{"product_id":"i-remember-nothing-isbn-9780307742803","title":"I Remember Nothing","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER \u003cb\u003e• Here is the beloved, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eI Feel Bad About My Neck \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eat her funniest, wisest, and best\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003etaking a hilarious look at the past and bemoaning the vicissitudes of modern life—and recalling with her signature clarity and wisdom everything she hasn’t (yet) forgotten.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn these pages she takes us from her first job in the mailroom at \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e to the six stages of email, from memories of her parents’ whirlwind dinner parties to her own life now full of Senior Moments (or, as she calls them, Google moments), from her greatest career flops to her most treasured joys. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFilled with insights and observations that instantly ring true, \u003ci\u003eI Remember Nothing\u003c\/i\u003e is a delightful, poignant gift from one of our finest writers.\u003cp\u003e“Fabulous. . . . Masterly. . . . Dazzle[s] you with strings of perfect prose.” –Carolyn See, \u003ci\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Breathlessly funny. . . . Chatty, witty, self-effacing and candid.” —\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Candid, self-deprecating, laser-smart, and hilarious. . . . A master of the jujitsu essay, Ephron leaves us breathless with rueful laughter.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A full pleasure to read.” –\u003ci\u003eNew York Journal of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Delicious. . . . Gleaming with youthful innocence.” –\u003ci\u003eMore Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Tantalizingly fresh and forthright. . . . She’s like Benjamin Franklin or Shakespeare: her words are now part of the fabric of the English language. . . . She’s familiar but funny, boldly outspoken yet simultaneously reassuring.” —Alex Kuczynski, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Breezily funny prose. . . . Candid and hilarious.” —\u003ci\u003eKansas City Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A delightfully succinct and completely hilarious and sometimes poignant collection of essays. . . . A terrific holiday gift for any smart woman, or a fun palette cleanser for your book club.” —Bookreporter\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “The power of these essays often comes from a voice clearly looking back at a riveting life with a clear-eyed wisdom and, at times, twinges of regret.” —Salon\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Classic Ephron: gloriously opinionated—and on target. . . . Ephron sure does know how to tell a story and entertain.” —Heller McAlpin, “Books We Like,” NPR\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Nora Ephron is, in essence, one of the original bloggers—and if everyone could write like her, what a lovely place the Internet would be.” —\u003ci\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A slim, candid, and always witty package of Ephron’s insights.” —\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Candid and witty. . . . Filled with intimate and sometimes shocking details. . . . Ephron shares sage reflections on everything from her love of journalism to growing up in Beverly Hills with alcoholic parents. . . . Ephron has lived life to the fullest, and is not shy about dispensing the intimate details (none of which she seems to have forgotten).” —\u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eJewish Journal Boston North\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “When you start to read her work, you can’t stop. You don’t want to stop. Her writer’s voice is remarkably engaging and fresh.” —\u003ci\u003eBuffalo News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Smart as a tack and funny, funny, funny.” —\u003ci\u003ePress Herald\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Vivid. . . . [An] entertaining collection of stories about her life. . . . She remains the neighbor we all wish we had. Someone to share a cup of coffee with. Or better yet, a glass of wine. Maybe two.” —\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNora Ephron was the author of the bestselling \u003ci\u003eI Feel Bad About My Neck\u003c\/i\u003e as well as \u003ci\u003eHeartburn\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCrazy Salad, Wallflower at the Orgy,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eScribble Scribble\u003c\/i\u003e. She wrote and directed the hit movie \u003ci\u003eJulie \u0026amp; Julia \u003c\/i\u003eand received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for \u003ci\u003eWhen Harry Met Sally. . ., Silkwood\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eSleepless in Seattle\u003c\/i\u003e, which she also directed. Her other credits include the script for the stage hit \u003ci\u003eLove, Loss, and What I Wore\u003c\/i\u003e with Delia Ephron. She died in 2012.\u003ci\u003eI Remember Nothing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have been forgetting things for years—at  least since I was in my thirties. I know this because I wrote something  about it at the time. I have proof. Of course, I can't remember exactly  where I wrote about it, or when, but I could probably hunt it up if I  had to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn my early days of forgetting things, words would slip  away, and names. I did what you normally do when this happens: I  scrolled through a mental dictionary, trying to figure out what letter  the word began with, and how many syllables were involved. Eventually  the lost thing would float back into my head, recaptured. I never took  such lapses as harbingers of doom, or old age, or actual senescence. I  always knew that whatever I'd forgotten was eventually going to come  back to me sooner or later. Once I went to a store to buy a book about  Alzheimer's disease and forgot the name of it. I thought it was funny.  