Podcast Of The Week: “Heartburn” By Nora Ephron

Ok, it’s an audiobook, but it’s short enough to only be a few podcasts long at <6 hours. Somebody out there needs this. Either because life and relationships are hard, adulting is confusing, or your vinaigrette recipe needs an update.

Nora Ephron’s “Heartburn” is like a coming-of-middle-age story. It’s about dealing with failed or failing marriages, kids, and aging parents. It’s also about cooking, therapy, and is as savagely funny as it is insightful to the human condition.

The reason I’m plugging the audiobook here is because Meryl Streep reads it, and… the text alone is an incredible read, but this performance might make for one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. I never want to slow a book down to normal speed, but for this one I did.

Here’s one sample (read it with your best Meryl Streep voice):

In the end, I always want potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Nothing like mashed potatoes when you’re feeling blue. Nothing like getting into bed with a bowl of hot mashed potatoes already loaded with butter, and methodically adding a thin cold slice of butter to every forkful. The problem with mashed potatoes, though, is that they require almost as much hard work as crisp potatoes, and when you’re feeling blue the last thing you feel like is hard work. Of course, you can always get someone to make the mashed potatoes for you, but let’s face it: the reason you’re blue is that there isn’t anyone to make them for you.