SOURCE: "Columns of Grumpy Gems," Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 23, 1984, p. 5.

[The following review contains praise for Royko's writing on the vicissitudes of everyday life in Like I Was Sayin'.]

Mike Royko, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago newspaper columnist, is such a delight to read that the all-but over-whelming temptation in reviewing his new book is to say:

"This book is a small sampling of some of Mike Royko's best columns from the past 18 years.

"Herewith is an even smaller sampling of some of Mike Royko's best lines from those columns."

Then I would quote extensively (but selectively) from the 100 columns reprinted in the book and figure that if you found them sufficiently amusing, insightful or provocative, you'd buy the book; and if you didn't, you wouldn't.

But Royko's columns are small jewels, not easily appreciated when chipped apart; besides, book review editors (and book review readers) expect...