So, important to note that this particular edition includes much of what was originally published in Scribble, Scribble. I did not know this when I got my copy and since copies of Scribble, Scribble are very hard to come by, I was pretty pleased. (This is also true of the Modern Library edition of Crazy Salad and the Vintage eBook edition that was just released; they all have the full Crazy Salad + 8 essays from Scribble, Scribble + another piece.)
[11/7/12, ETA: Vintage has since published a pa More...

An interesting collection of (mostly dated) essays from 1972-1974. Some revealing anecdotes about the women’s liberation movement and its struggles, the politics of education at an exclusive female college (Wellesley), some personal essays about body image (breasts, or not having any), some political ones (Nixon-era), the porn industry (Deep Throat), - or was that another Nixon story?, some stories about people in the entertainment news, whom I never heard about, feminine hygiene products, etc. More...

I enjoyed this lively (though at times quite serious) collection of Ephron's columns from the 1970s.

Ephron begins with several uninhibited pieces. In "A Few Words About Breasts," she reveals that insecurity about the size of her breasts is her self-defining characteristic. In "On Never Having Been a Prom Queen," she revisits the theme: "Once I had a date with someone who thought I was beautiful. He talked all night, while I--who spent years developing my conversational ability to compensate for More...

My friend Hannah lent me this book a little over a month after the passing of Nora Ephron. "Skim through it," she said, "you might enjoy some of the essays. You don't have to read all of it."

But of course Nora started this book with "A few words about breasts", and as soon as I finished reading that, I knew that I would read the book in its entirety, and quickly. Nora seems to be free of self-consciousness - she says it as it is without worrying too much about who will think what. This quality More...

When I saw that Nora Ephron had died, I searched for anything she had written that I might have missed. This one is from the early 70's, and man, have things changed in the years since. Nora was married to Carl Bernstein back in the Watergate and Women's Lib days, and this is a collection of essays she wrote for contemporary magazines during that time. Enlightening, but it made me thankful that we've come a long way in the past 40 years. Her story on the Pillsbury Bake Off, circa 1972, almost ma More...

This is marketed as a humor book, and it's not (although that's not to say that Ephron doesn't write with a sharp, wry sense of humor, because she does). What it is, is a book of essays, articles, and columns, from the 1970s, on feminism, women, culture, and personal experiences.

The writing style is deeply engaging (I had a lot of trouble putting this book down), and I was deeply impressed with Ephron's sharp, unfailing honesty -- particularly as the topic she spends the most time being honest a More...

Remembering the times, incidents, people, and events these newspaper columns are about was nostalgic and it was interesting to learning some of the things that went on behind the events. But...it didn't have all the luster and shine I expected of Nora Ephron because it was too focused, too set, too much 1972 and '73. Technically this isn't a legitimate complaint because that's when and where they were written. So, maybe it's I can take only so much of 1972 and '73 right before I go to sleep at 2 More...

This is interesting as a sort of time capsule back to 1972 and the feminist movement. She's writing at a moment when a lot of things are being negotiated and figured out, debates that seem so far away to read about them now. There were a couple of these I really liked, I found the essay on her 10 year reunion at Wellesley interesting (spoiler alert - she wasn't a fan of the place) and the essay on her mom's mink coat.

This book is also annoyingly hard to find given that it was reprinted not that More...

The essay in this book called "Miami" is one of the best things I ever read, basically it details how Betty Friedan picked the biggest catfight of all Feminism with Gloria Steinem, basically because she was so much thinner and prettier than she was.

I love that Nora Ephron told the truth about that, because it was that kind of behavior within Women's Groups at my own college that initially turned me off on the idea of calling myself a Feminist.

I've changed on that, and I say, don't let the bitch More...

If you can get your hands on it, I recommend reading the original hardback/paperback issued in the seventies. You get all the essays in their completeness.

