THE REASONER REPORT

Few men have been more widely read and heard than Harry Reasoner during the past decade. Yet what to call him is a problem. ""Reporter"" is the wrong term, ""correspondent"" is a little less misleading, and ""TV personality"" is simply too vague. Perhaps ""television essayist"" is as close as we can come. This book is a collection of his essays--the actual expression in the industry, he tells us, is takeouts--written and read over the air between 1961 and 1965. Describing them is easier than classifying them. They are charming; seemingly artless, amusing, and kind. They range in topic from homely things (like cats, and raising children) to diets, turning forty, the New York Times, rock and roll, cocktail parties, lung cancer. Anyone who opens the book will go through a dozen like a bon-bon fancier through the top layer of a two-pound box. If there is any unifying theme or subject, it is how to be a decent, mild, middle-class family man. Reasoner has the special ability to make this seem a worthwhile goal.