TVSquad

A lot of people only know Andy Rooney from the "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" segments that he's done on 60 Minutes since the late 70s. That's a shame. Not that those segments aren't great (I still make a point of making sure I watch Rooney every Sunday night), it's just that there's a lot more to Rooney than what viewers see on TV. His new book will show you that.

Actually, the title 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit is inaccurate, since the book also has a few pieces from the early 1940s, when Rooney was a reporter in the Army. Rooney will be 91 in January, and he really has lived a great life. We should all be working and still lively when we're near that age.

For someone like myself who has all of Rooney's books, there's little that's new here in the way of columns. But that doesn't mean that Rooney fans should skip it. There's a nice introduction from his son Brian (a reporter for ABC) that will tell you a lot about Rooney's personal life that you probably never heard before, several pictures you've probably never seen before (family pictures, pictures from his Army days, pictures with friends and a few snapshots of Rooney at work), plus a couple of pieces that you probably haven't read yet (from the World War II days mentioned above).

For someone who only knows Rooney from his 60 Minutes pieces and wants to read some of his columns, this is a nice "greatest hits" type of collection, and a nice start for a newbie. I would also get Sincerely, Andy Rooney, a fantastic collection of letters that Rooney has sent to people over the decades, and one of his other collections like Common Nonsense or Not That You Asked.

In fact, I would get all of Rooney's past books, if you can find them at Amazon or Powell's. While 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit is a nice overview of Rooney's work, it's not enough. Rooney is a great writer: clean, logical, clever, straight-forward, and over the past 60+ years, there's probably no subject he hasn't written about, so I'd get the rest of his books too.

Next, I think CBS should put together all of Rooney's 60 Minutes segments in a DVD set. I'd definitely buy that.