Andy Rooney

December 15, 2009
Fans of longtime "60 Minutes" staple Rooney will find much to enjoy in his latest collection, including excerpts from his two 1940s collaborations with fellow "Stars and Stripes" correspondent Bud Hutton, as well as selections from more recent works such as "My War" (1995), "Common Nonsense" (2002), "Years of Minutes" (2003), and "Out of My Mind" (2006). The problem with the book, however, is that there's little here most fans haven't seen before. Apart from the three extended pieces from the long-out-of-print "Air Gunner" (1944) and "The Story of the Stars and Stripes" (1946), this is mainly a collection of short essays that have been published previously. Also included are a sort of "greatest hits" of Rooney's musings on mundane matters ranging from ice cream to wastebaskets to trips to the dump, occasionally broken up by more serious pieces, such as his moving tributes to Harry Reasoner, E.B. White, and his own mother. VERDICT Ardent fans will need to consider whether the inclusion of the rarer material from the 1940s justifies the effort; for those less familiar with Rooney's oeuvre, this solid introduction is well worth a look.William D. Walsh, Georgia State Univ., Atlanta

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2009
"If I reach into my pocket to pay for something and pull out a handful of change that turns out to be mostly pennies, I get discouraged about life."

Thus Andy Rooney, who has made more than a few pennies over the years as a TV commentator, most famously for his sometimes curmudgeonly, sometimes cloyingly cute monologues on 60 Minutes. The nonagenarian is a veritable byword for folksiness. As this gathering of his work over the years shows, his homespun pronouncements can veer from cracker barrel to downright eccentric, sometimes in the same sentence ("It sounds funny in the house without the television set on";"Doctors ought to think of some name for their outer office other than'waiting room'"). Rooney has solid credentials as an old-fashioned liberal of an almost extinct type, one who dislikes hubbub and loudmouths but dislikes injustice even more. He is also keenly aware of the contradictions of life in society, noting,"If I were black, I would be a militant, angry black man, railing against the injustices that have been done me. Being white, I think blacks should forget it and go to work." Most of the views gathered here are less provocative, however. Readers who think of Rooney as a lightweight may be surprised to find that he has meaty credentials as a journalist and writer, going back to his days with Stars and Stripes in World War II, when he wrote a book about the work of bomber crews that Edmund Wilson was moved to single out for praise in the New Yorker. Still, the present collection is mostly made up of offhand remarks about how much things have changed between then and now ("You don't have to go to Mexico to get a taco")—all vintage Rooney, of course, but with few surprises.

Rooney's admirers won't mind, though those unfamiliar with the commentator will wonder at the oddness of it all.

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