Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

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