Garrison Keillor

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.

John Tollefson, a son of Lake Wobegon, has moved East to manage a radio station at a college for academically challenged children of financially gifted parents in upstate New York. Having achieved this pleasant perch, John has a brilliant idea for a restaurant specializing in fresh sweet corn. And he falls in love with an historian named Alida Freeman, hard at work on a book about a nineteenth-century Norwegian naturopath, an acquaintance of Lincoln, Thoreau, Whitman, and Susan B. Anthony.

This retrospective collection of A Prairie Home Companion features complete monologues drawn from 20 years of radio broadcasts Filled with gentle humor, down-home truths, and amazing depths of tenderness and meaning, these tales of "the little town that time forgot and the decades could not improve" are classics of American storytelling. Contents: Hello Love; O Captain, My Captain; I Will; Tomato Butt; Barnyard Dance; Casey at the Bat; Rhubarb; Life Is a Ballgame; Revival Tent; Calling My Children Home; The Perfect Day; The Warm Welcome; Regina; Carl's Dog Story; Vincent; Pontoon Boat; Goin' Home; The Lake Superior Canyon Project; Cotton; Emily Dickinson's Birthday Pizza; Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam; Troublesome Ivories; The Little Match Girl; The Elegance of Winter; Answering Machine; A Kohler Thanksgiving; Not the Cheapest Kind; Homecoming; You Drive Me Crazy; Six Minute Hamlet; The Living Flag; Stars and Stripes; Pioneer Waltz; Buddy Holly and the Pharaohs of Rhythm; My Life; Cherry Picker; Graduation Day; Julia; Raccoons; Lover's Waltz

This retrospective collection of A Prairie Home Companion features complete monologues drawn from 20 years of radio broadcasts Filled with gentle humor, down-home truths, and amazing depths of tenderness and meaning, these tales of "the little town that time forgot and the decades could not improve" are classics of American storytelling. Contents: Hello Love; O Captain, My Captain; I Will; Tomato Butt; Barnyard Dance; Casey at the Bat; Rhubarb; Life Is a Ballgame; Revival Tent; Calling My Children Home; The Perfect Day; The Warm Welcome; Regina; Carl's Dog Story; Vincent; Pontoon Boat; Goin' Home; The Lake Superior Canyon Project; Cotton; Emily Dickinson's Birthday Pizza; Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam; Troublesome Ivories; The Little Match Girl; The Elegance of Winter; Answering Machine; A Kohler Thanksgiving; Not the Cheapest Kind; Homecoming; You Drive Me Crazy; Six Minute Hamlet; The Living Flag; Stars and Stripes; Pioneer Waltz; Buddy Holly and the Pharaohs of Rhythm; My Life; Cherry Picker; Graduation Day; Julia; Raccoons; Lover's Waltz

"Guys are in trouble these days," says Garrison Keillor. "Years ago, manhood was an opportunity for achievement and now it's just a problem to be overcome. Guys who once might have painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling are now just trying to be Mr. O. K. All-Rite, the man who can bake a cherry pie, be passionate in a skillful way, and yet also lift them bales and tote that barge." This brilliant collection confirms Keillor's reputation as an ingenious storyteller and a very funny guy.

A special performance combines a popular Garrison Keillor piece with a renowned orchestra.

Gospel Birds is a collection of nine classic and very funny monologues from the early years of A Prairie Home Companion. In addition to the title story (about Irma and Ernie Lundeen's traveling flock of acrobatic, bible-reciting birds), contents include: Pastor Ingquist's Trip to OrlandoMammoth Concert Tickets Bruno, the Fishing DogGospel BirdsMeeting Donny Hart at the Bus StopA Day at the Circus with MazumboThe Tollerud's Korean BabySylvester Krueger's DeskBabe Ruth visits Lake WobegonGospel Birds is Garrison Keillor at his very best--endearing insights, gentle humor and warm affection for the human foibles we all share.

Lake Wobegon U. S. A. is the eagerly anticipated successor to News From Lake Wobegon (one of the bestselling spoken-word audio ever) and More News From Lake Wobegon. This collection contains 17 touching, exquisitely funny monologues from Garrison Keillor recorded during American Radio Company broadcasts from tour stops all over the country. The tales, says Keillor, are about "the luxury of rhubarb pie, the perils of prophecy, Florian and Myrtle's thrifty vacation, the vapor lights of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. . . ." They are also about joy, grief, dreams, luck, and mysteries--about the extraordinary moments of wonder that illuminate our ordinary lives. Contents: Fertility: The Kresbach's Vacation; Prophet; The Six Labors of Father Wilmer; FertilityPatience: Aunt Ellie; Duke's 25th; Jobhunting; You're Not the Only OneYouth: Blue Devils; Nostalgia; O Christmas Tree; Pageant; Messy ShoesRhubarb: Rhubarb; Sweet Corn; The Sun's Gonna Shine Someday; Yellow Ribbon

Lake Wobegon U. S. A. is the eagerly anticipated successor to News From Lake Wobegon (one of the bestselling spoken-word audio ever) and More News From Lake Wobegon. This collection contains 17 touching, exquisitely funny monologues from Garrison Keillor recorded during American Radio Company broadcasts from tour stops all over the country. The tales, says Keillor, are about "the luxury of rhubarb pie, the perils of prophecy, Florian and Myrtle's thrifty vacation, the vapor lights of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. . . ." They are also about joy, grief, dreams, luck, and mysteries--about the extraordinary moments of wonder that illuminate our ordinary lives. Contents: Fertility: The Kresbach's Vacation; Prophet; The Six Labors of Father Wilmer; FertilityPatience: Aunt Ellie; Duke's 25th; Jobhunting; You're Not the Only OneYouth: Blue Devils; Nostalgia; O Christmas Tree; Pageant; Messy ShoesRhubarb: Rhubarb; Sweet Corn; The Sun's Gonna Shine Someday; Yellow Ribbon

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.

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.

A young narrator chronicles his coming-of-age in Minnesota's Lake Wobegon, a fictitious small town where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average

"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

"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