What do you think?
Rate this book
Loose Diamonds ...and other things I've lost (and found) along the way
In Loose Diamonds , an engaging collection of essays and observations, Amy Ephron, the acclaimed, award-winning author of the One Sunday Morning and A Cup of Tea , paints a rich, vivid, and comic portrait of modern living from a modern woman’s perspective. Fans of the writings of Amy Sedaris and Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem will enjoy Ephron’s funny, incisive take on the intricate weave of a woman’s world.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 2011
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
October 4, 2012
really excited that my paperback of Loose Diamonds is publishing tomorrow, September 4th.
Added a new story "Secrets" and an interactive really fun reader's group guide, that I spent
way too much time on.
Yeah, yeah, I know I wrote it, but I love this book.
Added a new story "Secrets" and an interactive really fun reader's group guide, that I spent
way too much time on.
Yeah, yeah, I know I wrote it, but I love this book.
September 8, 2011
I was intrigued by the idea of this book and found her writing style to be enjoyable. I would try one of her novels, but this memoir/short stories did not do it for me. It was like meeting someone at a party or on a plane and enjoying the first few moments of conversation only to realize that now you were stuck and they were going to keep talking for the rest of the flight. You now know about too many personal stories, broken relationships, eccentric friends, and anything else that there is time to tell you about. I didn't relate to any of it (except for her love of jewelry) and couldn't care about it much either.
May 31, 2012
I loved this book. Reading it became a bit of a voyage of discovery, when what i thought was a loose collection of well written became quite a bit more. Reminded me of when I read In Our Time thinking it was just a collection of short stories. Highly recommended, especially for my male peers.
September 15, 2011
Won this on the First Reads Giveaway. It sounds very fun and interesting.
Loose Diamonds is a scathing critique of the dregs of the American ultra-rich. The narrator character is a truly despicable woman who tells disjointed stories about her life unveiling the reality that she has failed every in part of her life; romance, friends, parenting, and self improvement. Through stories of opulence, name dropping, and self indulgence, the narrator is able to, on the one hand, paint a picture of glamour and celebrity while one the other hand degrade the ideas she claims to hold. The cowardice of the narrator character, which leads to her repeated abuse, does not find her voice when she is raped, cheated on by her husband (with the whole neighborhood), assaulted by the vehicle of her "friend", asking about a neighbor who died, in a relationship with a heroine addict, or when her 20-something children have a fistfight over a pickle at a family gathering.
The side story that really captured the hollowness of celebrity Hollywood was the one where the narrator's, Amy, husband is committing adultery with her friends and she is losing control of basic needs like safety. She then tells of her other worldly powers of extra sensory perception and telekinesis. She is able to move house keys across the room with the power of her mind without much effort, but is completely unable to set basic limits with her cheating husband.
There were no redeeming qualities of this vapid shell of a woman who had been given every advantage and privilege offered to the ultra rich. Be warned that reading this book will make you want to shake the narrator out of her hollow meaningless life and into some sort of productive efforts with all of her resources and energies.
Loose Diamonds is a scathing critique of the dregs of the American ultra-rich. The narrator character is a truly despicable woman who tells disjointed stories about her life unveiling the reality that she has failed every in part of her life; romance, friends, parenting, and self improvement. Through stories of opulence, name dropping, and self indulgence, the narrator is able to, on the one hand, paint a picture of glamour and celebrity while one the other hand degrade the ideas she claims to hold. The cowardice of the narrator character, which leads to her repeated abuse, does not find her voice when she is raped, cheated on by her husband (with the whole neighborhood), assaulted by the vehicle of her "friend", asking about a neighbor who died, in a relationship with a heroine addict, or when her 20-something children have a fistfight over a pickle at a family gathering.
The side story that really captured the hollowness of celebrity Hollywood was the one where the narrator's, Amy, husband is committing adultery with her friends and she is losing control of basic needs like safety. She then tells of her other worldly powers of extra sensory perception and telekinesis. She is able to move house keys across the room with the power of her mind without much effort, but is completely unable to set basic limits with her cheating husband.
