I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron

I suppose everyone who reads Nora Ephron's books comes away wanting to be her friend, catching up over coffee and a nice slice of cake, and I'm no different. I was pleasantly surprised by this collection of essays. One of my favorites was "I Hate My Purse," which I indeed do; Ephron articulates exactly why I can get so annoyed by the accessory:

[A]ny purse that hangs stiffly on your arm ... immobilizes half your body. In a modern world, your arms have to be free. I don't want to get too serious here, but a purse (like a pair of high heels) actually impinges on your mobility. ... If one of your hands is stuck carrying your purse, it means it's not free for all sorts of exciting things you could be using it for, like shoving your way through crowds, throwing your arms around loved ones, climbing the greasy pole to success, and waving madly for taxis.

Wallflower at the Orgy, Nora Ephron

Ephron's collection of essays is a nice introduction to her writing; in the foreword, she explains the importance of critical distance:​

[I]t took me a long time to become comfortable using the first-person singular pronoun in my work. In the articles in this book I used it gingerly ... The work I have done subsequently is considerably more personal and considerably more full of the first-person singular pronoun, but I still believe that the best approach to its use ought to be discomfort. Do you really need it? Does it add something special to the piece? Is what you think interesting enough to make the reader care? Are you saying something that no one has said? Above all, do you understand that you are not as important as what you're covering?​