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68th out of 131 books
—
43 voters
Lake Wobegon, Summer 1956
The Doo Dads are singing "My Girl" on the radio and fourteen-year-old Gary is studying pictures of naked women, aware that Grandpa is looking down from heaven wondering how the boy turned out so badly. He has never so much as kissed a girl, except his rebellious cousin Kate, a sophisticate of seventeen who knows about The New Yorker and also how to swear and exhale smoke r...more
Foam Book, 352 pages
Published
September 1st 2002
by Penguin Canada
(first published January 1st 2001)
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As near life long resident of small norther towns, everything Garrison Keillor writes is basically in my wheelhouse. So now comes a Keillor novel about a young teenage boy growing up in one of those towns and there was no chance I wasn't going to like this book. That said I ended up liking it for rather unexpected reasons.
It's amazing how familiar a coming of age story set in 1956 can be today. So much of growing up is about learning how to turn childhood relationships into adult relationships,...more
It's amazing how familiar a coming of age story set in 1956 can be today. So much of growing up is about learning how to turn childhood relationships into adult relationships,...more
Feb 09, 2013
Bettie
marked it as lookedinto-decidedagainst
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Although the year in this title is, well, a fantastic vintage, my foray into Wobegone Boy put me off Keillor. I don't 'get' Keillor, and I know that may be my loss.
Although the year in this title is, well, a fantastic vintage, my foray into Wobegone Boy put me off Keillor. I don't 'get' Keillor, and I know that may be my loss.
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Am beginning to see the benefits of an e-reader. Bought this book in a second-hand shop because I'd read all the books I had room to carry with me on holiday. Not much for choice, I'm afraid. This was not to my taste. I have no interest in baseball whatsoever, and the smutty bits about a boy's adolescence also are of no appeal to me. Not my book day.
I first discovered Garrison Keillor while milking cows in Minnesota in 1972. He had a morning radio show and without fail played "Help, Help Me Rhonda" every single day his show was on. It became a kind of joke. But it was a fun show to help pass the time while having manure swished in my face. Ever since, I've been a devotee of the Lake Wobegon section of his current radio show (can't stand most of the music, so now I get just the Wobegon section as a podcast.) They are a delight, as is this qu...more
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I've long been a fan of Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" and "Lake Wobegon" tales. He's an entertaining fellow, with his homespun delivery and down to earth observations.
The tale of the Living Flag or yarns from the Chatterbox Cafe, Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, or the Sidetrack Tap are pure gold.
This book follows familiar territory. Semi-autobiographical in nature, we follow the teenaged progress of a boy with literary ambitions as he navigates the flow of adolescent hormones over the...more
The tale of the Living Flag or yarns from the Chatterbox Cafe, Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, or the Sidetrack Tap are pure gold.
This book follows familiar territory. Semi-autobiographical in nature, we follow the teenaged progress of a boy with literary ambitions as he navigates the flow of adolescent hormones over the...more
Mr. Keillor I am mad at you. And here's why. This is probably the funniest book I've read in years, and yet I cannot recommend it to anyone I know who would love it (like my dad, for instance) because there are porno stories all through it.
Seriously, this is laugh out loud, mascara dripping off your nose, choking on your tea hilarious. Garrison Keillor has an ability to mock an entire lifestyle with such a gentle sense of nostalgia that you kind of want to move to Lake Wobegon.
This story is ba...more
Seriously, this is laugh out loud, mascara dripping off your nose, choking on your tea hilarious. Garrison Keillor has an ability to mock an entire lifestyle with such a gentle sense of nostalgia that you kind of want to move to Lake Wobegon.
This story is ba...more
I love Garrison Keillor, both his writing and his Prairie Home Companion radio show. I believe he is today's master story teller in the United States. Lake Wobegon, Summer 1956 has much of his overall skill, however, it falls well below his normal writing only due to the topic of the book. While the overall plot is a 14-year old boy's life, with all the trials and tribulations that entails, one of the major sub-plots is his overwhelming sexual fantasies. Of course, young teens (and older males)...more
Garrison Keillor is a great story teller to be sure. But being a liberal he has conflicted feelings about a number of things including religion (which is almost always portrayed as being silly or intolerant) and family members (who are often described in unflattering ways). The story takes place when he is a young teenager full of raging hormones and he is not shy about sharing his fantasies. I really could have done without most of them.
