Garrison Keillor returns to the little town we love and continues to chronicle the lives of our favorite folks.

Lake Wobegon is in a frenzy of preparations for the Fourth of July. This being Wobegon, lives collide and relationships develop in the oddest ways. Take Clint Bunson, the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts cars on below-zero mornings. For six years, he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks into an event of dazzling spectacle.

The town is dizzy with anticipation—until they hear of Clint’s ambition to run for Congress. They know about his episodes with vodka sours, his rocky marriage, and his friendship with the 24-year-old who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade and may be buck naked beneath her robes.

In Keillor’s words, “It is Lake Wobegon as you imagined it—good loving people who drive each other crazy.”...

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....

A short comic novel about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown during a blizzard.

A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy he’s not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday. In his reverie, our man reaches an epiphany worthy of the season—he hears the harkening angels sing, he is awed by the silence of the night (dead quiet: not even TV) and when he is finally rescued, leaves North Dakota resolved to simplify his life....

Even more of a good thing: the latest collection of knee-slappers, toe-tappers, and groaners from A Prairie Home Companion Joke Shows.

Did you hear the one about the paranoid dyslexic? He always thought he was following someone. . . . Why did ancient Romans close down the Coliseum? The lions were eating up the prophets. . . .

Jokes are made for sharing, and everyone loves to laugh. This nonstop collection gathers the best jokes from four Joke Shows including the two most recent (3/8/2008 and 11/1/08), all recorded before live audiences at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Performers include show regulars—Garrison Keillor, Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Tom Keith—along with special guests. There’s music from the Guy’s All-Star Show Band, a Guy Noir sketch, a Ketchup sketch, and an unforgettable performance of “The Sound of Chickens,” a song that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Simon & Garfunkel classic “The Sound of Silence.” Except it really is about chickens, and while “The Sound of Silence” is dead serious, this version is just plain silly. (“And in the naked light I saw/Ten thousand chickens maybe more….”)

So it’s everything fans want and expect: good jokes, good music, and a pretty darned good time.

...

A thematic collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Hope contains “Truckstop”; “Smokes”; “The Perils of Spring”; “Let Us Pray.”....

Includes the complete Pretty Good Jokes, Few More Pretty Good Jokes, and New and Not Bad Pretty Good Jokes....

The latest in a line of bestselling collections that began with News from Lake Wobegon, this set selects monologues from four years (1999-2002) of live radio programs. Some were broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theatre, the show's St. Paul home. Others were recorded on the road in Dublin, Pasadena, Grand Forks, and other exotic places....

A short comic novel about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown during a blizzard.

A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy he’s not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday. In his reverie, our man reaches an epiphany worthy of the season—he hears the harkening angels sing, he is awed by the silence of the night (dead quiet: not even TV) and when he is finally rescued, leaves North Dakota resolved to simplify his life....

Wobegon goes abroad in this rousing and moving story of a group trip to Rome

Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her-he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place. Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response- fifty people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Carl's bossy sister, Eloise, Mr. Berge the town drunk, and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travelers with a graphic handout on the dangers of typhus and food poisoning and the seriousness of diarrhea, but ten applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all. At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel-safely away from Lake Wobegon, the pilgrims' memories are quickened and they recall long-forgotten incidents. In the warm circle of kinship, as they enter alien territory, they tell stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation all delivered with Keillor's trademark humor....

In this thoughtful, deeply personal work, one of the nation’s best-loved voices takes the plunge into politics and comes up with a book that has had all of America talking. Here, with great heart, supple wit, and a dash of anger, Garrison Keillor describes the simple democratic values—the Golden Rule, the obligation to defend the weak against the powerful, and others—that define his hard-working Midwestern neighbors and that today’s Republicans seem determined to subvert. A reminiscence, a political tract, and a humorous meditation, Homegrown Democrat is an entertaining, refreshing addition to today’s rancorous political debate.

