Friday, November 9, 2007

A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney, Andrew A. Rooney

Title: A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney
Author: Andrew A. Rooney
Rating: Good

Back when I was younger - and the earth was still cooling - 60 Minutes was a highly rated TV news show. (It may still be for all I know. I gave up TV about 15 years ago now, and I have no plans to go back to it, but I digress.) On that show there was usually a segment titled "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney".

These segments were usually humorous, and they often discussed something so mundane that it's hard to imagine writing anything about it at all. Chairs, for example. In retrospect I wonder if Seinfeld didn't learn something from Rooney. Regardless, Rooney has a way with words and and his pieces both charm and disarm the viewer/listener/reader.

This book is a collection of some of his essays. Many were written for 60 Minutes but others were written for other venues. Some don't work as well on the page as they did with his voice telling the tale, but even those are still quite good. Some are very moving, and some are just funny.

I enjoyed this book. It's not going to change anyone's life, but it will cause amusement and thought, and those are things the world needs more of.