You say "Frankly, I think I need an object, but I'm reluctant to use one or a closure.", but you're using closures in your code segment above.

You might want to consider this approach: 

    my $dispatch = {
        1   => sub { search_menu() },
        2   => sub { my $book = shift; edit_name($book) },
        3   => sub { my $book = shift; add_entry($book) },
        4   => sub { my $book = shift; delete_entry($book) },
        5   => sub { save_default() },
        6   => sub { print "Goodbye!\n"; exit },
        e   => sub { print "Goodbye!\n"; exit }
    };
    sub process {
        my ( $choice, $book ) = @_;
        print $dispatch->{$choice}->($book);
    }

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Here, we're removing the closure completely, and passing the args directly to the appropriate sub. Did I completely miss what you're trying to do?

In reply to Re: Re: Re: passing arguments in a dispatch table by abstracts
in thread passing arguments in a dispatch table by CharlesClarkson

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