Before reading this book, I was only familiar with Nora Ephron from Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. These essays, unlike the movies, are not schmaltzy in the least. They are sharply observant, acerbic, and very funny.

I especially enjoyed her writings on the sixties/seventies women's movement. Although Ephron was a feminist and a supp More...

I feel so appreciative for all of the women who came before me that paved the way for women to have all of the options that we have today. I really enjoyed learning more about this period in history where so much change was taking place. Some of the essays seemed really irrelevant and didn't stand the test of time, but many of them were still very interesting to read. I learned aspects of the women's movement that I had never heard anything about before. A lot of the essays just happened to be w More...

This collection of essays that Nora Ephron penned in the 1970s, which were published in Esquire and elsewhere, offers up her take on everything from gender politics, to Palm Beach society, to a mini-scandal involving a New Orleans food critic.

Being a mish-mash, the title is a bit misleading, although much of the book discusses women's issues, often served up with Ephron's biting wit. What I especially appreciate is that she was able to be part of a movement while also being critical of it, and More...

Teton County Library Call No: 301.42 EPHRON
Marisa's rating: 4 stars

With Nora Ephron's recent passing, I thought I would check out her work. I knew she was a feminist and had written some famous screen plays. This book was a pleasure to read. It is a collection of Ephron's essay and long-form articles from the 1970s on tropics from the "Pillsbury Bake-Off" to the messy Maryland Governor's divorce to the movie "Deep Throat". I appreciate her humor but also her well thought out analysis. While writ More...

Teton County Library Call No: 301.42 EPHRON
Marisa's rating: 4 stars

With Nora Ephron's recent passing, I thought I would check out her work. I knew she was a feminist and had written some famous screen plays. This book was a pleasure to read. It is a collection of Ephron's essay and long-form articles from the 1970s on tropics from the "Pillsbury Bake-Off" to the messy Maryland Governor's divorce to the movie "Deep Throat". I appreciate her humor but also her well thought out analysis. While writ More...

This book is a compilation of columns on women's issues that Nora Ephron wrote in the early 70s. It was an interesting read given that I was between the ages of 1-6 years old when most of these were originally written. Topics range from women's liberation, the feminist movement, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinhem, sex, marriage, feminine deodorant spray, current events (in the 70s). Some of the essays were just plain funny, while others made you think. I grew up never feeling I needed to be "libe More...

I didn't much care for this book, although I really liked "I Feel Bad About My Neck". A lot of the articles were about people/events I'd never heard of (probably because they took place before I was born) but there were not any notes, etc. added to make them make any sense and the articles themselves didn't really explain them. I also didn't care for the constant women's liberation talk that frequently felt more like a thinly veiled bashing of stay at home mothering. Women's liberation is a good More...

It seems terrible form to give this book a bad review, but here I am doing it.

First things first: Nora Ephron was an amazing talent and hilarious voice. But if you're looking for a sampler of that wit that feels lively and relevant to today, I suggest you look elsewhere. "Crazy Salad" is not a collection that, for anyone born in the last 40 years, has aged terribly well.

Though a few excellent essays transcend time, many of the rest feel so dated and trapped in their own historical era that you h More...

I was inspired to read this by Ariel Levy's recent New Yorker profile on Ephron. This has much more substance than her movies, or even her most recent book. Most of these essays were written just after I was born, so it's a useful historical perspective. A lot actually has improved. My copy is full of little post-it flags for things I will have to look up, or ask my mother about. On the other hand, probably none of the book's original readers knew why a Pillsbury Bake-Off contestant's speedy Haw More...

Continuing my tour de Ephron, specifically to read "The Girls in the Office" after reading three direct references. I felt as if this were a window into a particular moment in the women's movement, and history, and Ephron's life, one I enjoyed peeking through even if I didn't understand some of the references.

I fell asleep a lot while reading this one, at odd times, face-deep into it, proclaiming it would only take me one day to finish.

It took four.

