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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A hilarious book at the top of its genre. What a marvelous collection of stories and anecdotes, weaving toward an uproarious slapstick finish. I read it straight through and enjoyed every minute. The author's dry humor, precise phrasing, character sketching, and patient, low-key approach are on full display. (  ) Wheatland | Sep 5, 2009 |  Hmmm. I think Keillor's schtick is getting old. Either that or he's writing too much and the quality control suffers. Maybe he has bills to pay. Whatever, this was a most disappointing book. Keillor's schtick, for those who don't know, is to chronicle the doings of people in a dull hick town in Minnesota, wringing comedy from their very ordinary lives with sharp observation and dry wit. Remove the laughs, as in this book, and what you have is a litany of rather depressing life stories, each one a born loser. After about three of these, and only half a laugh in the lot, I got the feeling that this was not one of Mr. Keillor's best. Worse was yet to come, because, as was apparent almost from the start, he had in store for us a Grand Finale of unlikely farce. There are two problems with this; 1) farce is rarely very funny, and this one was no exception, and 2) unlikely farce sits very badly in Lake Wobegon, a town where nothing exciting or unusual ever happens. That's the whole Wobegon joke, and if you undermine that whole Wobegonian ethos for the sake of some cheap gags, what's left? Verdict: two Norwegian bachelor farmers out of ten. (  ) sloopjonb | Feb 22, 2009 | This is a story strictly for people who are familiar with Lake Wobegon. Like most Lake Wobegon stories, it's rather hard to get started into. It's dense with many little things that somehow fits together at the end, no matter how absurd it is. This was one of the few books I was not able to skim. There is something going on with every word. I love how every time I meet a new character in this little town there is more then what meets the eyes. Evelyn knew exactly who she was and lived her life as she intended to. I feel this story pointed out the absurdity of living a conformed life. You try hard to please everyone else but yourself. At the end you will be miserable and perhaps turn into an alcoholic. It makes me want to take destiny in my own hands and run off to Reno for the weekend. (  ) odrini | Feb 20, 2009 | laugh out loud funny, especially if you're a lutheran. Keillor does the reading on the cd and this is my second listening and I still laughed. wonderful ( ) hammockqueen | Dec 29, 2008 | Fiction--American (  ) edwin.gleaves | Nov 8, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:42:49 -0500)
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