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40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION, WITH A FOREWORD BY STANLEY TUCCI

‘I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel’ NIGELLA LAWSON

‘I kept a copy of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn next to me as a reminder of how to be funny and truthful, and all I ended up doing was ignoring my writing and rereading Heartburn’ AMY POEHLER

Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel discovers that her husband is in love with another woman. The fact that this woman has a ‘neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb’ is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel is a cookery writer, and between trying to win Mark back and wishing him dead, she offers us some of her favourite recipes. Heartburn is a roller coaster of love, betrayal, loss and most satisfyingly revenge.

This is Nora Ephron’s (screenwriter of When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle) roman a clef: ‘I always thought during the pain of the marriage that one day it would make a funny book,’ she once said. And it is!

‘It is snortingly funny in its depiction of the death throes of a relationship. And it bursts with recipes. What more could you ask for?’ ADAM KAY

PART OF THE VIRAGO DESIGNER COLLECTION. COVER FEATURES TEXTILE DESIGN BY ELZA SUNDERLAND

Publisher Review

I am not a great reader of comic novels, but Ephron's hilarious, recipe-strewn, semi-autobiographical account of a heavily pregnant woman whose husband has left her for a woman with a 'neck as long as an arm' is a treat. A perfect example of Ephron's gift for turning tragedy into comedy, Heartburn is evidence that revenge is indeed a dish best served cold [Ephron] chatters up a storm, always on the verge of wisecracking up * Guardian * What really interested Ephron, for all her clever writing about food, politics and overcluttered purses, were matters of the heart. She is the exact opposite of Dorothy Parker. She is wit without cynicism, the ultimate romantic -- Gail Collins * New York Times * I have bought more copies of this book to give to people, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, than any other . . . Heartburn is the perfect, bittersweet, sobbingly funny, all-too-true confessional novel. There is not a wrong word - about food, marriage, life, love, loss Full of cynicism and gags, this autobiographical novel is comic writing at its finest -- Andrew Billen * The Times * Heartburn took the most miserable personal situation and made it hysterically funny, inspiring and utterly relatable to women of all ages. I became obsessed with its author and thinly disguised heroine * Stylist * Heartburn is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking and as brittle (very) as it is steely (even more) It is snortingly funny in its depiction of the death throes of a relationship. And it bursts with recipes. What more could you ask for? Not just the funniest novel ever written about divorce, but the funniest novel ever. Only the truly talented make writing as good as this look easy -- Hadley Freeman * The Week * I kept a copy of Nora Ephron's Heartburn next to me as a reminder of how to be funny and truthful, and all I ended up doing was ignoring my writing and rereading Heartburn -- Amy Poehler The real magic of the novel comes from Ephron's nonchalant conversationalism -- Helen Rosner * New Yorker *