cover image Tell Me All about It: A Personal Look at the Advice Business

Tell Me All about It: A Personal Look at the Advice Business

Jeffrey Zaslow. William Morrow & Company, $18.95 (286pp) ISBN 978-0-688-08310-6

Zaslow was 29 years old when in 1987 he beat out thousands of rivals to succeed Ann Landers on the Chicago Sun-Times . Calling his advice column ``All That Zazz,'' he has gained wide readership for his jokey approach to problem-solving. He does, however, involve himself personally with people who write to him for help, as stories he relates here indicate. But most of the book focuses on himself, a man more eager to show off his accomplishments and clever wit than to demonstrate his avowed interest in troubled humans. Zaslow describes Nathanael West's classic Miss Lonelyhearts as powerful and depressing, and notes that this novel about an advice columnist forced him to do ``quite a bit of soul-searching.'' He finds being a sob-brother a great adventure, and concludes that ``journalism is a circus.'' (Jan.)