With the warmth and humor we've come to know, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion shares his own remarkable story. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years, 1,557 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renee Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who'd learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation. He says, "I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That's the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I'm heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day." The paperback edition has been revised, with a new preface by the author.

Peanuts is the most popular comic strip in the history of the world. Its characters - Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and so many more - have become dearly loved icons for generation after generation. Now Charles Schulz's classic, Peanuts, will be reprinted in its entirety for the first time. In these beautifully produced editions, the strip will be presented in full in chronological order. They will be the ultimate books for Peanuts' fans the world over. These first volumes will be of particular fascination to Peanuts aficionados. Many of the strips from the series' first two or three years have never been collected before, in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip. They include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we all know, including Snoopy's debut as a puppy!

'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 stateA" 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.

"The book is full of strong, memorable poems that stick with readers like a friend during a long, hard night. " - The Christian Science Monitor Here, readers will find solace in works that are bracing and courageous, organized into such resonant headings as "Such As It Is More or Less" and "Let It Spill." From William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman to R. S. Gwynn and Mary Oliver, the voices gathered in this collection will be more than welcome to those who've been struck by bad news, who are burdened by stress, or who simply appreciate the power of good poetry.

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.

Every day people tune in to The Writer's Almanac on public radio and  hear Garrison Keillor read them a poem. And here, for the first time, is an anthology of poems from the show, chosen by Keillor for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m."

Good Poems includes verse about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendance. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It's a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.

Called "The Mother Church of Country Music," the Ryman Auditorium saw a historic chapter come to a close in 1974 when it closed its doors on 5th Avenue to move into new quarters at Opryland USA. Nashville photographer Jim McGuire had full access to the Ryman and shares over 100 stunning black and white photographs with chapter introductions and captions from the last year of this landmark and the most famous show in country music. Most of the photographs have never been published so come share the memories of this institution and your favorite legendary country music stars. With the foreword written by Garrison Keillor, and an introduction by Opry legend Marty Stuart, this book is a must-have for any country music lover.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, a firecracker of a Lake Wobegon novel from bestselling author and radio storyteller Garrison Keillor
Published to wide and enthusiastic acclaim, Liberty is Garrison Keillor's most ribald Lake Wobegon novel yet, set in a spectacular Fourth of July celebration amid marching bands and circus wagons drawn by teams of Percherons. The Chairman of the Fourth, Clint Bunsen, is in the midst of an identity crisis brought on by a DNA test just as he turns sixty, and he finds solace in the arms of Angelica Pflame, the young beauty who marched as Liberty in last year's parade. Should he remain in Lake Wobegon with his stoical wife Irene or fly to California with Angelica? "Liberty" is Keillor at his knowing, deadpan, raconteur best.

Lake Wobegon Days is the marvellous chronicle of an imaginary place located somewhere in the middle of the state (but not on the map) and named after an Indian word meaning 'Here we are!' or 'We sat all day in the rain waiting for you.' From the narrator - a skinny Protestant kid fascinated by the Catholic church - we learn of the town's beginnings and of the settlers who made their lives there. A contemporary classic filled with warmth and humour, sadness and tenderness, songs and poems, it is also an unforgettable portrait of small-town America.

Meet Larry Wyler, a man with a big heart, broad shoulders and some very odd baggage. After the runaway success of his debut novel, 'Spacious Skies', Larry decides to leave small-town life and his wife Iris, and move to Manhattan. But with his marriage in pieces and his second novel a flop, he suddenly finds himself struck down with a bad case of writer's block . . . Cue his new incarnation as the newspaper columnist 'Mr Blue', agony uncle to the lonely and frustrated. It may not be great literature, but perhaps the simple act of writing once again will help get Larry back on track.

Famous radio private eye Guy Noir leaps from "A Prairie Home Companion" to the page

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know-Joey, Lieutenant McCafferty, reporter Gene Williker, Guy's ex-girlfriend Sugar O'Toole, the despicable Larry B. Larry, the dreamboat Scarlett Anderson, Mr. Kress of the FDA-and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss. In this whirlwind caper Guy faces danger, falls in love, and faces off with the capo del capo del grande primo capo Johnny Banana.

The inimitable Garrison Keillor spins "a Christmas tale that makes Dickens seem unimaginative by comparison" ("Charlotte Creative Loafing")

Snow is falling all across the Midwest as James Sparrow, a country- bumpkin-turned-energy-drink-tycoon, and his wife awaken in their sky- rise apartment overlooking Chicago. Even down with the stomach bug, Mrs. Sparrow yearns to see "The Nutcracker" while James yearns only to escape-the faux-cheer, the bitter cold, the whole Christmas season. An urgent phone call from his hometown of Looseleaf, North Dakota, sends James into the midst of his lunatic relatives and a historic blizzard. As he hunkers weather the storm, the electricity goes out and James is visited by a parade of figures who deliver him an epiphany worthy of the season, just in time to receive Mrs. Sparrow's wonderful Christmas gift. Garrison Keillor's holiday farce is the perfect gift for the millions of fans who tune into "A Prairie Home Companion" every week.

n this charming departure from Lake Wobegon, bestselling author Garrison Keillor tells a hilarious and heartwarming tale of ambition, success and failure, and the virtues of real love. Aspiring writer Larry Wyler leads a quiet, decent life with his do-gooder wife, Iris, in St. Paul, Minnesota, but he wants more. When his literary debut becomes a hit, he departs for a Manhattan apartment, a job at the "New Yorker," and three- martini lunches with the great editor, William Shawn.

