SOURCE: "October Nonfiction," Washington Post Book World, March 28, 1971, p. 8.

[In the following excerpted review, Howarth discusses Royko's substance and style in Like I Was Sayin'.]

No such modesty deters Mike Royko, whose Like I Was Sayin' … gathers 100 of his columns from the last two decades. Known in Chicago as a fearless battler of Mayor Daley, Royko has a style that runs to short graphs, heavy on the slang and sarcasm, fast with regional slurs. In his estimate, New Yorkers are rude, Californians weird, Texans "the world's tallest midgets." The tone is barroom banter, with all the subtlety of an ad for Lite Beer.

Yet below this style lies plenty of substance. Royko is a tough reporter. He runs down sources and asks hard questions, exposes fools or crooks with an impartial hand. His hero is the fabled "little guy," who lives today in a dwindling region between Chicago's...