Most Popular Books by Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor reads (or sings) all the poems in the book on two CDs inside, with music by Rich Dworsky ''When I was 16, Helen Fleischman assigned me to memorise 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

Dissatisfied with her life, Puff the cat leaves home and becomes a rich and glamorous model, but eventually returns having found out that it''s better to be who you are.

A wealthy and depressed man bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt, arriving just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard.

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. But 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 travellers, 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 - as they enter alien territory, safely away from Lake Wobegon, they tell each other stories of astonishing frankness and self-revelation.

With Boom Town, Garrison Keillor returns to his hometown of Lake Wobegon, which is in the midst of a rising economic tide driven by millennialentrepreneurs. "I go back home mainly for funerals, which these days are for people my age, 79, which gets my attention, an obituary with my number in it," he writes, as he sits at the bedside of Arlene Bunsen dying with humor and grace, and recalls a teenage love affair with Marlys Gunderson and observes the millennial culture, a stark contrast to the Lutheran farm town of the radio monologues. He spends the summer in the old Gunderson lake cabin, reliving the past, postponing his return to New York and his wife Giselle.Garrison Keillor wrote Boom Town during the pandemic lockdown in New York,reading drafts of it to his wife, Jenny, sitting across the room. He did parts of the book in monologues for audiences in Boston, New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia, along with the story of how, in the 8th grade, his shop teacher Orville Buehler, worried about the boy''s carelessness with the power saw, sent him up to LaVona Person''s speech class, thus changing his life. Keillor says, "For many people, the key to success is discipline and education, but for me, it was ineptitude with power tools."

The first children''s novel by the author of Lake Wobegon Days. Twelve-year-old Rachel''s parents have always been a little eccentric, but might their weirdness be rubbing off on her? Is she becoming the town nerd? And what lies ahead during the long, lonely summer in Sandy Bottom?

Radio personality and author Garrison Keillor delights and astounds in this hybrid memoir/poetry collection that combines anecdotes from his childhood and his "A Prairie Home Companion" years with literary limericks, darkly humorous limericks, extended limericks (aka limericks with porches), and so much more. Limericks are the poems that can be written in the empty spaces between life, Keillor posits, and this compact book illustrates the full range of the form''s utility: thank-you notes to doctors, odes to "Prairie Home" performers, postcard greetings from exotic places, succinct biographies of favorite writers, and scribbles in the margins of Sunday church programs. Readers who have always pined for the perfect limerick hinging on the place name "Schenectady" will at long last be placated. Meanwhile, longtime Keillor fans will gain insight into a whole new side of the bestselling author, whose obsession with limericks goes all the way back to when the bespectacled, lanky youth wearing hand-me-down jeans (from his sister) recited to his Anoka High School class: There was a young man of Anoka Who tried to write a great limerick. He tried and he tried And some were not bad, But something seemed to be missing.

"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"--

Many books have been written about the Battle of Britain and the events leading up to it. Some are autobiographies by fighter pilots, some are by historians writing in hindsight, researching documents and including personal memories of the participants. The author of this book was a World War II Spitfire pilot who has previously written and lectured about this battle, and he has presented a thesis in defence of Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the Chief of Fighter Command.

The people of Lake Wobegon continue their lives, getting themselves into entertaining situations.

Autobiographical sketches with stories about the inhabitants of Lake Wobegon, an imaginary Minnesota town. Learn about the statue of the Unknown Norwegian and why Lake Wobegon never made it onto the map, and many other small-town stories.

¿Oh, baby, won¿t you dance with me? Little baby, bouncing on my knee, Wave your hands & shake your feet. Ooohh, baby, you¿re so sweet . . . .¿ The sweetness between a daddy & his little girl is all here -- the walks, the favorite foods, the dancing, the diaper changing. With his signature warmth & wit, author Garrison Keillor, the host of ¿A Prairie Home Companion,¿ turns ordinary daily events into celebrations. He wrote these songs for his young daughter, Maia Grace. Includes a CD sung by Keillor. Color illustrations.

A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America''s most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.

"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 Orlando Mammoth Concert Tickets Bruno, the Fishing Dog Gospel Birds Meeting Donny Hart at the Bus Stop A Day at the Circus with Mazumbo The Tollerud''s Korean Baby Sylvester Krueger''s Desk Babe Ruth visits Lake Wobegon "Gospel Birds" is Garrison Keillor at his very best--endearing insights, gentle humor and warm affection for the human foibles we all share.

In 1926 the Soderbjerg brothers Ray and Roy plunge into radio and start station WLT (with lettuce and tomato) in order to rescue their failing restaurant.

"I''ve spent enough of my life in waiting rooms to have written War and Peace," says Garrison Keillor, "and instead I wrote these limericks."