But when his second novel bombs and he finds himself in the grip of writer's block, Wyler discovers that success?and the New York publishing scene?is a fickle mistress, indeed. Creatively barren, nearly destitute, and longing for Iris, he accepts a job writing ?Ask Mr. Blue, ? a column doling out advice to the lovelorn. It may not be glamorous work, but through it Wyler discovers what's really important and sets out to win back the woman he left behind.

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 rings. But this is a summer of change for Gary: he fights back against his bullying born-again sister and his tyrannical teacher, and most significantly, he receives an Underwood typewriter-a typewriter that will help Gary believe he can become a writer. With his trademark gift for treading "a line delicate as a cobweb between satire and sentiment" (The Cleveland Plain Dealer), Keillor's touching and funny novel brilliantly captures a newly minted America and delivers an unforgettable comedy about the universal aspects of adolescence-from first loves to fear and fascination with bodily functions.

John Tollefson, a son of Lake Wobegon, has moved East to manage a radio station at a college for academically challenged children of financially gifted parents in upstate New York. Having achieved this pleasant perch, John has a brilliant idea for a restaurant specializing in fresh sweet corn. And he falls in love with an historian named Alida Freeman, hard at work on a book about a nineteenth-century Norwegian naturopath, an acquaintance of Lincoln, Thoreau, Whitman, and Susan B. Anthony.

Caught up in his own ambitions, John visits home in Minnesota to sit in the Sidetrack Tap and the Chatterbox Cafe and listen to the talk he has heard all his life, and in that familiar landscape he discovers what is truly important to him. It all comes down to the Lake Wobegon code: Cheer Up, Make Yourself Useful, Mind Your Manners, and Avoid Self-Pity.

In the spring of 1926, the Soderbjerg brothers, Ray and Roy, plunge into radio and launch station WLT (With Lettuce and Tomato) to rescuer their failing restaurant and become the Sandwich Kings of South Minneapolis. For the next quarter century, the “Friendly Neighbor” station produces a dazzling array of shows and stars, including Leo LaValley, Dad Benson, Wingo Beals, Slim Graves and Little Buddy, chain-smoking child star Marjery Moore, and blind baseball announcer Buck Steller.

Francis With, a shy young man from North Dakota, entranced by radio, gets into WLT through his uncle Art and quickly becomes the Sodjerberg’s right hand. Soon Francis is a budding announcer adored by Lily Dale, the crippled nightingale of WLT kept hidden from her fans, whose firing contributes to the downfall of the station. And then comes television.

In the first collection of Lake Wobegon monologues, Keillor tells readers more about some of the people from Lake Wobegon Days and introduces some new faces.

"Leaving Home is a book of exceptional charm . . . delightful . . . genuinely touching" —The Wall Street Journal

"Clean, down-to-earth, exquisitely good hearted, highly ludicrous." —The New York Times

“Garrison Keillor made it possible, after twenty years of black humor…to be both funny and nice, hip and winsome, scathing and loving, all in the flick of a single many-barbed quip— or as Thurber put it, in his famous cartoon, ‘Touche!’ His latest collection of stories, poems, and anomalies, We Are Still Married, shows Keillor away from Lake Wobegone, and as funny as ever, if not funnier.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Keillor’s literary style is as flexible and assured as his vocal delivery. It can slip from mood to mood so subtly and quickly you’re never quite sure where you are…. [His] writing has the silvery slip of running water, so graceful and easy it’s hard to believe it can carry so much that is jagged and unresolved. His integrity lies in his not smoothing away those rough edges in the swift current of his prose; they’re bruisingly, sometimes cuttingly there.” —The Village Voice

“Keillor’s best stuff is clean (in the sense that lines are clean), down to earth, exquisitely good-hearted, highly ludicrous, and as labored as nitrous oxide…. This book will either leave you dumbfounded or happy—almost deservedly happy—to be anywhere” —The New York Times Book Review

“His humor is cerebral and complex, a blend of romance and nostalgia; it sparklingly parodies the American (and human) condition…. His stories and satires glow with a sense of time and place.” —The Washington Post

Lake Wobegon goes to Italy in Garrison Keillor's latest
Twelve Wobegonians fly to Rome to decorate a war hero's grave, led by Marjorie Krebsbach, with radio host Gary Keillor along for the ride. The pilgrimage is inspired by a phone call from an Italian woman seeking her Lake Wobegon roots and by a memoir "O Paradiso" by a farm wife who found the secret of life and love in Italy. And by marjorie's longing to win back the love of her husband Carl. Far from home, sitting in the rain in the Piazza Navona, the pilgrims talks about themselves, as they never could do in the Chatterbox Cafe.
""You're not going to write about this, I hope," says Irene Bunsen. "Of course I am. I invented this town," says Mr. Keillor. "Oh my, aren't you something," she replies. "

In this thoughtful, deeply personal work, one of the nation's best-loved voices takes the plunge into politics and comes up with a book that has had all of America talking. Here, with great heart, supple wit, and a dash of anger, Garrison Keillor describes the simple democratic values-the Golden Rule, the obligation to defend the weak against the powerful, and others- that define his hard-working Midwestern neighbors and that today's Republicans seem determined to subvert. A reminiscence, a political tract, and a humorous meditation, "Homegrown Democrat" is an entertaining, refreshing addition to today's rancorous political debate.
* A "New York Times" bestseller
* Updated and revised with a new introduction for the 2006 midterm elections
* A Featured Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club