There were no redeeming qualities of this vapid shell of a woman who had been given every advantage and privilege offered to the ultra rich. Be warned that reading this book will make you want to shake the narrator out of her hollow meaningless life and into some sort of productive efforts with all of her resources and energies.
November 15, 2011
I loved Loose Diamonds. It was too short. Or was it? For me, the essays, most only a few pages long, sparkle like loose diamonds. The topics are varied, but, instead of the virtual dump of material that so many collections seem to suffer from, every chapter in Loose Diamonds is a gem. There’s a maturity in each piece that allows this volume to be many things; charming, touching, humorous, ironic, and the list goes on. Found a great online interview also that gives some backstory. At about 160 pages in eighteen chapters, Loose Diamonds is a great weekend read. [return][return]The only bit that puzzled me was a blurb in the front jacket cover that says, in part, “And through it all is Ephron’s mother, whose perspectives on everything-from shoes to egg cups-pervade this book, and whose alcoholism was a constant challenge, forcing Ephron out on her own at an early age.” While those may be the “facts” of Ephron’s relationship with her mother, I would disagree that these issues “pervade” Loose Diamonds, much to Ephron’s credit. This is not at ALL a “woe-is-me, I survived alcoholic parents” offering, and I hate to think that Harper Collins is grabbing for that over-saturated market with the jacket statement.
August 1, 2011
I won this book through BookBrowse and I am reviewing it. This book is filled with little stories and musings of things that have happened in the author's life. A lot of people will probably find them entertaining and clever, just not me. The writing is pretty good and each story is fairly interesting and some are humorous. It is like reading a bunch of newspaper columns that have some interest, but not much feeling or intrigue, and not much information. I was disappointed in the "Afternoon with Squeaky Fromme", which doesn't really amount to much of anything, except how creepy she felt it was to be there so soon after the Manson/Tate murders. I know I enjoyed some of these a little bit, but I would rather read one every day with the morning paper than try to read them all at once since I can't really remember any particular one. They are definitely not like reading a collection of quality short stories.
August 16, 2011
it feels slight and then when you finish it, it feels like something more than that.
The author keeps period in all the pieces. When she writes about the '70s it's as if you're there.
Champagne by the Case reminds me a bit of Truman Capote, or like a piece he could have written if he'd known those women and lived in L.A. at the time. The Squeaky Fromme piece is spooky...
And then she grows up, it's almost aspects of a woman's life. The Post Modern Life piece (sadly)
reminds me of the blended family I gained (happily, although it was not without complications)
when I married my third husband who I am still happily married to now. And our children have sort of adjusted. I remember the shoes I had when I was in the first grade. And it stayed with me
after I'd finished it. And made me want to read it again. Recommended for womens' book clubs.
The author keeps period in all the pieces. When she writes about the '70s it's as if you're there.
Champagne by the Case reminds me a bit of Truman Capote, or like a piece he could have written if he'd known those women and lived in L.A. at the time. The Squeaky Fromme piece is spooky...
And then she grows up, it's almost aspects of a woman's life. The Post Modern Life piece (sadly)
reminds me of the blended family I gained (happily, although it was not without complications)
when I married my third husband who I am still happily married to now. And our children have sort of adjusted. I remember the shoes I had when I was in the first grade. And it stayed with me
after I'd finished it. And made me want to read it again. Recommended for womens' book clubs.
November 21, 2012
Loose Diamonds is one of those books that make you feel like you have a relationship with the author… that you somehow really know her and might get together soon for lunch. Amy Ephron generously dares to share wisdom gained while navigating life as a woman, writer, wife, mother and friend. She doesn’t back down from the gravity of divorce, date rape, burglary or potential terrorism, yet manages to spin personal tales of both her working life and private life that, while heartbreaking, disappointing or even scary, are in no way maudlin or self-pitying. In fact, Ephron makes us laugh with her self-deprecating humor. For example, her disclaimer, 'I’ve been known to make generalizations based a case study of four" (me too!) and, later, in a sort of-but-not-quite Fatal Attraction-type encounter in the school carpool lane with her (almost ex-) husband’s current flame. For the record, Amy was not the Glenn Close character here.