And it was, at the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere's a thing I've never been able to  remember: the title of that movie with Jeremy Irons. The one about Claus  von Bülow. You know the one. All I ever succeeded in remembering was  that it was three words long, and the middle word was \"of.\" For many  years, this did not bother me at all, because no one I knew could ever  think of the title either. One night, eight of us were at the theater  together, and not one of us could retrieve it. Finally, at intermission,  someone went out to the street and Googled it; we were all informed of  the title and we all vowed to remember it forever. For all I know, the  other seven did. I, on the other hand, am back to remembering that it's  three words long with an \"of\" in the middle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the way, when we finally learned the title that night, we all agreed it was a bad title. No wonder we didn't remember it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am going to Google for the name of that movie. Be right back. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's \u003ci\u003eReversal of Fortune\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow is one to remember that title? It has nothing to do with anything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut  here's the point: I have been forgetting things for years, but now I  forget in a new way. I used to believe I could eventually retrieve  whatever was lost and then commit it to memory. Now I know I can't  possibly. Whatever's gone is hopelessly gone. And what's new doesn't  stick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe other night I met a man who informed me that he had a  neurological disorder and couldn't remember the faces of people he'd  met. He said that sometimes he looked at himself in a mirror and had no  idea whom he was looking at. I don't mean to minimize this man's  ailment, which I'm sure is a bona fide syndrome with a long name that's  capitalized, but all I could think was, Welcome to my world. A couple of  years ago, the actor Ryan O'Neal confessed that he'd recently failed to  recognize his own daughter, Tatum, at a funeral and had accidentally  made a pass at her. Everyone was judgmental about this, but not me. A  month earlier, I'd found myself in a mall in Las Vegas when I saw a very  pleasant-looking woman coming toward me, smiling, her arms  outstretched, and I thought, Who is this woman? Where do I know her  from? Then she spoke and I realized it was my sister Amy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou  might think, Well, how was she to know her sister would be in Las Vegas?  I'm sorry to report that not only did I know, but she was the person I  was meeting in the mall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this makes me feel sad, and wistful,  but mostly it makes me feel old. I have many symptoms of old age, aside  from the physical. I occasionally repeat myself. I use the expression,  \"When I was young.\" Often I don't get the joke, although I pretend that I  do. If I go see a play or a movie for a second time, it's as if I didn't see it at all the first time, even if the first time was just recently. I have no idea who anyone in \u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e magazine is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI used to think my problem was that my disk was full; now I'm forced to conclude that the opposite is true: it's becoming empty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have not yet reached the nadir of old age, the Land of Anecdote, but I'm approaching it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  know, I know, I should have kept a journal. I should have saved the  love letters. I should have taken a storage room somewhere in Long  Island City for all the papers I thought I'd never need to look at  again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I didn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd sometimes I'm forced to conclude that I remember nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor  example: I met Eleanor Roosevelt. It was June 1961, and I was on my way  to a political internship at the Kennedy White House. All the  Wellesley\/Vassar interns drove to Hyde Park to meet the former first  lady. I was dying to meet her. I'd grown up with a photograph in our den  of her standing with my parents backstage at a play they'd written. My  mother was wearing a corsage and Eleanor wore pearls. It was a  photograph I always thought of as iconic, if I'm using the word  correctly, which, if I am, it will be for the first time. We were among  the thousands of Americans (mostly Jews) who had dens, and, in their  dens, photos of Eleanor Roosevelt. I idolized the woman. I couldn't  believe I was going to be in the same room with her. So what was she  like that day in Hyde Park, you may wonder. I HAVE NO IDEA. I can't  remember what she said or what she wore; I can barely summon up a mental  picture of the room where we met her, although I have a very vague  memory of drapes. But here's what I do remember: I got lost on the way.  And ever since, every time I've been on the Taconic State Parkway, I'm  reminded that I got lost there on the way to meet Eleanor Roosevelt. But  I don't remember a thing about Eleanor Roosevelt herself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  1964 the Beatles came to New York for the first time. I was a newspaper  reporter and I was sent to the airport to cover their arrival. It was a  Friday. I spent the weekend following them around. Sunday night they  appeared on \u003ci\u003eThe Ed Sullivan Show\u003c\/i\u003e. You could make an argument that  the sixties began that night, on \u003ci\u003eThe Ed Sullivan Show\u003c\/i\u003e. It was a  historic night. I was there. I stood in the back of the Ed Sullivan  Theater and watched. I remember how amazingly obnoxious the fans  were-the teenage girls who screamed and yelled and behaved like idiots.  