Fatherhood

The funny, touching and warm-hearted revelations by the star of the top-rated TV series look like a spectacular bestseller. Cosby regales parents and often comforts them with tales about his life as a father of five, a source of bewilderment to him from their infancy through the terrible teens. (""One day I told them to get in the car.'' All five grabbed the same handle and beat on each other for the same door. Not one, he observes, was smart enough to use any of the other doors.) All instances of the humorist's experiences are refreshing and marvelously ludicrous. Readers would surely rather have more of them than the pages brimming with Poussaint's verbose homiletics, perhaps meant as a doctor's imprimatur, but not needed. Although Cosby mostly restates material that appears in many other books about family life, past and present, his is a winner. 750,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild selection. (May 23)