One more time The best of Mike Royko

Chicagoans think of Royko as a Chicago kid from the Northwest Side whose newspaper column--in the Daily News and then the Sun-Times and finally the Tribune, over the course of 34 years--was a regular feature of their days. But that column was syndicated to some 600 papers around the country and won fans and multiple awards until Royko's death in 1997. Friends helped Royko's widow go through his thousands of columns and narrow this selection to just over 100. Good buddy Studs Terkel provides an introduction, and friend and coworker Lois Wille supplies an overview for each decade from the '60s through the '90s. Royko's classic characters like Slats Grobnik are here; and Chicago pols get more attention than they perhaps deserve. But Royko was an expert at finding universal truths in parochial situations, as well as in the larger issues--war and peace, justice and injustice, wealth and poverty--he examined. Think of One More Time as one man's pungent commentary on life in these United States over the last few decades. --Mary Carroll

An insightful, at times amusing walk through America's collective psyche and history by one of this century's most popular newspaper columnists. For nearly 35 years, Royko (Like I Was Sayin' . . ., 1984, etc.) entertained newspaper readers and alternately cajoled and aggravated bureaucrats. By the time the Chicago-based Pulitzer Prize--winning writer died in 1997, his columns were syndicated in more than 600 papers nationwide, and his "characters" (convenient pals, such as Slats Grobnik, who acted as literary foils) were fixtures in many Americans' lives. Here his widow and some longtime colleagues have culled 100 of Royko's best from nearly 8,000 columns. They are remarkable on many levels, not least for his ability to churn out five columns weekly (his only real break came after the death of his first wife). Royko also impresses with the breadth of his work. Sometimes he is the outraged muckraker: "A Faceless Man's Plea" decries the Veterans Administration for refusing to pay for plastic surgery that would enable a Vietnam veteran to chew food once more. (The VA changed its mind almost within hours of the column appearing in print.) At other times he is the voice of just-plain-folks, questioning exactly why our government is acting in a particular way. Sometimes he's just funny, as in the columns bemoaning his allegedly ugly feet. A gruff, no-holds-barred writer, Royko spoke for the many who are voiceless. Despite his success and the rise of celebrity journalists, he remained refreshingly unimpressed with himself. "I just hope my next column is readable, doesn't bore people,-- he said in a 1993 interview. --I don't have any grand scheme." Yet the continued relevance of these columns reminds us that good journalists can make a difference. A terrific compendium for those who always meant to clip and save Royko's words but didn't. (17 photos, not seen) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.