One of the really nice things about Loose Diamonds is Ephron’s illustration of connections to the past—childhood memories of a neighborhood birdman and the way her mother kept the sugar substitute in a silver box from Tiffany’s. Those nostalgic bits don’t have a trace of sap and they get the reader contemplating his or her own eccentric neighbors and parental quirks. And that brings me back to that concept of relationship… that I, as a reader, now know these things about Amy Ephron which she has graciously bestowed.
As a newcomer to LA, I was especially gratified by her love of a city that I am coming to love, as well. If I had to pick only one word to describe Amy Ephron based on my 166-page encounter, it would be “authentic”: straightforward but in no way boring, funny without trying too hard, open with no suspicion of bullshit. Plus, I suspect she’s darn loyal to her family and friends. Can’t wait to read more.
One of the really nice things about Loose Diamonds is Ephron’s illustration of connections to the past—childhood memories of a neighborhood birdman and the way her mother kept the sugar substitute in a silver box from Tiffany’s. Those nostalgic bits don’t have a trace of sap and they get the reader contemplating his or her own eccentric neighbors and parental quirks. And that brings me back to that concept of relationship… that I, as a reader, now know these things about Amy Ephron which she has graciously bestowed.
As a newcomer to LA, I was especially gratified by her love of a city that I am coming to love, as well. If I had to pick only one word to describe Amy Ephron based on my 166-page encounter, it would be “authentic”: straightforward but in no way boring, funny without trying too hard, open with no suspicion of bullshit. Plus, I suspect she’s darn loyal to her family and friends. Can’t wait to read more.
September 10, 2011
I received a free copy of
Loose Diamonds
from the Goodreads First Reads program. I'd read several complex and serious books in the week before I received it, so I was greatly looking forward to a nice, light read. It certainly was light but I wouldn't describe it as nice.
Ms. Ephron isn't a bad writer and I feel pretty confident that if she found some interesting material she could do something with it, but these essays were all about really mundane topics. Most of them centered around some seriously first world problems that I couldn't really relate to, like buyer's remorse over a pair of boots and having her expensive jewelry stolen.
I also found her word choices to be confusing and a bit jarring at times. I couldn't tell you how many times she started sentences with some variation of, “I remember the time..”. The fact that she's writing a book of essays about things that have happened to her should pretty well imply that she does indeed 'remember the time'.
When I see a published book of essays, I expect to see finely tuned essays that impact the reader in some way, whether they be funny, moving or thoughtful. These felt more like reading the watered down blog of a soccer mom. Perhaps they would be interesting if you knew her but to this causal reader they were quite dull.
Ms. Ephron isn't a bad writer and I feel pretty confident that if she found some interesting material she could do something with it, but these essays were all about really mundane topics. Most of them centered around some seriously first world problems that I couldn't really relate to, like buyer's remorse over a pair of boots and having her expensive jewelry stolen.
I also found her word choices to be confusing and a bit jarring at times. I couldn't tell you how many times she started sentences with some variation of, “I remember the time..”. The fact that she's writing a book of essays about things that have happened to her should pretty well imply that she does indeed 'remember the time'.
When I see a published book of essays, I expect to see finely tuned essays that impact the reader in some way, whether they be funny, moving or thoughtful. These felt more like reading the watered down blog of a soccer mom. Perhaps they would be interesting if you knew her but to this causal reader they were quite dull.
February 12, 2017
A book of essays loosely tied together. If you don't pay attention, you'll forget who the authors ex-husband is and who her current husband is. There is a chain that links stories together, and the Bird Man of an early gets referenced later on, as one example, so I was glad I read the essays together, one after another. The author comes from a entire family of writers, pay attention and you'll figure it out, I think she was destined to write whether she wanted to or not.
November 1, 2011
I couldn't finish this book. I had read an excerpt of it in the NY Times Magazine and found it interesting enough to pick up the book, but I had no idea what it was that I was picking up. I thought the excerpt had been part of a larger, cohesive piece, but it wasn't. Rather, it was a collection of random thoughts and ramblings. I'm guessing the author is referring to each of these as a diamond in her title, but more like Loose Rubbish. Really bad.