I don't agree with everything Nora wrote here, but it's all so insightful and intelligent that I was entertained and impressed by all of it (although I love her first person stories the most). What really stands out is how prescient she was: she made observations 40 years ago that still ring true today, and had essays on pop culture that could easily be read as critiques of 50 Shades and the Kardashians. An excellent book. (I just wish it wasn't a bastardised later version with some of the origi More...

I had a really hard time finding this funny. I bought it for my grandmother last Christmas and she loved it so much she gave it to me to read and pass on. I think the issue was generational. Nora Ephron was a huge voice in the women’s lib movement, and I simply can’t relate to that. I’m well aware that I am who I am because of it, and aware of the deeply significant effects it’s had on who I am allowed to be as a woman in America, and I certainly appreciate that. I just don’t think it’s funny. A More...

Nora Ephron's collection of her Esquire essays from the early 1970's is wonderful to read. Some names and references may be unrecognizable to those under 45 years old, but they certainly offer a slice of life from this unsettling period. Watergate, An American Family (the birth of reality tv?), FDS, Deep Throat, Consciousness Raising...these topics are all examined through Nora's feminist lens. We've lost a truly insightful cultural commentator.

Just curious -- but it's not really my thing.
In fact, in the 1983 Introduction to the 1975 Preface both by Ephron herself, she says, "Some of them seem dated--which is inevitable with magazine pieces; some of them that seem dated nonetheless have a kind of quaint historical value." Maybe the latter will come true with time.
Steve Martin's Introduction to the Modern Library Humor and Wit Series is very funny however.

This is an entertaining collections of essays about "womens' lib" and pop culture that Ephron (best known nowadays as screenwriter of "Silkwood," "Heartburn,"When Harry Met Sally" and many others) wrote as a columnist in the early 1970s for Esquire magazine. The subjects are a little dated, the subject matter not at all. The more I read of Ephron, the more I like her. Her humility and grace match her wit and insight point for point.

This was going four-stars great (so many interesting anecdotes! pretty fascinating to see a woman's point of view on the women's lib movement as it was happening) until I got to the very last essay, which is filled to the brim with ignorant, unapologetic transphobia (from the author) and misogyny (from the transperson the article is about), which... well, really put a dampener on my feelings about the book. I'd have taken the rating all the way down to one or two stars save for the fact that thi More...

Compilation of previously printed short stories. Some are timeless and others are quite dated, however all still very good if you can slog through some of them. As far as the dated ones are concerned, it's interesting to see how people thought during those periods. Because of the age difference between myself and the author, it's quite easy to take things for granted that other people "fought" for.

I almost did it. I got through 90% of this book and could not bare to read another essay. I was hoping to find humor in this book - the title led me to believe it was a funny book. Alas, I never found the funny.

Oh, well. I did enjoy Ephron's use of language. Reading this book made me feel very intelligent. That being said, I'm not sure anyone other than a women's lib history enthusiast would enjoy the content.

In the intro. by Steve Martin, he comments that humorous books like this are often dated, and this Ephron book is NO exception. I found it interesting as a collection of historical journalistic documents about second-wave feminism. But I can't say I "enjoyed" reading it. The essay on the Pillsbury Bakeoff was the height of judgmental and snarky. I'm still glad I read it, and glad I read "I Feel Bad About My Neck" first.

The suprising thing about "Crazy Salad" is not how out-dated it was, but how hilarious and (sometimes sadly) still timely it is. In the chapter about going to the Democratic National Convention, many of the issues are still in dicussion today. The one notable exception is that women no longer need to call a guy when the PA system stops working.

Really Wonderful.

Many of the essays in this collection have not withstood the test of time very well. Some didn't even make much sense, and most provided little to no context. But it was a fun read, a kind of '70s time capsule, and I enjoyed reading about the fledgling feminist movement. A few of the essays are still pretty relevant. I love Nora Ephron's voice - an excellent balance of biting wit, warmth, and self-deprecation. I look forward to reading more of her work.