But it seemed an honest treatment from an adolescent point...more
But it seemed an honest treatment from an adolescent point...more
Here's the thing, I did give this a low-ish rating but that's mostly for my own lists, and it's tough to pinpoint exactly what I didn't like about it. I think mainly it was simply that it was written from a fourteen year old boy's perspective and, no matter how funny that perspective may be, I simply couldn't relate to young Gary.
There were exceptions, though. As in most of his other work, Keillor accurately and hilariously weaves in those little details of life that most everyone can relate to:...more
There were exceptions, though. As in most of his other work, Keillor accurately and hilariously weaves in those little details of life that most everyone can relate to:...more
Did not finish. I picked this as a Minnesota author (male) for the bookclub. I haven't read any Garrison Keillor, so was looking forward to this. Nobody liked it, and most of us did not finish it. Told from the point of view of a 14-year-old boy, it was like being back in junior high. If you like sex and fart jokes, great. Otherwise, I'd skip this book. I got the impression that it might be a bit autobiographical (sadly). The bookclub (all women) had the reaction "Is this REALLY all guys think a...more
The radio is turned on every Saturday evening to the Garrison Keillor show. I love this man's stories and humor. I shared this with a friend I was visiting and he gave me this book to pass the time. I am glad that I did not read it when I had three teen aged sons at home. It was insightful to see what 14 year old boys think about. Maybe it is because of the distance in my life from 14, but do girls also think this way? As usual I laughed my way through this book. I loved his ah ha moment when he...more
This cassette read by the author, Garrison Keillor, was great fun. It was fun to hear him read dirty words out loud. You don't hear that on the radio show. I don't know if this story feeds into the other Woebegon stories, but is didn't matter. It was about "Gary" the summer he was 14 - his sexual awakening and his cousins "fall for grace". It has all the homey texture of the midwest in 1956.
It was also great to get a cassette instead of reading it even though I would have "heard" Garrison Keill...more
It was also great to get a cassette instead of reading it even though I would have "heard" Garrison Keill...more
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I was going at a pretty good pace, reading books I had been putting off reading for too long and getting through them one per week or so. Until this book came along. I think it took me three months, maybe longer, to finally finish this book. It's not that it's a bad book, but I think I was just a little misinformed.
There's two things that I like that I thought I'd find in this book - fifties nostalgia and a nice coming of age story. I don't really think Lake Wobegon contains either of these. I n...more
There's two things that I like that I thought I'd find in this book - fifties nostalgia and a nice coming of age story. I don't really think Lake Wobegon contains either of these. I n...more
Finally finished listening to Garrison Keillor's reading of Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 - a possibly autobiographical look at a 14-year old boy's summer experiences - mostly vignettes, with a bit of a plot showing up here & there.
It's told in first person; Gary is an aspiring writer, with a smart-ass cousin he's partly in lust with, a crazy aunt and a strictly religious family. If you're familiar with the radio show version of Lake Wobegon - we get to look a little more deeply under the surfac...more
It's told in first person; Gary is an aspiring writer, with a smart-ass cousin he's partly in lust with, a crazy aunt and a strictly religious family. If you're familiar with the radio show version of Lake Wobegon - we get to look a little more deeply under the surfac...more
Well, gee. I don't know. I love Garrison Keillor, therefore I love Lake Wobegon (and I especially enjoyed young Gary's tendency to describe breasts as "young friendly otters"). But I just couldn't get over the strange way his crush on his cousin was treated -- it was lighthearted until the last forty pages or so, and the way it was both obsessed over and glazed over was awkward and one-dimensional. I was so distracted by this bizarreness that I almost missed out on some fine little Keillor-isms....more
I picked up the hardcover edition of this book at a thrift store, which I don't normally do, as I find hardbacks more cumbersome than paperbacks, but I am glad that I made an exception. It is a great thing when an author has such a distinct personality and way of expressing themselves that you can't help hearing their voice as you read. There are only a few authors that I have experienced this with, and I heard Garrison Keillor's voice on every page of this one. I highly recommend this book.
