Charles Gibson has been reporting the news in one form or another for ABC for 34 years. (AP)

Considered one way, Charles Gibson’s career in TV news seems to be a model of stability: 34 years logged with one employer, ABC. There, he did his job well and rose to the top echelon of his profession, forming a firm bond with his viewers and offering his gracious signoff, “I hope you had a good day.”

On the other hand, Gibson, who Friday retires from the “World News” anchor desk and from ABC as a full-time employee, is bowing out as more than an admired network news star.

At 66, he’s a proven utility player, game to handle a range of positions and scramble to the rescue when needed.
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Perfectly Imperfect by Lee Woodruff

(Random House, 235 pages, $25)

Lee Woodruff is the wife of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while covering the war in Iraq.

Together they wrote a book about their struggles during and after his recuperation titled In An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing.

In the introduction to this volume, which is Lee’s first published collection of essays, her much-admired (and much admiring) husband writes of his wife, “She probably could have been an actress or a comedian, a writer for television or of screenplays. Instead, she married me and set up house in various towns around the country and overseas as my career kept us on the move and our family grew. Being a mother was then, and still is, the heart of her life. But she always kept writing.”

Lucky for us, Lee Woodruff not only has interesting things to say, but the skill to share her everyday experiences in an entertaining way. One critic described her as a hybrid of Erma Bombeck and Nora Ephron, which is an apt assessment. She writes about issues that are familiar, and by the time you close her book, you feel you’ve made a new friend who is smart, sensitive, articulate and very funny.

For example, catching sight of errant facial hairs in the mirror one day she writes; “Oh, to have the body, the metabolism, the physical abandon I had in my twenties and the knowledge and self-possession I’ve accumulated now that I’m in my late forties. Though isn’t that just what every old person says?”

This is that rarest of creatures: a cozy book for smart women.

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• Lee Woodruff Perfectly Imperfect (stacyknows.blogspot.com)
• Bob Woodruff’s Family Matters (mediabistro.com)