The perfect holiday gift: a pair of hilarious books from the “wickedly witty and astute” Nora Ephron, a “crackling smart cultural scribe” (The Boston Globe) whose insights and observations have made her a heroine to women all over America. Critics and readers embraced the nationwide best seller I Feel Bad About My Neck—“Marvelous” (The Washington Post); “Sparkling” (Ladies’ Home Journal); “Delightful” (The New York Review of Books)—and applauded Ephron for “mak[ing] the truth about life so funny” (The Sunday Times, London). In I Remember Nothing the beloved humorist returns with more razor-sharp reflections on growing older in the twenty-first century, along with those stories from the past she hasn’t (yet) forgotten. I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice and dry sense of humor, Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in this wise, wonderful look at women of a certain age who are dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and everything in between. Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, a passionate city dweller, and a hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about getting older. Utterly courageous, unexpectedly moving, and laugh-out-loud funny, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book. I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections Ephron takes a cool, hard, hilarious look at the past, the present, and the future, writing about falling hard for a way of life (“Journalism: A Love Story”) and breaking up even harder with the men in her life (“The D Word”); revealing the alarming evolution, a decade after she wrote and directed You’ve Got Mail, of her relationship with her in-box (“The Six Stages of E-mail”); and asking the age-old question, which came first, the chicken soup or the cold? All the while, she gives voice to everything women have been thinking . . . but rarely acknowledging. Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true—and could have come only from Nora Ephron—I Remember Nothing is pure joy. “[Ephron] retains an uncanny ability to sound like your best friend, whoever you are . . . Some things don’t change. It’s good to know that Ms. Ephron’s wry, knowing X-ray vision is one of them.” —The New York Times “Nora Ephron has become timeless.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

A 40th anniversary reissue of the national bestselling author's hilarious first novel that memorably mixed food, heartbreak, and revenge into a comic masterpiece—now with a new foreword by Stanley Tucci. • "Touching and funny.... Proof that writing well is the best revenge." —Chicago Tribune Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. In this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally... reminds us that comedy depends on anguish as surely as a proper gravy depends on flour and butter. Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs" is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.

This bundle contains Always the Baker, Never the Bride; Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride; and Always the Designer, Never the Bride. Always the Baker, Never the Bride Thirty-six-year-old Emma Rae Travis has been baking specialty cakes and melt-in-your-mouth pastries at The Backstreet Bakery in historic Roswell, just outside of Atlanta, for the last six years. But here’s the rub about her job as a baker ... Emma is diabetic. When she tastes her creations, it can only be in the most minute portions. Emma is considered an artisan for the stunning crème brulee wedding cake that won her the Passionate Palette Award last year, but she’s never even had a full slice of it. Still her skills in the bakery have attracted the attention of Jackson Drake, owner of a new wedding destination hotel nearby. Can the take-no-prisoners hotel owner woo the arrogant baker to join the staff at The Tanglewood Inn? Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride As a wedding planner, Sherilyn Caine should have the perfect wedding experience... After all, she just landed her dream job at the wedding destination hotel, The Tanglewood. The rest should be a piece of cake. But while everything else goes smoothly, her own wedding plans start to sink right before her eyes. One way or the other, Sherilyn is determined to make this wedding work--until the latest development threatens to call the whole thing off. Is it possible that Sherilyn is allergic to her fiancé? Always the Designer, Never the Bride How many dresses can a designer design before she finally designs her own? It’s taken Audrey Regan years to establish herself as a wedding dress designer, and to date she’s been roped into creating dresses for nine of her girlfriends. When the latest request comes from her very best friend, Audrey can hardly turn Carly down. Still, Carly’s wedding is nothing short of an event, complete with Prince Charming, and the festivities--everything to make Audrey question whether there’s a prince of her own anywhere in her future.