Garrison Keillor is one of my Dad's favortie authors and "Lake Woebegon Days" I consider to be one of my Dad's favortie books but of course the library didn't have a copy of that one. I don't know if my Dad has read this one...As I said in my update I'm not sure if this is a whimsical boyhood summer story or the rambling's of a dirty old man's mind. There were fart jokes and excerpts of porn intermingled with the benefits of being Christian. Kissing cousins locked in the boys' bathroom at school...more
I've always enjoyed Garrison Keillor's radio show, as well as his earlier books, especially "Lake Wobegon Days." In most of his commentary, Lake Wobegon, Minnesota is peaceful and no one ever thinks of sex. Evidently that's not the case. Granted, the narrator of this book is a rather horny 14 year-old boy, but some parts did make me wonder if they were more for shock value than anything else. Still, an enjoyable read; Keillor is a fine spinner or tales.
A surprisingly good comedy that I didn't expect to like. While a lot of GK fans are like, "Oh, that was JUST like my childhood!" I find that nostalgia isn't the primary draw of this book. For me, 1950 might as well be 1850 and Minnesota the moon. I don't need to vicariously relive the "good old days," but what I do appreciate is a good laugh.
The retro humor I usually see tends to mock housewives, the robot/jetpack "future," or "Duck and cover" videos. So it's unexpectedly awesome to find slice-o...more
The retro humor I usually see tends to mock housewives, the robot/jetpack "future," or "Duck and cover" videos. So it's unexpectedly awesome to find slice-o...more
I finished this book last night. If you are a fan of the Stories from Lake Wobegon, you will enjoy this book. It's narrated by 14 year old Gary, navigating the summer of 1956 with dreams of being a writer and experiencing his first love with all of the urges and sensations that this involves. As always, Keillor captures all of the imperfections and humor poignancy of what it means to be human.
I'm about half-way through this and it is, as I expected, hilarious.
I'm about half-way through this and it is, as I expected, hilarious.
I was lent this "real" book recently when on a flight and told that I had to turn off my Kindle. I finished it within a couple of days and while it wasn't horrible, I certainly wouldn't put it at the top of my favorites list. It is as funny as adolescent boys can be, which in my opinion isn't very funny. Luckily, it's a relatively short book.
Yes, I read a novel by the Prairie Home Companion guy. I happen to like Prairie Home Companion, thank you. This books was funny and sentimental but not saccharine in that way only Keillor can pull off. It was like a long episode of The Wonder Years, but with more dick and tit jokes.
This story is hilarious. The tone is mischievously comedic. The main character is honest and I found myself rooting for him to the end of the book. It puts you in the setting of the early days and has you wishing that you could be there. The writing was refreshing with the way Keillor describes things. This was entertaining from beginning to end.
This book was pretty charming and sucked me in, despite the baseball references (I'm not a sports person--those almost lost me). But there were moments where I laughed and had to read parts to my husband. That's always a good sign.
Of course Garrison Keilor is a great story teller, but I couldn't keep reading about the crude mind of a 14 year old. I just don't think I want to know what goes on in their minds. I hope not all boys are like that!
This book was highly entertaining. I alternated between reading the book and listening to the audio version on long car trips. Hearing Keillor narrate was definitely a plus- he adds so much personality with his voice.
This book was actually a tad on the racy side! Young Gary amuses himself with a book, High School Orgies, given to him by his friend Leonard. He spins himself additional fantasies around this book and his cousin Kate, as well as spending time hanging out with his hero, Jim Dandy, member of the Doo Dads singing sensation and announcer at the local ballfield. The book has lots of Lake Wobegon charm and I suspect I'll probably read more in the series, but I was a tad surprised by the constant menti...more
I feel bad giving Garrison Keillor only two stars. I love his writing. At least, I used to. I read Lake Wobegon Days around the time it was published in 1985 and found the descriptions of small town America delightful. I remember reading a sentence, smiling at the beautiful way it was put together, and then re-reading it.
So now a few years have gone by, and we're back in Lake Wobegon, and I'm not as charmed. Is because Keillor didn't give this his best writing effort? Is it because it is too fam...more
So now a few years have gone by, and we're back in Lake Wobegon, and I'm not as charmed. Is because Keillor didn't give this his best writing effort? Is it because it is too fam...more
Pretty good book about a dorky boy in the 1950's growing up in an uber religious household. had some funy moments as well as times that made you wanna slap some sense into some of the carachters.
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Garrison Keillor (born Gary Edward Keillor on August 7, 1942 in Anoka, Minnesota) is an American author, storyteller, humorist, columnist, musician, satirist, and radio personality.
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