I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections - Nora Ephron
A master of the jujitsu essay, Ephron leaves us breathless with rueful laughter. As the title suggests, she writes about the weird vagaries of memory as we age . . . But the truth is, Ephron remembers a lot. Take her stinging reminiscence of her entry into journalism at Newsweek in the early 1960s, when ‘girls,’ no matter how well qualified, were never considered for reporter positions. . . . Whether she takes on bizarre hair problems, culinary disasters, an addiction to online Scrabble, the persistent pain of a divorce, or that mean old devil, age, Ephron is candid, self-deprecating
Robin Cook, master of bestselling medical thrillers, answers the "What's the worst thing that could happen?" question in this plot-twisting novel in which villains with no sense of ethics or social responsibility get their greedy hands on the newest cloning technology. It starts when a couple of Harvard graduate students answer the Wingate Clinic's ad for egg donors. The women figure on financing a year in Venice and the down payment on a Boston condo with the extraordinary sum they're promised. But a year later, the heroines feel the emotional need to seek out the children they've made possible for infertile couples.
There are certain similarities between science fiction and medical thrillers (futuristic technology, nature subverted) so it's not really surprising that a master of the medical genre like Cook (Acceptable Risk) would try to combine the two. The story starts with a small college town and a flurry of unusual black rocks. Those who pick them up are stung and, after a short fever, come up with a curious list of aftereffects. They become extroverted, environmentally conscious, attached to dogs and telepathically connected.
In this age of lethal bioweapons, there's a frightening logic in the idea that your next breath might kill you. Alas, Cook's latest, about an impending bioterrorist attack in New York City, is more ho-hum than horrifying. The premise has promise: cab driver Yuri Davydov is a disillusioned Russian immigrant haunted by his involvement in a tragic accidental release of government-produced anthrax that killed hundreds, including his mother. Armed with hatred for America and practical skills in how to build a biochemical weapon, he's joined forces with Curt Rogers and Steve Henderson of the People's Aryan Army.
