Dr. Kookie, You're Right! - Hardcover

Dr. Kookie, spawn of Chicago syndicated columnist Royko, is convinced the world is mad. Appropriately enough, this sixth collection of "Dr. Kookie" columns opens with a section on religious fanaticism ("Hallelujah!"), then goes on to visit six padded cells, one containing Wall Streeters, another "big buck" fishermen, sizing up greed in the U.S., crime, war between the sexes, politics. In "Okay, World, Everybody on the Couch," Royko relates bizarre encounters involving the likes of "the Avon lady" who catches a startled customer in his shower and seven disciples who sue a transcendental meditation guru for failing to teach them to fly, that is, rise off the floor. Other targets include Ronald Reagan and his religion (or lack of it), the Texas Hunt brothers who tried to corner the world silver market, Joe Namath and the "Yuppability" dialect, sensible shoes for women and Sylvester Stallone's war record. Exuberantly cynical, this is vintage Royko.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For the reader of any or all of Royko's six previous collections of essays, this volume will have few surprises to offer. The Chicago-based author has been maintaining a daily column, now syndicated in 525 newspapers, for 26 years, and what he does here is serve up some of his more memorable ones--87 in all--written between 1984 and 1989. Working within the limits of a newspaper column, Royko never wastes a word. Whether he is talking about Hefner and Guccione ("a couple of pompous, profiteering jerks"), or People magazine ("that most intellectual of publications"), or watching his local public broadcasting channel ("for their nightly installment on the sex life of insects"), he says just what he has to say, and stops. These are what variety-format newspaper columns should be: conversational, witty, laconic, neatly understated, not unserious.
- A.J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Library & Information Science, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.