Anyone can write a book'see Burt Reynolds' \My Life,"" or anything with Fabio on the cover'but it takes a special kind of talent to be an advice columnist. Necessary requirements are a quick wit, an unerring moral compass and a dexterity with words. Despite this, though, any advice columnist can compile their columns into a book, and that is exactly what Randy Cohen has done with ""The Good, the Bad and the Difference."" Cohen, who writes under the title ""The Ethicist"" every week in the New York Times Magazine, faces the challenge of broadening the question/answer format into a full-scale book.
Cohen does this with a number of special additions and modifications to flesh out the questions, as well as a series of essays about each of the topics about which he most frequently receives queries. The essays, though, are wordy, unnecessary and best skipped. The true bread and butter of the book are the questions from the ethics-inquisitive public. Most of them pose trivial and sometimes ridiculous situations'is it okay to steal hair dryers from hotels? However, weightier issues are also explored'can I ethically allow my son to remain in Boy Scouts while they have unfair policies toward homosexuals?
Despite not having any formal ethics training'although he appears to have read a lot of Samuel Johnson'Cohen answers the questions thoughtfully and fairly. Almost inevitably, though, people disagree with his advice, and he reprints the best of these disputes in a section called ""Arguing with the Ethicist."" Another special feature exclusive to the book is a set of postscripts detailing what, if anything, resulted from Cohen's advice.
The fact is, though, the added features are interesting but represent a small part of the book. Those with a New York Times subscription and a good memory will find little reason to buy this work, but those not in this category will find much to like about ""The Good, the Bad and the Difference.""
Cohen is a clever man'he used to write for ""Late Night with David Letterman"" and, ahem, ""The Rosie O'Donnell Show""'and both the questions and answers are consistently amusing. This is a book best in measured doses, but the basis for the column is inherently interesting and provides for a good read.
