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Nora Ephron died a few days ago, and one of the first things I did after reading her obituary was to get this book from the library. It's a delightful read, filled with great quotes and essays about things like getting her start in journalism, what it's like having a movie flop, having a meatloaf dish named after her, getting addicted to online Scrabble games and how forgetful she has become.

The book is slight -- only 135 pages -- and some of the stories are only a few pages long, but I was utterly charmed by it. I think I annoyed my husband by insisting on reading so many passages aloud to him, but after I was finished he always admitted how good the quote was.

Toward the end of the book she has an essay about getting older, and when she wrote it I think she had already been diagnosed with the disease that would eventually end her life. One passage was particularly poignant:

"The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result. I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven't. I try to figure out what I really want to do every day, I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing? I aim low. My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. (Followed by a Lactaid.) My idea of a perfect night is a good play and dinner at Orso. (But no garlic, or I won't be able to sleep.) The other day I found a bakery that bakes my favorite childhood cake, and it was everything I remembered; it made my week. The other night we were coming up the FDR Drive and Manhattan was doing its fabulous magical, twinkling thing, and all I could think was how lucky I've been to spend my adult life in New York City."