But how were the Beatles, you may ask. Well, you are asking the wrong  person. I could barely hear them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI marched on Washington to  protest the war in Vietnam. This was in 1967, and it was the most  significant event of the antiwar movement. Thousands and thousands of  people were there. I went with a lawyer I was dating. We spent most of  the day in a hotel room having sex. I am not proud of this, but I  mention it because it explains why I honestly cannot remember anything  about the protest, including whether I ever even got to the Pentagon. I  don't think I did. I don't think I've ever been to the Pentagon. But I  wouldn't bet a nickel on it one way or the other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNorman Mailer  wrote an entire book about this march, called \u003ci\u003eThe Armies of the Night\u003c\/i\u003e.  It was 562 pages long. It won the Pulitzer Prize. And I can barely write  two paragraphs about it. If you knew Norman Mailer and me and were  asked to guess which of us cared more about sex, you would, of course,  pick Norman Mailer. How wrong you would be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere are some people I met that I remember nothing about:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJustice Hugo Black\u003cbr\u003eEthel Merman\u003cbr\u003eJimmy Stewart\u003cbr\u003eAlger Hiss\u003cbr\u003eSenator Hubert Humphrey\u003cbr\u003eCary Grant\u003cbr\u003eBenny Goodman\u003cbr\u003ePeter Ustinov\u003cbr\u003eHarry Kurnitz\u003cbr\u003eGeorge Abbott\u003cbr\u003eDorothy Parker\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to the Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King tennis match and couldn't really see anything from where I was sitting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  went to stand in front of the White House the night Nixon resigned and  here's what I have to tell you about it: my wallet was stolen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  went to many legendary rock concerts and spent them wondering when they  would end and where we would eat afterward and whether the restaurant  would still be open and what I would order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to at least  one hundred Knicks games and I remember only the night that Reggie  Miller scored eight points in the last nine seconds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went to cover the war in Israel in l973 but my therapist absolutely forbid me to go to the front.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was not at Woodstock, but I might as well have been because I wouldn't remember it anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn some level, my life has been wasted on me. After all, if I can't remember it, who can?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  past is slipping away and the present is a constant affront. I can't  possibly keep up. When I was younger, I managed to overcome my  resistance to new things. After a short period of negativity, I flung  myself at the Cuisinart food processor. I was curious about technology. I  became a champion of e-mail and blogs—I found them romantic; I even  made movies about them. But now I believe that almost anything new has  been put on the earth in order to make me feel bad about my dwindling  memory, and I've erected a wall to protect myself from most of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn  the other side of that wall are many things, pinging. For the most part  I pay no attention. For a long time, I didn't know the difference  between the Sunnis and the Shias, but there were so many pings I was  finally forced to learn. But I can't help wondering, Why did I bother?  Wasn't it enough to know they didn't like each other? And in any case, I  have now forgotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt this moment, some of the things I'm refusing to know anything about include:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe former Soviet republics\u003cbr\u003eThe Kardashians\u003cbr\u003eTwitter\u003cbr\u003eAll Housewives, Survivors, American Idols, and Bachelors\u003cbr\u003eKarzai's brother\u003cbr\u003eSoccer\u003cbr\u003eMonkfish\u003cbr\u003eJay-Z\u003cbr\u003eEvery drink invented since the Cosmopolitan\u003cbr\u003eEspecially the drink made with crushed mint leaves. You know the one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am going to Google the name of that drink. Be right back. . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Mojito.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  am living in the Google years, no question of that. And there are  advantages to it. When you forget something, you can whip out your  iPhone and go to Google. The Senior Moment has become the Google moment,  and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound,  doesn't it? By handling the obligations of the search mechanism, you  almost prove you can keep up. You can delude yourself that no one at the  table thinks of you as a geezer. And finding the missing bit is so  quick. There's none of the nightmare of the true Senior Moment-the long  search for the answer, the guessing, the self- recrimination, the  head-slapping mystification, the frustrated finger-snapping. You just  go to Google and retrieve it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou can't retrieve your life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut  you can retrieve the name of that actor who was in that movie, the one  about World War II. And the name of that writer who wrote that book, the  one about her affair with that painter. Or the name of that song that  was sung by that singer, the one about love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou know the one.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305272496357,"sku":"NP9780307742803","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307742803.jpg?v=1767729698","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/i-remember-nothing-isbn-9780307742803","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}