Len Robbins collects funny tales in new book

By Dean Poling

November 06, 2006 11:56 pm

— VALDOSTA — Georgia newspaper readers have come to enjoy the humor and homespun spirit of Len Robbins’ weekly columns. Now, readers can enjoy about 80 of his past newspaper columns collected into a book called “The Greatest Book Ever Written About Cheese.”
Robbins’ columns appear each Sunday on The Valdosta Daily Times Opinion page. To mark the release of his book, Robbins has scheduled several Valdosta appearances to meet his local fans from The Times.
Though Robbins’ columns have appeared for the past few years in The Times, he’s been writing them for about 12 years, he said in a recent phone interview.
A former sportswriter for The Times, Robbins started writing the humor column shortly after becoming editor of The Clinch County News in Homerville. He is now publisher of The Clinch County News.
Robbins’ column runs in about 21 newspapers across Georgia.
He essentially started syndicating himself. He sent his columns to other newspapers, and they began picking them up for publication.
In preparing a book, Robbins interested a Macon publishing company in collecting several of his newspaper columns. With hundreds of columns to choose for the book, Robbins selected several favorites of readers as well as some of his favorites, too.
In naming the book, “The Greatest Book Ever Written About Cheese,” perhaps, it would be best to let Robbins explain in his own words, which also give those unfamiliar with his columns a sense of his humor:
“For years, the publishing industry has been titling books one thing, then having the text be about something entirely different. ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is not a baseball book about a catcher. Rather, it’s about a young rich guy named Holden who doesn’t even play baseball. ‘Little Women’ isn’t about female midgets working at a carnival or even the Mandrell Sisters. It’s about women all right, but the author is rather vague about just how little they are.”
On the phone, Robbins says, the columns and the book are “things about life that most people can relate to.”
Robbins is a South Georgia native, a University of Georgia graduate, married with three small children. Georgia Trend magazine recently named Robbins to “Who’s Who in Georgia Media.”

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