January 8, 2012
I was a little disappointed by this book. I guess I expected the writing to be the same as Nora Ephron's. It's not. I also expected this to be a novel. It's not. I kept picking it up and then putting it back down. I never really felt compelled to get back to it after reading a few pages. I was never really sure what it was about. The stories are okay, and sometimes a chuckle would sneak up on me, but overall, if you don't read it, you won't be missing anything.
May 8, 2013
Great collection of short stories. Wonderful sense of humor and an approach that is so self effacing you can't help but be drawn into her life and decisions.
I read one of her novels and am delighted I picked this up as well.
I read one of her novels and am delighted I picked this up as well.
May 11, 2013
Laugh out loud funny. Great short stories.
April 23, 2014
A fun collection of quirky and insightful snippets from the life of an interesting woman. Always a fan of autobiographies that feel genuine.
May 25, 2012
The short piece, "Egg Cups" is my mother. This is exactly how I was raised.
February 24, 2019
Stumbled on this little “gem” at my favorite used bookstore. Hardback, first edition, dust jacket in mint condition - if only it were autographed, even to someone other than me - and tore through it until the halfway mark when I realized I didn’t want to finish it quickly (or at all) so I purposefully slowed down to savor it. Funny, smart, poignant, it’s all these things in addition to a peek into the life of one of the famous Ephrons, sort of how the other half lives, although I suspect she is the other half of her family. I loved these stories. I loved her honesty and self deprecation, all while being incredibly self-aware. This marks the third Ephron in my book collection, to add to books by sisters Nora and Delia. I see little pieces of myself in all their stories, which is what I think is their true talent.
January 3, 2020
I'm not as familiar with Amy's body of work, which did make me feel like I was trying to follow the conversations at a high school reunion for a school I didn't attended. However, her writing style is very warm and engaging so I devoured it all in one sitting on the plane. I also learned a lot about the Manson family!
June 6, 2018
Excellent memoirs of Ephron’s fascinating life. She introduces us to people we know of, Squeaky Fromme, and George Plimpton, but would probably never meet, and her family & friends. She writes of romance, marriage, parents, parenting, and letting go, or not. Informative little read.
June 13, 2018
Good writer. But I just can't relate. I should have known with the first chapter on jewelry (a subject which makes me yawn). So I'm moving on.
March 20, 2019
Cute stories and easy to get into.
September 16, 2019
Enjoyable enough. 3.5
December 17, 2019
if you enjoy the late Nora Ephron or their sister Dehlia’s writing you will see similarities in style and humor. Amy does write in a observational, funny style.
December 3, 2020
I found this little book of essays "just ok". Some were mildly entertaining, others held so little interest that I found my mind wandering. In my opinion, not worth your time.
June 12, 2012
Amy Ephron’s captivating new book, “Loose Diamonds … and other things I’ve lost (and found) along the way” (William Morrow, $19.99), is a deliciously honest account of Ephron’s life experiences, wonderful vignettes that, to borrow her own words, are akin to “sparkling stones that I imagine come wrapped in a velvet cloth.” Each chapter is an unexpected gift, a glimpse into the life of a beloved author. We are enchanted by the Birdman, an exotic character with a magical aviary, who seems to have stepped out of a Harry Potter novel. His parrots “communicated in a language of their own.” And who knew that Ephron is a recovering psychic? The revelation is relayed with light-hearted humor, yet the reality of her psychic experiences is undeniable. She predicts “a burglary, an earthquake, and somehow psychically known that my old boyfriend’s father had passed away the day before….” Her stare has the power to make a key fly “straight up into the air out of the lock….”
Did Ephron really pay a visit to Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, “one of Charlie Mason’s followers,” at the Spahn Ranch “where the residual members of ‘The Family’ still lived”? She certainly did. If a chill doesn’t scurry up, or down, your spine at the recalled images of a naïve 19-year-old Ephron out in the middle of the hot, sand-blown desert in that spooky skeleton of a ranch in 1971 to cover Manson’s “circus-like trial,” then something is wrong with you!
Ephron is a master at evoking a strong sense of time and place. During the ’70s and ’80s “The climate was too loose, too experimental, too trusting … people were bringing strangers home off the streets….”
