Ephron has made it as a journalist not only through her wit, which though offhand and irreverent is without the [Dorothy] Parker bite, but through the particular sensibility which infuses her pieces with a freely acknowledged moral bias or ambivalence that nonetheless is seldom allowed to take over the whole show (unless she is describing her own pratfalls, which she does with splendid élan).

"Crazy Salad" is a collection of 25 articles "that glance off and onto the subject of women." What she glances off and onto is really how women fail—fail because they are given so few options to succeed on any terms that aren't ultimately self-defeating….

[Most] telling are Ephron's assessments of three public figures who feel they've found success and see themselves as bold examples for others to follow (at what peril!): Linda Lovelace,… Pat Loud,… [and] Jan Morris, delighted at "being patronized by illiterate garage-men, if it meant they were going to give me some extra trading stamps." Is this what being a woman is about? (They are object lessons only if the lesson is to be an object.)

"Dealing with the, uh, Problem"—Ephron's long piece on the $40 million feminine-hygiene spray industry—is the best in the book, especially the description of how Alberto-Culver tested its product's efficacy on live subjects in the laboratory. Terry Southern couldn't have invented a vignette with wilder implication….

Also included are three pieces on Ephron herself: how it feels to be flat-chested …, not beautiful …, not blond ("being blond doesn't hurt").

Being talented doesn't hurt either. You can't have it all.