Heartburn

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