Hollywood’s script guru teaches you how to write a screenplay in the ultimate three-volume guide to writing for film, featuring “the ‘bible’ of screenwriting” (The New York Times), Screenplay—now celebrating forty years of screenwriting success! This blockbuster ebook bundle includes: SCREENPLAY: FOUNDATIONS OF SCREENWRITING • THE SCREENWRITER’S WORKBOOK • THE SCREENWRITER’S PROBLEM SOLVER Syd Field was “the most sought-after screenwriting teacher in the world” according to The Hollywood Reporter. His pioneering insights into structure, concept, and character launched innumerable careers. Now in one handy collection, his invaluable expertise is available to aspiring writers and working professionals alike. The Essential Screenplay contains Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, the industry standard for script development; The Screenwriter’s Workbook, a hands-on workshop full of practical exercises for creating successful screenplays; and The Screenwriter’s Problem Solver, a guide to identifying and fixing problems in your latest draft. Throughout, you’ll learn: • why the first ten pages of your script are crucially important • how to visually “grab” the reader from page one • what makes great stories work • the basics of writing dialogue • the essentials of creating great characters • how to adapt a novel, a play, or an article for the screen • the three ways to claim legal ownership of your work • tips for allowing your creative self to break free when you hit the “wall” • how to overcome writer’s block forever Featuring expert analysis of popular films including Pulp Fiction, Thelma & Louise, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Essential Screenplay will transform your initial idea into a screenplay that’s destined for success—and maybe even Cannes. Praise for Syd Field “The most sought-after screenwriting teacher in the world.”—The Hollywood Reporter “Syd Field is the preeminent analyzer in the study of American screenplays.”—James L. Brooks, Academy Award–winning writer, director, producer

A whopping big celebration of the work of the late, great Nora Ephron, America’s funniest—and most acute—writer, famous for her brilliant takes on life as we’ve been living it these last forty years. Everything you could possibly want from Nora Ephron is here—from her writings on journalism, feminism, and being a woman (the notorious piece on being flat-chested, the clarion call of her commencement address at Wellesley) to her best-selling novel, Heartburn, written in the wake of her devastating divorce from Carl Bernstein; from her hilarious and touching screenplay for the movie When Harry Met Sally . . . (“I’ll have what she’s having”) to her recent play Lucky Guy (published here for the first time); from her ongoing love affair with food, recipes and all, to her extended takes on such controversial women as Lillian Hellman and Helen Gurley Brown; from her pithy blogs on politics to her moving meditations on aging (“I Feel Bad About My Neck”) and dying. Her superb writing, her unforgettable movies, her honesty and fearlessness, her nonpareil humor have made Nora Ephron an icon for America’s women—and not a few of its men.

One of E! News' 13 Books to Read This September | One of Bookish's Debuts to Read in the Second Half of 2021 | One of Medium's Best Releases Out Today “Hazel Hayes writes with such honesty and casual confidence and flowing dialogue, you feel you are overhearing it rather than reading it. The writing sparkles with wit and a poignant emotional reality. I love it.”—Matt Haig, bestselling author of The Midnight Library “A smart, touching, time-bending romance. Funny and affecting.”—David Nicholls, bestselling author of One Day and Sweet Sorrow For anyone who has loved and lost, and lived to tell the tale, this gorgeously written debut is a love story told in reverse, a modern novel with the heart of a classic: truthful, tragic, and ultimately full of hope. Out of Love begins at the end. A couple call it quits after nearly five years, and while holding a box of her ex-boyfriend’s belongings, the young woman wonders: How could they have spent so long together? When did they fall out of love? Were there good times before the bad? These are the questions we obsess over when a relationship ends, even when obsessing can do no good. But instead of moving forward through the emotional fallout of a break-up, Out of Love moves backward in time, weaving together an already unraveled tapestry, from tragic ending to magical first kiss. Each chapter jumps further into the past, mining their history for the days and details that might help us understand love; how it happens and why it sometimes falls apart. Readers of Normal People; Goodbye, Vitamin; and One Day will adore this bittersweet romance, a sparkling debut that you won’t want to miss.

'There are three kinds of strike I'd recommend: a housework strike, a labour strike, and a sex strike. I can't wait for the first two.' Things Are Against Us is the first collection of essays from Booker Prize-shortlisted Lucy Ellmann. Bold, angry, despairing and very, very funny, these essays cover everything – from matriarchy to environmental catastrophe to Little House on the Prairie. Ellmann calls for a moratorium on air travel, rages against bras, gives Doris Day and Agatha Christie a drubbing, and pleads for sanity in a world that – well, a world that spent four years in the company of Donald Trump, that 'tremendously sick, terrible, nasty, lowly, truly pathetic, reckless, sad, weak, lazy, incompetent, third-rate, clueless, not smart, dumb as a rock, all talk, wacko, zero-chance lying liar'. Things Are Against Us is electric. It's vital. These are essays bursting with energy, and reading them feels like sticking your hand in the mains socket. Lucy Ellmann is the writer we need to guide us through these crazy times.