How times have changed!
Our own personal experiences resound in every familial event, rendered with disarming intimacy. There’s a second marriage to Alan, an attorney, with children of his own. Few among us “post-modern” families have not had to deal with messy divorces, a bitter ex-wife or ex-husband, the intricate politics of second marriages with two sets of children. And few of us have not been disillusioned by the shattering of our initial optimism to make everything work, hoping everything would turn out just fine if we invite “everyone to Thanksgiving dinner.” But, Ephron reminds us in one of her many wise asides, if you harbor a dream of turning such a family “into one happy, albeit dysfunctional family, you’re probably kidding yourself.”
There’s the mystery of Ephron’s house that seems to be struck every other December by disaster. Yes, it’s true. A tractor miraculously misses the house, an electrical fire is snuffed out in time, and “There’d been an epidemic of burglaries in LA.” Ephron’s jewelry is gone, which is bad enough until you learn that her computer is gone too! The attempt to find the thief, the robbed jewelry, and especially the invaluable computer, is worthy of a dramatic movie. And there’s the Middle Eastern passenger who states that the plane she is about to embark on will explode, and the matter of her indispensable Filofax, and her boy friend in San Francisco, and her love affair with Saks Fifth Avenue, and the problem of the “other writer” who threatens to …. well, you will find out!
Ah! How we love to be allowed a peep into the intimate life of a brilliant author, to become unabashed voyeurs. And Ephron, well aware of this inherent human need, accommodates with deep wisdom, marvelously sharp prose and her own beguiling brand of humor.
Dora Levy Mossanen, author of the historical novels “Harem” and “Courtesan,” is a frequent contributor of book reviews to The Jewish Journal.
Did Ephron really pay a visit to Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, “one of Charlie Mason’s followers,” at the Spahn Ranch “where the residual members of ‘The Family’ still lived”? She certainly did. If a chill doesn’t scurry up, or down, your spine at the recalled images of a naïve 19-year-old Ephron out in the middle of the hot, sand-blown desert in that spooky skeleton of a ranch in 1971 to cover Manson’s “circus-like trial,” then something is wrong with you!
Ephron is a master at evoking a strong sense of time and place. During the ’70s and ’80s “The climate was too loose, too experimental, too trusting … people were bringing strangers home off the streets….”
How times have changed!
Our own personal experiences resound in every familial event, rendered with disarming intimacy. There’s a second marriage to Alan, an attorney, with children of his own. Few among us “post-modern” families have not had to deal with messy divorces, a bitter ex-wife or ex-husband, the intricate politics of second marriages with two sets of children. And few of us have not been disillusioned by the shattering of our initial optimism to make everything work, hoping everything would turn out just fine if we invite “everyone to Thanksgiving dinner.” But, Ephron reminds us in one of her many wise asides, if you harbor a dream of turning such a family “into one happy, albeit dysfunctional family, you’re probably kidding yourself.”
There’s the mystery of Ephron’s house that seems to be struck every other December by disaster. Yes, it’s true. A tractor miraculously misses the house, an electrical fire is snuffed out in time, and “There’d been an epidemic of burglaries in LA.” Ephron’s jewelry is gone, which is bad enough until you learn that her computer is gone too! The attempt to find the thief, the robbed jewelry, and especially the invaluable computer, is worthy of a dramatic movie. And there’s the Middle Eastern passenger who states that the plane she is about to embark on will explode, and the matter of her indispensable Filofax, and her boy friend in San Francisco, and her love affair with Saks Fifth Avenue, and the problem of the “other writer” who threatens to …. well, you will find out!
Ah! How we love to be allowed a peep into the intimate life of a brilliant author, to become unabashed voyeurs. And Ephron, well aware of this inherent human need, accommodates with deep wisdom, marvelously sharp prose and her own beguiling brand of humor.
Dora Levy Mossanen, author of the historical novels “Harem” and “Courtesan,” is a frequent contributor of book reviews to The Jewish Journal.
