{"id":3934,"date":"2007-08-09T19:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T00:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=3934"},"modified":"2017-11-25T12:39:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T18:39:38","slug":"book-report-he-was-a-midwestern-boy-on-his-own-by-bob-greene-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/09\/book-report-he-was-a-midwestern-boy-on-his-own-by-bob-greene-1991\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: He Was A Midwestern Boy On His Own by Bob Greene (1991)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you know, gentle reader, I like Bob Greene’s books well enough to spell his name correctly most of the time<\/i>. This is the first I’ve read in two plus years (since Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War<\/i><\/a> in March 2005 and Bob Greene’s America<\/i><\/a> in May 2004).<\/p>\n

It collects a number of his columns from Esquire<\/i> and the Chicago Tribune<\/i> again, so he’s back in his sweet spot of short narrative nonfiction with the occasional forays into "People and Things That Happened Because I Am A Columnist" or "Things I Made Happen Because I Know Michael Jordan" filler material. Of course, we cringe when he talks about calling a seventeen year old girl in 1988 and talking to her about her sexual arousal watching Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy<\/i> and wonder is that the one<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Greene trends more mawkish than Andy Rooney<\/a>, so he falls beneath the old curmudgeon in my estimation, but he did make a career at it whereas I’m only making a blog of writing my insights. So I respect the man and enjoy his work enough to pick up a collection of columns from time to time, but I’m not exactly plunging into the first edition copy of All Summer Long<\/i>, one of two first edition copies that have passed through my hands and have remained on my to-read shelf.<\/p>\n

Books mentioned in this review:<\/b><\/p>\n