Lake Wobegon Days

by Garrison Keillor

1986

Status

Checked out

Publication

Penguin Books (1986), 420 pages

Description

Garrison Keillor is the consummate storyteller, gifted with the rare ability--both in print and in performance--to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of ordinary people whose lives contain extraordinary moments of humor, tenderness, and grace. This exclusive recording of Garrison Keillor reading a carefully edited abridgement of the book and includes a few segments taken from live performances recorded during a fundraising tour for public radio stations in 1985.

User reviews

LibraryThing member otterley

Perhaps you need to be a fan of the radio show to really 'get' this - it is long, and rambles (intentionally, as Keillor is obviously a very technically accomplished writer), and maybe you just have to give it a bit more time and love than I did....Comedy is probably the most subjective style of

writing there is and this just wasn't personally my thing..

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LibraryThing member Vivl

Funny, gentle, beautiful and moving.

I just found a little exercise book in which I used to write favourite quotes from books as I read them, and this is what I chose at the time (2001)--a heartbreaking little snippet:

"All those long conversations in vanished kitchens when for an evening we

achieved a perfect understanding that, no matter what happened, we were true comrades and our affection would endure, and now our friendship is gone to pieces and I can't account for it. Why don't I see you any more? Did I disappoint you? Did you call me one night to say you were in trouble and hear a tone in my voice that made you say you were fine?"

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LibraryThing member Dnorthup

I have been a fan of "A Prairie Home Companion" and the News from Lake Wobegon for many years and finally got around to picking up the first of Garrison Kiellor's Lake Wobegon novels. With each story, I could hear Garrison telling the stories just as he does on the radio. Most of the names and

places were familiar to me as a long time listener to the radio show, but the stories felt fresh and new. It made me long for a simpler, quieter way of life not wrapped up in the big city and all of the trappings of technology and celebrity obsesion. These are stories about small town life and values that mattered to the people living those lives. Television was taboo and the radio was a place to hear stories and music appropriate for all ages. Books were important and served as a glimpse at how the other half lived, and made the reader value the world in which they were living. They are quaint and folksy at times, but that is what is to be expected in Keillor's stories. I plan to keep reading the Lake Wobegon books and listening to the radio show if only to be a part of that simpler life for a time.

Related books that I have liked: All of the Jan Karon Mitford series and her new series on Father Tim. Also the Irish Country Doctor books by Patrick Taylor.

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LibraryThing member Digger.Barnes

A rambling, warm-hearted and humorous account of the life and times of a small heartland town and the people living therein. Partly the history of a town you cannot drive through (but would like to), partly a sketch of people you can never meet (but would like to), all shaggy dog story, from an

expert of convincing descriptive human minutiae.

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LibraryThing member galenag

This book gave a bit of a background on how Keillor started on Lake Wobegon, and history of this fictional town. This is not something that you can put down in the middle of a chapter, you really need to finish the chapter before moving on to something else. Overall, it was a fun read if you have

listened to the radio show.

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LibraryThing member jlcarroll

Keillor plumbs the shallows and depths of small-town life. One moment he pokes fun at the fatuous nature of Lake Wobegon's people, and the next he finds great truths in their simple life. The book reminded me of growing up in my hometown - a place I still love, yet loved to leave.

LibraryThing member TheBentley

Keillor is better on the air or on audiobook, but this collection of essay is still unmistakably in the spirit and feel of Lake Wobegon, and in many places you can hear Keillor's voice narrating it. He may not be quite as warm and funny on the page as on the air, but even on paper, he's still

warmer and funnier than anyone has a right to be.

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LibraryThing member RobertDay

I came to the work of Garrison Keiller through my good friend and literary guru Bruce Gillespie in Australia, who raved over "A Prairie Home Companion" having heard syndicated radio broadcasts of it over there. I'm so pleased to have the opportunity to read Keillor's work - even if his voice is

better known in the UK as the uncredited voiceover artist for a series of tv adverts from Honda...

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LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C

A friend of mine saw I was reading this book and expressed surprise; she didn't think this would be something I'd like. "So you think a big city gal like me can't appreciate small town charm?" "Yup," she answered. I'd love to prove her wrong, because I'm perverse that way and hate to admit she

knows me that well--but... well. I gather it helps if you've listened to Garrison Keilor narrating The Prairie Home Companion on radio--I have not.

More than a few reviewers, even the complementary ones, have called this book "rambling"--and is it ever. It has no real narrative focus from what I can tell from the 50 or so pages I could make myself read. It seems more loosely connected stories and history of fictional, Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, U.S.A, a small town not far from the twin cities. In the opening chapter, "Home" it shifts without warning from a super-omniscient to first person and back, from present to past tense and back. There seems to be a narrator, because we hear about "when grandmother died" and "in 1958 when six of us boys" and how he had "turned 16" but it just didn't gel for me. I soon lost patience with the folksy voice and boy did I hate the frequent footnotes--by the time you got through them you've completely lost the thread of the main narrative. And though I tried this because it was listed on "The Ultimate Reading List," I didn't find this funny. I not only didn't laugh out loud, I didn't crack a smile.

