, Rosa Lopez, and the Grassy Knoll,” “Reflections on Reading the Results of President Bush’s Annual Physical Examination,” “My Weekend in Vegas,” “O.J. Again,” “Say It Ain’t So, Rupe,” “Melancholy Babies,” “Take My Secretary of State, Please,” “On Being Named Person of the Year,” “Condi’s Diary,” “Some People,” “What Did You Do in the War?” “How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps,” “My Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions,” “Hooked on Hillary,” “White Men,” “It Ought to Be a Word,” “The D Word,” “Christmas Dinner”
I Feel Bad About My Neck: “The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less,” “Parenting in Three Stages,” “What I Wish I’d Known”
I Remember Nothing: “Journalism: A Love Story,” “Lillian Hellman: Pentimento,” “I Remember Nothing,” “The O Word,” “What I Won’t Miss,” “What I Will Miss”
New York Magazine: “Pat Loud: No, But I Read the Book,” “Julie Nixon Eisenhower: The Littlest Nixon,” “The Food Establishment: Life in the Land of the Rising Soufflé (Or Is It the Rising Meringue?)”
The New Yorker: “Lisbeth Salander: The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut,” “Serial Monogamy: A Memoir,” “A Sandwich”
The New York Times: “Me and JFK: Now It Can Be Told,” “The Six Stages of E-mail,” “Revision and Life: Take It from the Top—Again”
O, The Oprah Magazine: “On Maintenance,” “On Rapture”
Rolling Stone: “Jan Morris: Conundrum”
Vogue: “The Legend,” “Considering the Alternative,” “I Feel Bad About My Neck”
Wallflower at the Orgy: “Introduction”
Previously unpublished:
“About Having People to Dinner” “Commencement Address to Wellesley Class of 1996”
Lucky Guy
About the Author
Nora Ephron was an Academy Award-winning screenwriter and film director of When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Julie & Julia. She was also a bestselling novelist (Heartburn, made into a film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep), and journalist. Her last books I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing were both huge international bestsellers. She died in 2012.
BY NORA EPHRON
FICTION
Heartburn
ESSAYS
I Remember Nothing
I Feel Bad About My Neck
Nora Ephron Collected
Scribble Scribble
Crazy Salad
Wallflower at the Orgy
DRAMA
Love, Loss, and What I Wore (with Delia Ephron)
Imaginary Friends
SCREENPLAYS
Julie & Julia
Bewitched (with Delia Ephron)
Hanging Up (with Delia Ephron)
You’ve Got Mail (with Delia Ephron)
Michael (with Jim Quinlan, Pete Dexter, and Delia Ephron)
Mixed Nuts (with Delia Ephron)
Sleepless in Seattle (with David S. Ward and Jeff Arch)
This Is My Life (with Delia Ephron)
My Blue Heaven
When Harry Met Sally …
Cookie (with Alice Arlen)
Heartburn
Silkwood (with Alice Arlen)
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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A Random House Group Company
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First published in Great Britain
in 2014 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © 2013 by the Estate of Nora Ephron
Introduction copyright © 2014 by India Knight
Nora Ephron has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473509184
ISBN 9780857522696 (cased)
ISBN 9780857522689 (tpb)
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