April 4, 2015
Certainly the Ephron family grew up unlike many other families but also like many families in Hollywood. Creative. Eccentric. Domestic help. Private schools. When Amy Ephron had her own family she also had help raising her children and sent them off to various private schools. Amy wrote two charming historical novels that I recommend as often as possible, A Cup of Tea and One Sunday Morning.
In this delightful collection of essays, Amy Ephron shares her deft observations about a multitude of subjects including her childhood, her mother, giving birth, fancy shoes, shopping (particularly at Saks), affairs, flying, her first marriage, divorce and her second marriage. She loses things—sometimes objects, sometimes relationships, sometimes emotional states-- and through heartfelt, witty, insightful and clever means, she explains to the reader how she’s learned from those losses. It’s a sparkling memoir.
A burglar steals jewelry from Ephron’s home in “Loose Diamonds.” Much of it irreplaceable antiques. Ephron admits she doesn’t wear it often but had maybe planned to pass some along to her children. Since she kept it locked in a safe and rarely wore the pieces, she re-evaluates its necessity. The startling premature birth of her daughter Maia centers the sweet, darling essay “Labor Day” – “I looked at Maia in her little wicker basket in our little house in Laurel Canyon and I realized that I couldn’t leave. . . I realized I wasn’t going to be able to leave for something like the next 21 years, not in any substantive way anyway.” Can you imagine if you separate from your husband and he proceeds to sleep with most of the mothers in your son’s elementary school class? Yes. This happened to Ephron and she tells-all in “Musical Chairs.” She’s tipped off when a strangely jealous mom rear-ends her at pick-up time. Two years after her divorce she remarries and writes honestly in “Post-Modern Life” how “families meld, change, grow, have spats, meltdowns, blowups, periods of time when they don’t speak and periods when they’re incredibly cozy, envy morphs into support or vice versa (particularly if the siblings are close in age).” My favorite might be the apropos newest essay added to the paperback edition “The Best Kept Secrets” in which Ephron ponders secrets and whether affairs must become public knowledge or not. Can a kiss be just a kiss?
In this delightful collection of essays, Amy Ephron shares her deft observations about a multitude of subjects including her childhood, her mother, giving birth, fancy shoes, shopping (particularly at Saks), affairs, flying, her first marriage, divorce and her second marriage. She loses things—sometimes objects, sometimes relationships, sometimes emotional states-- and through heartfelt, witty, insightful and clever means, she explains to the reader how she’s learned from those losses. It’s a sparkling memoir.
A burglar steals jewelry from Ephron’s home in “Loose Diamonds.” Much of it irreplaceable antiques. Ephron admits she doesn’t wear it often but had maybe planned to pass some along to her children. Since she kept it locked in a safe and rarely wore the pieces, she re-evaluates its necessity. The startling premature birth of her daughter Maia centers the sweet, darling essay “Labor Day” – “I looked at Maia in her little wicker basket in our little house in Laurel Canyon and I realized that I couldn’t leave. . . I realized I wasn’t going to be able to leave for something like the next 21 years, not in any substantive way anyway.” Can you imagine if you separate from your husband and he proceeds to sleep with most of the mothers in your son’s elementary school class? Yes. This happened to Ephron and she tells-all in “Musical Chairs.” She’s tipped off when a strangely jealous mom rear-ends her at pick-up time. Two years after her divorce she remarries and writes honestly in “Post-Modern Life” how “families meld, change, grow, have spats, meltdowns, blowups, periods of time when they don’t speak and periods when they’re incredibly cozy, envy morphs into support or vice versa (particularly if the siblings are close in age).” My favorite might be the apropos newest essay added to the paperback edition “The Best Kept Secrets” in which Ephron ponders secrets and whether affairs must become public knowledge or not. Can a kiss be just a kiss?
October 23, 2011
This book is just what I needed after finishing a long classic novel. It's Amy Ephron's collection of memories of her life. You may know her from her articles in pretigious magazines and her previous books.
Ephron has a delightful sense of humor. She reminds me of a former neighbor who could go in her van to pick up a new chair she had ordered, and come home with a story about the experience that would have the neighborhood in hysterics. Ephron once pulled into a parking space in front of her son's school only to have a Mercedes rear end her - twice. The driver was another mother who had been dating (and dumped by) Ephron's ex-husband. Ephron could only assume she was taking it out on her for divorcing him and setting him loose among the women of the world.
