I would always recommend Garrison Keillor's novels as audiobooks. Known for his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, reading the book in text would remove his warm voice from the story. It would be like reading Billy Crystal's 700 Sundays instead of seeing the play. Keillor's story is magical and it begs the listener to slow down and not be in such a hurry in life. Even those that have left Lake Wobegon feel listless and rootless until they return. ( )

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. ( )

Someone has signed this copy but I doubt that it is the author. Wherever you open this book, you find something that makes you laugh or, rather, chuckle. Let me try - page 233 - at random `The twin perils of the poorhouse and the exploding tree made for a vivid Christmas' or page282 - again at random - `Charlotte is fifty-three and heavy'... ( )

I grew up in a small town and now in my 50’s I love laughing out loud at the similar and unique in each of us. The quote on the back of the book says it all “the little town that time forgot and that the decades cannot improve.” ( )

Garrision Kellor's book. Very good. ( )