* A New York Times bestseller
* Updated and revised with a new introduction for the 2006 midterm elections
* A Featured Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club...

Skits, songs, stories, and more from A Prairie Home Companion reveal the secret world of a stalwart people.

When you fly Lutheran Air, there’s no first class, meals are potluck with assignments by rows (rows 1-6, bring rolls; rows, 7-15, salad), all fares are by freewill offering, and the plane doesn’t land until the budget is met.

Welcome to the Land of Lutherans, where people drive Fords, wear cardigans, go to church at Third Lutheran (which used to be called First Lutheran, but Lutherans are more comfortable with being Third), drink a lot of coffee, serve chow mein noodles on tuna hot dish, work hard, and don’t make a fuss. Selected from live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion, this collection celebrates the kindest people on God’s green earth—except for the mean ones. If you’re not a Lutheran, you’ll laugh out loud. If you are, you’ll smile as hard as you can.

Contents:

• I’m a Lutheran
• Lutheran Tours: Vacation Guilt
• Potato Salad
• Elim Lutheran Anniversary with Philip Brunelle
• Iniquity on the Tundra with Charles Keating
• LYLE: Lutheran Youth League for Evangelism
• St. Patrick’s Day
• The Story of Bob with Vern Sutton
• Church Directory
• Guy Noir: New Year’s Eve Indiscretion
• LOL: Lutherans On Line
• Lutheran Polka
• Summer Vacation
• Flood: Floating Away with Your Pastor
• Evelyn Lundquist Counseling Agency (ELCA): Easter Briefing
• Church Organist

...

Based on Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon monologues, Life among the Lutherans is a collection of stories about the struggles of ordinary people in an imperfect world, the life and work of the pastor who leads them, and the church to whose high standards they aspire in the small town they call home.

The stories in Life among the Lutherans reflect everything Keillor fans have come to expect of this master storyteller. Some are familiar, including the quintessentially Lutheran ට Theses" from Lake Wobegon Days, others are new. Laugh out loud about the church directory filled with photos that are just plain awful. Share the moment when Pastor Ingqvist receives a leather-bound copy of his sermons. Keillor's command of every little detail of life in Lake Wobegon is bound to entertain, surprise , and make readers even those who aren't Lutheran - feel right at home in the mythical community where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."...

Includes Keillor's own favorite stories from his years as a contributor to The New Yorker and his bestselling books....

These news from Lake Wobegon monologues are grouped by theme. Rhubarb includes "Rhubarb," "Sweet Corn," "The Sun's Gonna Shine Someday," and "Yellow Ribbon."...

O baby won't you dance with me

Little baby bouncing on my knee

Wave your hands and shake your feet

Ooohh baby you're so sweet.

From the familiar pleasures of baby's favorite food to the joy of dancing together, this collection of three songs celebrates the special relationship between a daddy and his little girl....

Garrison Keillor returns to the little town we love and continues to chronicle the lives of our favorite folks.

Lake Wobegon is in a frenzy of preparations for the Fourth of July. This being Wobegon, lives collide and relationships develop in the oddest ways.

Take Clint Bunson, the treasurer of the Lutheran church and the auto mechanic who starts cars on below-zero mornings. For six years, he has run the Fourth of July parade, turning what was once a line of pickup trucks into an event of dazzling spectacle.

The town is dizzy with anticipation—until they hear of Clint’s ambition to run for Congress. They know about his episodes with vodka sours, his rocky marriage, and his friendship with the 24-year-old who dresses up as the Statue of Liberty for the parade and may be buck naked beneath her robes.

In Keillor’s words, “It is Lake Wobegon as you imagined it—good loving people who drive each other crazy.”

...

Broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall, the 2nd Farewell (June 4, 1988) was a joyous reunion heard by millions of fans. This complete original radio broadcast stars Keillor and friends Chet Atkins, Leo Kottke, the Everly Brothers, and more.