She also writes very movingly about her mother, a woman who kept up appearances even while falling apart. The day Ephron's first child was born is touching even though it turned into a surreal scene in the ICU with Elizabeth Taylor's daughter-in-law screaming in labor across the aisle. The dog (yes, in the ICU) kept barking, the assistant's mobile phone kept ringing, and the mother-to-be sat up and waved merrily in between contractions. It's hilarious.
This short book should cheer up anyone. I read it in one day when we were running errands and I was often in the car waiting for my husband. Lots of fun. I do recommend it.
Ephron has a delightful sense of humor. She reminds me of a former neighbor who could go in her van to pick up a new chair she had ordered, and come home with a story about the experience that would have the neighborhood in hysterics. Ephron once pulled into a parking space in front of her son's school only to have a Mercedes rear end her - twice. The driver was another mother who had been dating (and dumped by) Ephron's ex-husband. Ephron could only assume she was taking it out on her for divorcing him and setting him loose among the women of the world.
She also writes very movingly about her mother, a woman who kept up appearances even while falling apart. The day Ephron's first child was born is touching even though it turned into a surreal scene in the ICU with Elizabeth Taylor's daughter-in-law screaming in labor across the aisle. The dog (yes, in the ICU) kept barking, the assistant's mobile phone kept ringing, and the mother-to-be sat up and waved merrily in between contractions. It's hilarious.
This short book should cheer up anyone. I read it in one day when we were running errands and I was often in the car waiting for my husband. Lots of fun. I do recommend it.
September 23, 2011
This was a book I won from a Goodreads giveaway, and I'm so glad I did! It is a treasure of a book simply yet profoundly written about Amy Ephron's personal experiences in all phases of her life. I started on page one knowing little about her and when I had finished I felt like we could be the best of friends. Her stories are so sweetly written that you feel you are sitting at the kitchen table over coffee hearing the little vignettes that make people interesting, vulnerable, human, funny and likeable. As I finished the book, I so wanted to be the friend she was terribly fond of, who is the right height (and age) and shoe size, with the attitude to be able to pull off the boots that are sitting in her closet, the result of an unreturnable shopping "mistake". If you are a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter - you will find at least one story in here that speaks to you. I found many. Thanks for the truly enjoyable read! I enjoyed my first exposure to her writing enough that I am venturing into her novel "A Cup of Tea" next.
November 20, 2011
Loose Diamonds is a short little book of observations on life by the sister of better-known Nora Ephron. While Ephron's life has been something beyond what most Americans experience, some of her reflections are still relatable. For example, when a friend gives Ephron a piece of her own family jewelry after Ephron loses her own inherited pieces, she muses, "I wear it all the time now, like a piece of armor on my wrist. And I hold on to a time when jewelry was passed down and small trinkets were treasured and garden gates were left unlatched and probably, if we'd tried it (although we never would), the glass door to the patio had been left open, too." Other parts of the book, however, are a little more disturbing: "But it's always a bad sign when the help starts misbehaving." Really? I am not sure if these quips were meant to be funny or not, but it didn't all sit well with me (or many other readers, for that matter). Still, the chapters are short, the pace is quick and easy, and most of Ephron's dry humor is, bluntly, funny.
February 14, 2014
A series of essays that together weave a word tapesty incorporating events from Amy Ephron's life from her childhood, single young adulthood years, marriage, childbirth and child-rearing, divorce, and second marriage. She explores problems such as her mother's mental illness (briefly mentioned and not explored), her separated husband's serial dating of women she knows, and the problems of blending families and children in second marriages. She writes about broken friendships and relationships along the way, about reporting a suspected terrorist to the crew of an airplane getting ready to fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the pre-9-11 days, and about interviewing, at age 19, "Squeaky" Fromme during the Charles Manson trial at the ranch where members of the Manson family lived. While the essays are very amusing (I mean which among us has had her husband's girfriend ram her car repeatedly into the back of our car while we are waiting to pick up a child after school?), there is a sense that these essays are the first draft of a longer work to come.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews