Download or read book Lake Wobegon Days written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Lake Wobegon Days is about the way our beliefs, desires and fears tail off into abstractions--and get renewed from time to time. . . this book, unfolding Mr. Keillor's full design, is a genuine work of American history.” —The New York Times “A comic anatomy of what is small and ordinary and therefore potentially profound and universal in American life…Keillor’s strength as a writer is to make the ordinary extraordinary.” —Chicago Tribune “Keillor’s laughs come dear, not cheap, emerging from shared virtue and good character, from reassuring us of our neighborliness and strength….His true subject is how daily life is shot with grace. Keillor writes a prose that can be turned to laughter, to tears…to compassion or satire, to a hundred effects. He is a brilliant parodist.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Download or read book The Keillor Reader written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories, essays, poems, and personal reminiscences from the sage of Lake Wobegon When, at thirteen, he caught on as a sportswriter for the Anoka Herald, Garrison Keillor set out to become a professional writer, and so he has done—a storyteller, sometime comedian, essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, poet. Now a single volume brings together the full range of his work: monologues from A Prairie Home Companion, stories from The New Yorker and The Atlantic, excerpts from novels, newspaper columns. With an extensive introduction and headnotes, photographs, and memorabilia, The Keillor Reader also presents pieces never before published, including the essays “Cheerfulness” and “What We Have Learned So Far.” Keillor is the founder and host of A Prairie Home Companion, celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2014. He is the author of nineteen books of fiction and humor, the editor of the Good Poems collections, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Download or read book Leaving Home written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Keillor tells readers more about some of the people from Lake Wobegon Days and introduces some new faces.

Download or read book Good Poems written by Various and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-08-26 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's beloved author, humorist, and storyteller offers a selection of meaningful and enjoyable poems Every day people tune in to The Writer's Almanac on public radio and hear Garrison Keillor read them a poem. And here, for the first time, is an anthology of poems from the show, chosen by Keillor for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m." Good Poems includes verse about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendance. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It's a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.

Download or read book Liberty written by Garrison Keillor and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2009-01-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clint is one of the old reliables in Lake Wobegon - the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts your car on below-zero mornings. For six years he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks and girls pushing baby carriages that hold their cats into a dazzling spectacle that has attracted the attention of CNN and prompted the governor to put in an appearance as well. The town is dizzy with anticipation. Until, that is, they hear of Clint's ambition to run for Congress. They're embarrassed for him. They know him too well - his unfortunate episodes involving vodka sours, his rocky marriage. And then there is his friendship, or whatever it is, with the twenty-four-year-old girl who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade. It's rumoured that underneath those robes she is buck naked, and that her torch contains a quart of booze. It's Lake Wobegon as it's always been - good, loving people who drive each other crazy.

Download or read book Guy Noir and the Straight Skinny written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous radio private eye Guy Noir leaps from A Prairie Home Companion to the page On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know-Joey, Lieutenant McCafferty, reporter Gene Williker, Guy’s ex-girlfriend Sugar O'Toole, the despicable Larry B. Larry, the dreamboat Scarlett Anderson, Mr. Kress of the FDA–and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss. In this whirlwind caper Guy faces danger, falls in love, and faces off with the capo del capo del grande primo capo Johnny Banana.

Download or read book Serenity at 70 Gaiety At 80 written by Garrison Keillor and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RULE 12 Don't fight with younger people, even if you're right, which you probably are. When they tell you outrageous things, say, "That's very interesting, I'll have to think about it." These people will be writing your obituary, and why give them a reason to put "contentious" or "embittered" in the second paragraph or accusations of cultural appropriation or insufficient anger at power imbalance. If you enjoy dispute, go after your elders if you still have any who are of sound mind. Poke them in the stomach. This will amaze them, seeing as everyone else pities them to death, and they will relish combat and rise to the challenge and it will improve their respiration. And a day later they'll forget the whole thing.

Download or read book A Prairie Home Companion written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-05-18 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The screenplay of iconic radio host Garrison Keillor’s Robert Altman-directed major motion picture, A Prairie Home Companion, starring Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin. The day of reckoning has come to the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, home of A Prairie Home Companion. The show is closing, the theater is going dark. Station WLT has been sold to a broadcast conglomerate in Texas. The wrecking ball is poised to swing as the regulars—the Johnson Girls, Yolanda and Rhonda, and the singing cowboys, Dusty and Lefty, crooner Chuck Akers, and announcer Garrison Keillor—arrive for the last broadcast in a state of disbelief. But when the Dangerous Woman appears with her Botticellian hair and dazzling white trench coat, the final curtain catches them all by surprise. • Features a foreword by director Robert Altman and an introduction by Garrison Keillor • Contains an eight-page insert of photos from the movie set

Download or read book Happy to Be Here written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Keillor’s best stuff is clean (in the sense that lines are clean), down to earth, exquisitely good-hearted, highly ludicrous, and as labored as nitrous oxide…. This book will either leave you dumbfounded or happy—almost deservedly happy—to be anywhere” —The New York Times Book Review “His humor is cerebral and complex, a blend of romance and nostalgia; it sparklingly parodies the American (and human) condition…. His stories and satires glow with a sense of time and place.” —The Washington Post

Download or read book Pretty Good Joke Book written by Garrison Keillor and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 2,200 Jokes from America’s favorite live radio show A treasury of hilarity from Garrison Keillor and the cast of public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. A guy walks into a bar. Eight Canada Geese walk into a bar. A termite jumps up on the bar and asks, “Where is the bar tender?” Drum roll. The Sixth Edition of the perennially popular Pretty Good Joke Book is everything the first five were and more. More puns, one-liners, light bulb jokes, knock-knock jokes, and third-grader jokes (have you heard the one about Elvis Parsley?). More religion jokes, political jokes, lawyer jokes, blonde jokes, and jokes in questionable taste (Why did the urologist lose his license? He got in trouble with his peers). More jokes about chickens, relationships, and senior moments (the nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you can enjoy the same jokes again and again). It all started back in 1996, when A Prairie Home Companion fans laughed themselves silly during the first Joke Show. The broadcast was such a hit that it became an almost-annual gagfest. Then fans wanted to read the jokes, share them, and pass them around, and the first Pretty Good Joke Book was born. With over 200 new and updated jokes, the latest edition promises countless giggles, chortles, and guffaws anyone—fans of the radio show or not—will enjoy.

