"I just try to put down on paper some of the

thoughts that have crossed my mind because

I m average enough so they ve probably

crossed the reader s, too," writes Andy

Rooney. "I have what l ve lived. I draw from

what I see around me, from the people I know,

from what I read and from the feelings I get

from all these things. There s no magic."

There seems to be magic, though, in the uni-

versal chord he strikes with us all. For two

decades, on television, in his newspaper col-

umns, and most recently in his two best-selling

books, A Fev: Minmes with Andy Rooney,

and And More by Andv Rooney, hc has been

delighting millions with his explorations of the

pleasures and frustrations of everyday life, his

celebrations of the uncelebrated, and his skew-

erings of pomposity--"revealing to people

things they knew but did not know they

kllew."

In Pieces of My Mind, he does it once more.

Representing the very finest of his nationally

syndicated newspaper columns from the last

two years, the r32 essays in his new book offer

witty, rueful, wise, and commonsensical com-

mentaries on everything from elevators, under-

wear, and banks to lifestyles ("The problem is

that I don t think of my life as having any

particular style"), computers, marriage, in-

come tax, wastebaskets ("One of the ten

greatest inventions of all time"), newspapers,

neighbors, politics, and procrastination ("It

isn t being up we all dislike in the morning,

it s getting up"). In all, it is another book of

pure joy.