Although Nora Ephron died in 2012, her work is very much alive, as are new ways of thinking about her. This 2022 biography by Kristin Marguerite Doidge, is a reader-friendly outgrowth of her master’s thesis. It pays close attention to Ephron's writing and films. Yes, there’s information about her life, but it’s not at the forefront.
Instead, we get fascinating behind the scenes glimpses of Ephron’s filmmaking. Under 300 pages, the book includes black-and-white photographs, endnotes, sources, and an index. Doidge is a faculty member in journalism at Loyola Marymount University; her talent for interviewing shines in this work.
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There’s no end of clever retellings of classics, from Shakespeare to Austen. The novel By the Book by Julia Sonneborn is an example of the latter. If you like Persuasion, you may enjoy this modern version, set in academe at a lovely, small college in California.
Anne Corey, our heroine, is struggling to get a book published so she can have her three-year contract changed to a tenure track position. But that’s not troubles enough; the new college president is her former fiancé, with whom she’s had no contact for ten years. Piling on the drama is her consulting work on a vampire movie about Jane Eyre with a gorgeous man married to a friend of her sister but having an affair with Anne’s colleague and good friend, Larry. He’s a Henry James queen who never reads anything published after 1920. Just for spice, conflicts with her sister and an aging father to care for are sprinkled into the plot. Delia Ephron—whom you likely know from her collaborations with her sister Nora—has written a memoir of illness, loss, love, and second chances at life. The title comes from the location of her Greenwich Village home; one must turn left onto Tenth Street, a one-way street. I devoured this book is two days, because it’s wonderful. Full disclosure: structurally, it’s an overstuffed sandwich, with the middle half all about Ephron’s struggles with recurring leukemia. The bread on either side concerns a bit of her history and falling in love again, then her return to full health after (brutal) treatment. Lots of texts and emails throughout.
Gmorning, Gnight: Little pep talks for me & you
by Lin-Manuel Miranda and illustrated by Jonny Sun For you, holding this reads the dedication of these 200 pages affirming the goodness of the world and the wonder of each of us. Like its author, the book is sweet. (I’m sure the man has his moments, but in every public appearance I’ve seen only the sweet guy.) It’s a collection of his Twitter greetings, published in book form in 2018 (not a Twitter person, so I missed them). Some are rhymed, some are not. Some night tweets are nearly the same as the morning tweets. I read the whole thing in a few hours, which is not the point, I know. This would be a good book to have on your nightstand for opening and closing thoughts for the day. It would also make a good gift. The heavy pen-and-ink line drawings are charming, too, most often simple, but sometimes very complex. Happy Labor Day weekend! For some of you, that may mean putting together a giant puzzle. Or maybe just reading about puzzles. A. J. Jacobs has published another charming book this year, The Puzzler, detailing his adventures in the many-faceted world of puzzles. Even though I don’t like puzzles or crosswords or sudoku, I will read anything Jacobs writes. He’s got a quirky mind and he’s a good writer. Some of his other several self-improvement books include The Year of Living Biblically and The Know-it-all: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. In these, he chronicles his efforts at following the Old Testament rules for Jews and reading the Encyclopedia Britannica in a year. I also enjoyed Thanks a Thousand, in which he traces all the people it took to get his morning cup of coffee. |
What I’m ReadingI began working in libraries as a seventh grader, courtesy of scoliosis. My orthopedic surgeon wrote me a pass to miss gym class, so I began working in the school library to feed my love of reading. Even after my surgery to correct the curvature, I kept getting out of gym to work in my high school library and then in my college library (for pay, at last!).
So began my eventual career as a college reference librarian—after a detour into teaching high school English. Later I worked for an educational publisher before going back to libraries.
I have a reading and writing life now. I devour both fiction and nonfiction, and will tell you about some of my favorite reads, both old friends and new discoveries.
Here's some library-themed music to get you in the mood.
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