Download or read book Pontoon written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-09-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Garrison Keillor makes his long- awaited return to Lake Wobegon with this New York Times bestseller The first new Lake Wobegon novel in seven years is a cause for celebration. And Pontoon is nothing less than a spectacular return to form-replete with a bowling ball-urn, a hot-air balloon, giant duck decoys, a flying Elvis, and, most importantly, Wally's pontoon boat. As the wedding of the decade approaches (accompanied by wheels of imported cheese and giant shrimp shish kebabs), the good-loving people of Lake Wobegon do what they do best: drive each other slightly crazy.

Download or read book WLT written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 1992-11-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1926, the Soderbjerg brothers, Ray and Roy, plunge into radio and launch station WLT (With Lettuce and Tomato) to rescuer their failing restaurant and become the Sandwich Kings of South Minneapolis. For the next quarter century, the “Friendly Neighbor” station produces a dazzling array of shows and stars, including Leo LaValley, Dad Benson, Wingo Beals, Slim Graves and Little Buddy, chain-smoking child star Marjery Moore, and blind baseball announcer Buck Steller. Francis With, a shy young man from North Dakota, entranced by radio, gets into WLT through his uncle Art and quickly becomes the Soderbjerg's right hand. Soon Francis is a budding announcer adored by Lily Dale, the crippled nightingale of WLT kept hidden from her fans, whose firing contributes to the downfall of the station. And then comes television.

Download or read book In Search of Lake Wobegon written by Garrison Keillor and published by Studio. This book was released on 2001 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book combines text and image to reveal the real-life origins of the place where "the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children above average." Keillor meditates on the enduring culture of the county and on the years he spent there as a young writer and an outsider. And a short story of Lake Wobegon, "October," appears here for the first time in print."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Love Me written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2004-08-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this charming departure from Lake Wobegon, bestselling author Garrison Keillor tells a hilarious and heartwarming tale of ambition, success and failure, and the virtues of real love. Aspiring writer Larry Wyler leads a quiet, decent life with his do-gooder wife, Iris, in St. Paul, Minnesota, but he wants more. When his literary debut becomes a hit, he departs for a Manhattan apartment, a job at the New Yorker, and three- martini lunches with the great editor, William Shawn. But when his second novel bombs and he finds himself in the grip of writer's block, Wyler discovers that success—and the New York publishing scene—is a fickle mistress, indeed. Creatively barren, nearly destitute, and longing for Iris, he accepts a job writing "Ask Mr. Blue," a column doling out advice to the lovelorn. It may not be glamorous work, but through it Wyler discovers what's really important and sets out to win back the woman he left behind.

Download or read book Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-08-27 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet fourteen-year-old Gary. A self-described "tree-toad,"a sly and endearing geek, Gary has many unwieldy passions, chief among them his cousin Kate, his Underwood typewriter and the soft-porn masterpiece, High School Orgies. The folks of Lake Wobegon don't have much patience for a kid's ungodly obsessions, and so Gary manages to filter the hormonal earthquake that is puberty and his hopeless devotion to glamorous, rebellious Kate through his fantastic yarns. With every marvellous story he moves a few steps closer to becoming a writer. And when Kate gets herself into trouble with the local baseball star, Gary also experiences the first pangs of a broken heart. With his trademark gift for treading "a line delicate as a cobweb between satire and sentiment"(Cleveland Plain Dealer), Garrison Keillor brilliantly captures a newly minted post-war America and delivers an unforgettable comedy about a writer coming of age in the rural Midwest.

Download or read book We Are Still Married written by Garrison Keillor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1990-04-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Garrison Keillor made it possible, after twenty years of black humor…to be both funny and nice, hip and winsome, scathing and loving, all in the flick of a single many-barbed quip——The Washington Post Book World “Keillor’s literary style is as flexible and assured as his vocal delivery. It can slip from mood to mood so subtly and quickly you’re never quite sure where you are…. [His] writing has the silvery slip of running water, so graceful and easy it’s hard to believe it can carry so much that is jagged and unresolved. His integrity lies in his not smoothing away those rough edges in the swift current of his prose; they’re bruisingly, sometimes cuttingly there.” —The Village Voice

Download or read book Life in the Garden written by Penelope Lively and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize winner and national bestselling author, reflections on gardening, art, literature, and life Penelope Lively takes up her key themes of time and memory, and her lifelong passions for art, literature, and gardening in this philosophical and poetic memoir. From the courtyards of her childhood home in Cairo to a family cottage in Somerset, to her own gardens in Oxford and London, Lively conducts an expert tour, taking us from Eden to Sissinghurst and into her own backyard, traversing the lives of writers like Virginia Woolf and Philip Larkin while imparting her own sly and spare wisdom. "Her body of work proves that certain themes never go out of fashion," writes the New York Times Book Review, as true of this beautiful volume as of the rest of the Lively canon. Now in her eighty-fourth year, Lively muses, "To garden is to elide past, present, and future; it is a defiance of time."