I could see this was literate and lyrical and got an idea why some might be charmed, but I was irritated and bored out of my mind. Humor is such a personal thing. Just not for me.

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LibraryThing member masyukun

This fictional memoir reads exactly like a Prairie Home Companion episode -- without proper the comedic timing or delivery.

It comes across as a rambling narrative of the fictional minutia comprising countless lives. Still, Keillor makes interesting observations into human nature and interaction.

LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind

Wry nostaglic view of Midwestern life. Brings back both nostalgia and cynicism to me in a pleasant combination. I keep reading it in the author's distinctive 'radio' voice.

LibraryThing member HolmesGirl221b

I enjoyed this book so much. It starts with the origin of the town of Lake Wobegon, and then proceeds with Garrison Keillor reminiscing about the good old days through his eyes as he reels you into the sleepy town, a place representing any one of thousands of small towns and lakes for which

Minnesota is known. He introduces you to an array of colourful people, with stories of their equally colourful lives. Anyone who has grown up in the upper Midwest will find this especially funny to relate to. I live three thousand miles away from Minnesota, but these small town idiosyncrasies are everywhere. I loved the humour, the book reminded me a lot of Northern Exposure with the town of Cicely's weird and wonderful residents.
Sumus quod sumus ,'' reads the towncrest of Lake Wobegon. ''We are what we are.''
I'm even supporting the Whippets now ..

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LibraryThing member keylawk

Garrison Keillor lost several original short stories in a train station in 1974. He was struggling as a writer, and those stories were really good, and being able to send them off to the New Yorker would have helped. In the Preface, GK pleads for the return--by delivery or memory recovery--of the

lost artifacts. His radio show "A Prairie Home Companion", a live musical-variety show was started up and then he split up from his wife in 1976, and then he started doing the Lake Wobegon monolog, hoping his lost story would arrive. Hoping to discover something lost all these years. That's the underlying longing at the heart of the seasons which keep turning at a fictional small town somewhere in Minnesota.

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LibraryThing member BooksOn23rd

LAKE WOBEGON DAYS, the fictional tales of a small Minnesota town, was written by Garrison Keillor in 1985. Keillor is the host of the popular “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show.
Lake Wobegon is full of hard-stock people of Norwegian and German descent, brimming with endearing quirkiness.

There are the same locations mentioned on “Prairie”: the Chatterbox Café, Bunsen Motors, Ralph’s Grocery, the Lutheran Church, the Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Church.
The residents of Lake Wobegon go about their lives sometimes blissfully unaware of just how absurd they sound. Keillor’s narrator tends to let his mind wander when telling a story, and it makes for some humorous observations. He is also brilliant at pointing out the hypocrisies and the pleasures of living in a small town.
Although a few of the chapters are hit and miss, Keillor’s writing always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

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LibraryThing member all4metals

Garrision Kellor's book. Very good.

LibraryThing member stephanie_M

Quiet, gentle, and slow, this audiobook read by Garrison Keillor himself is a jewel. If you liked the movie A Prairie Home Companion at all, you might just like this novel as well. Short stories about Keillor's life in a very small town near Lake Wobegone, they are sweet and short themselves. The

perfect thing to listen to as you crochet, with your feet up, after a long day's work. It's very much like listening to your grandparents talk about "the Good Old Days".

4stars

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LibraryThing member hcubic

Keillor at his best. Many stories in the book were broadcast on Prairie Home Companion.

LibraryThing member slavenrm

I found this book on the clearance rack for a dollar so most important of all, don't over pay for it. There are plenty of copies to go around.

On the positive side, this book was brashly honest. Keillor talks very frankly about the feelings of an adolescent young man and having been an adolescent

young man... well, let's just say that he's being very honest. The author's dry wit for which he's famous is evident as he takes us on these boyhood exploits and unveils his early formative days.

On the negative side, and this may seem prudish and contradictory, it was at times almost too honest. To put it bluntly, a lot of what boys think about at that age is sex. And when they're done thinking about that they think about sex some more. And in between long protracted periods of thinking about sex, they think about how they're going to get some sex. While this is all very truthful and revealing, it just isn't the image I had of Mr. Keillor. Part of his appeal is his homespun squeaky cleanness and this... well, it just wasn't clean. It wasn't lude either, but it just wasn't quite what one expects.

In summary, I'm glad I read it but it has changed my image of the author forever. This is not a diminishment of his person or character, just a rather humanizing change. On the whole that's probably a good thing but it isn't what I would have predicted when I picked up the book that's a certainty.

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LibraryThing member wenestvedt

This is a book-length "news From lake Woebegon" segment, for good or ill. I still enjoy Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" radio show now mostly because I get to hear Pat Donohue: Keillor has worn out his welcome with me. I think this book is actually my Mom's, lent to me (she's over him, too) and

not yet read.

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LibraryThing member mykl-s

Keillor's monologues, presented here as short stories, remind me of the small town I grew up in. They are about a place and time that was not better than now, and not necessarily worse, but memorable.

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