Contents:

Hello Love; Buster Preview; Small Songs; Peanut Butter; Chaplin in New Shoes; Greetings; It's a Lonesome Road; When I Wake Up to Sleep No More; Powdermilk Biscuits; You're the Top; Broadway Baby; Buster The Show Dog; The First to Go; Bertha's Kitty Boutique; Lemon Meringue; Mamie's Blues; Everly Brothers Medley; Greetings; Tell Me Why; Jazznochracy; The Duet of Bill & Marilyn; Across the Blue Mountains; News from Lake Wobegon; Remember Me; Bye Bye Love; I'll See You in My Dreams; The Lord Will Make a Way...

A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?

Clint Bunsen 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 an event of dazzling spectacle. Blazing bands, marching units, cannons, horses, a fireworks show, and the famous Living Flag—one thousand men and women wearing red, white, or blue, standing in formation—have 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 rumored 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....

Just in time for the Fourth of July, a firecracker of a Lake Wobegon novel from bestselling author and radio storyteller Garrison Keillor

Published to wide and enthusiastic acclaim, Liberty is Garrison Keillor's most ribald Lake Wobegon novel yet, set in a spectacular Fourth of July celebration amid marching bands and circus wagons drawn by teams of Percherons. The Chairman of the Fourth, Clint Bunsen, is in the midst of an identity crisis brought on by a DNA test just as he turns sixty, and he finds solace in the arms of Angelica Pflame, the young beauty who marched as Liberty in last year's parade. Should he remain in Lake Wobegon with his stoical wife Irene or fly to California with Angelica? Liberty is Keillor at his knowing, deadpan, raconteur best....

A short comic novel about a Hawaii-bound holiday traveler who ends up stranded in his North Dakota hometown during a blizzard.

A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy he’s not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday. In his reverie, our man reaches an epiphany worthy of the season—he hears the harkening angels sing, he is awed by the silence of the night (dead quiet: not even TV) and when he is finally rescued, leaves North Dakota resolved to simplify his life....

“When I was 16, Helen Fleischman assigned me to memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state’ for English class, and fifty years later, that poem is still in my head. Algebra got washed away, and geometry and most of biology, but those lines about the redemptive power of love in the face of shame are still here behind my eyeballs, more permanent than my own teeth. The sonnet is a durable good. These 77 of mine include sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, some street sonnets and a 12-sonnet cycle of months. If anything here offends, I beg your pardon. I come in peace, I depart in gratitude.”—Garrison Keillor

Features music by Rich Dworsky.

Please note content contains adult themes....

Revisit the beguiling comic world of Lake Wobegon. In the first collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Keillor tells readers ore about some of the people from Lake Wobegon Days and introduces some new faces. "Leaving Home is a book of exceptional charm . . . delightful . . . genuinely touching".--The Wall Street Journal. Available in early December....

Wobegon goes abroad in this rousing and moving story of a group trip to Rome

Margie Krebsbach dreams up the idea of a trip to Rome, hoping to get her husband Carl to make love to her-he's been sleeping across the hall and she has no idea why. She finds a patriotic purpose for the journey. A Lake Wobegon boy, Gussy Norlander, died in the liberation of Rome, 1944, and his grave, according to his elderly brother, Norbert, is in a neglected weed patch near the Colosseum. So it's decided they will go to clean Gussy's final resting place. Margie is unprepared for the enthusiastic response- fifty people want to go with her, including her nemesis, the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Carl's bossy sister, Eloise, Mr. Berge the town drunk, and her treacherous mother-in-law. Margie fends off some of the would-be travelers with a graphic handout on the dangers of typhus and food poisoning and the seriousness of diarrhea, but ten applicants remain, though Carl is not sure he wants to go after all. At this, a heartbroken Margie gets the motley crew to the airport and aboard the plane, and then discovers one of the secret pleasures of travel-safely away from Lake Wobegon, the pilgrims' memories are quickened and they recall long-forgotten incidents. In the warm circle of kinship, as they enter alien territory, they tell stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation all delivered with Keillor's trademark humor....