Bookends: Wit and wisdom

Nora Ephron has a clever solution to a particular social quandary. Whenever she pinches her husband’s arm at a party, it’s their agreed signal for ‘I’ve forgotten the name of this person I have to introduce you to, so give them your name directly and they’ll respond in kind’. Only one problem — his memory is now as bad as hers, so he keeps forgetting what the signal means.

Nora Ephron has a clever solution to a particular social quandary. Whenever she pinches her husband’s arm at a party, it’s their agreed signal for ‘I’ve forgotten the name of this person I have to introduce you to, so give them your name directly and they’ll respond in kind’. Only one problem — his memory is now as bad as hers, so he keeps forgetting what the signal means.

I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections (Doubleday, £12.99) is a collection of short essays distilling the wisdom gained from a lifetime in journalism, screenwriting and three marriages. Ephron is both witty and moving as she examines the perils of old age (‘you take so many pills in the morning you don’t have room for breakfast’), of relationships (because of her children her ‘divorce lasted way longer than the marriage’) and of careers (‘the main thing you learn from a failure is that it’s entirely possible you will have another failure’).

Several essays take the form of reports on everyday sagas — a trip to the cinema, a Christmas dinner, an irritating waiter. There’s a skill in making ‘not much happened’ into engaging prose (a few pages from here Jeremy Clarke is yet again proving the master). A good test of whether you’ll enjoy the way Ephron does it is your opinion of When Harry Met Sally, for which she wrote the screenplay.