Bob Greene is an award-winning journalist and a New York Times bestselling author whose books include Once Upon a Town and Duty. He has been the lead columnist for Life and Esquire, a contributing correspondent for ABC News Nightline, and a syndicated columnist for both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, where he worked for 24 years. His book Hang Time: Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan was a bestseller. In 1995, Greene was named Illinois Journalist of the Year, and he also won the Peter Lisagor Award for Public Service Journalism for his reporting on courts failing children in need.
A nationally syndicated columnist considers what's it like for all those baby boomers like himself to be way on the other side of the generational divide.
Chicago Tribune syndicated columnist Greene (All Summer Long) frets that turning 50 is akin to becoming his own Uncle Phil, the dotty relative who visited when he was a kid. So he broods and broods then broods some more, which even his fellow boomers are likely to find a downer. The world is a temporary-placement agency, decides Greene, and at 50, "All the maps inside your mind are marked with used-to be's." But his sense of what used to be doesn't seem to go further back than John Lennon (he's heard of George Washington, however). Greene decries that the instant gratification of today's mercantilism that develops our vacation photos in an hour cheats us of the pleasure of anticipation. Landing on the wrong side of the generation gap also means that the songs of one's youth like "Double Shot (of My Baby's Love)" have become Golden Oldies. That this is a different America with different assumptions fills Greene with dismay verging on panic and will likely leave readers out of patience even as they read the last 20 pages, in which he finally finds some upbeat things to say. Author tour. (Feb.)
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