Rating: 
Summary: A terrific read, as always
Review: Garrison Keilor is the modern master of the narrative digression, musing on life and what is does to people. The person most being done to here is forty-three-year-old John Tollefson, refugee from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, running an NPR station in a college town in upstate New York. He's an intelligent, quiet, reflective guy, trying to be a Happy Lutheran even though he has dark opinions about talk radio. He falls in love with Alida, a history professor at Columbia, and they see each other one weekend a month, which maybe is preferable to marriage. He has an idea for a "garden restaurant," which ends up a money pit, thanks to the mismanagement of his lawyer, Alida's brother, and the chicanery of an ex-hippie contractor. But, as in most of Keillor's writing, the plot is the least part of the book. The best part is always the telling of tales about family and friends by everyone in the little town, the spinning of yarns about ancestors, the sometimes dark but generally tolerant and amused interweavings of personalities at the Chatterbox Cafe and the Sidetrack Tap. The author himself, of course, is in many ways very much like the characters he portrays, relating the adventures of John's great-uncle, the snake-oil medicine man who served four terms in Congress, and his Aunt Mildred, who flim-flammed the bank where she was a teller and decamped to Buenos Aires, and his own adolescent adventures tipping privies and trying to pick up girls at the roller rink. The set piece is John's coming home for his father's funeral, the gathering of the clan, the service itself, led by his pastor brother-in-law, and the drunken wake at the Sidetrack afterward. As we discover, there are just as many oddballs per family in Lake Wobegon as anywhere else, probably more, and Keillor paints them vividly in more than three dimensions. This is the sort of book that could never be made into a film, but which you will drive your spouse crazy reading aloud passages from.
Rating: 
Summary: Garrison's magic does not extend to a full-length novel
Review: Hands Down, This is Garrison Keillor's best novel. A book about the power of love, the dread of family, and the hope we all have to be better. Keillor reintroduces us with some of the characters of his last book" Lake Wobegon Days, and takes their struggles even further. Our hero John goes on a journey of self-discovery with the funnies of predicaments, and ends up in a much better place in the end.Read this book, it's really a true piece of work from a great master storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: A "Prairie Home Companion" in print...
Review: Hey, I love Garrison Keillor! The book was cute, witty, and sharply written. Keillor has a way with words, so much so that we feel pity and alliance with our "Wobegon Boy" from the start. If you have wanted to take a retaliatory stab at Political Correctness, make fun of your parents, and tell off your boss, read this book. You can do all, at least viscerally, through Keillor.
Rating:
Summary: first Keillor book for me
Review: I did enjoy this book, but I think that it takes a certain type of reader to appriciate it. The book is the first that I've read that really doesn't have a plot. It is a gathering of short stories strung together to tell the life of John Tollefson and his ancestors. The book really has no driving force to move it along, but it somehow still manages to move along quite enjoyably. I certainly will consider reading further works of Mr. Keillor's. If you are just looking for an easy, comfortable read then you ought to consider this.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional reading.
Review: I love everything written by Garrison Keillor. I alway listen to his radio shows, I cannot miss it and I cannot forget it.
Rating:
Summary: Wobegon Boy is classic Keillor
Review: I've been a Garrison Keillor fan for nearly 20 years and I've read all of his books. I thoroughly enjoyed Wobegon Boy. I found myself reading long passages to my wife as we lay on the beach. She didn't mind the interruptions in her reading either. I guess, then we really both read Wobegon Boy. It probably helps to be a PHC listener since many of the book's characters are familiar to us through the radio show. Even those unfamilair with Keillor's show, however, should enjoy the clever writing and gentle barbs at college culture, public radio and small town Minnesota life that Keillor dishes out.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Nordic Twilight...
Review: Probably the funniest, most entertaining book I've ever read, a 2000 Christmas gift to me from my youngest daughter. Garrison Keillor, writing about a ficticious Garrison Keillor (??) who lives a frustrating but interesting life that goes into middle ages with what his attractive girlfriend worries is their descent into the great Nordic twilight...
Rating:
Summary: Classic Wobegon Humor
Review: The audio version of this book is exceptional because Garrison Keillor does the reading. As a fan of Prairie Home Companion, this was my first Keillor book and I was not disappointed. Things such as his rambling stories about everyday happenings in Wobegon or his lengthy listing of John's girlfriend Alida's idiosyncrasies, most of which are woven back into the story at some point, had me laughing out loud. On the serious side, John's poignant thought process in dealing with a death in the family was heart rending. It's classic Garrison Keillor - clever, humorous, and insightful. The audio version is a must for all Wobegon fans.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Wobegon Humor
Review: The audio version of this book is exceptional because Garrison Keillor does the reading. As a fan of Prairie Home Companion, this was my first Keillor book and I was not disappointed. Things such as his rambling stories about everyday happenings in Wobegon or his lengthy listing of John's girlfriend Alida's idiosyncrasies, most of which are woven back into the story at some point, had me laughing out loud. On the serious side, John's poignant thought process in dealing with a death in the family was heart rending. It's classic Garrison Keillor - clever, humorous, and insightful. The audio version is a must for all Wobegon fans.
Rating:
Summary: Lutheran humor
Review: This a brilliant comic novel, featuring the adventures of John Tollefson. He has escaped Lutheran Minnesota to live in upstate New York, where he has taken the job of a local radio station manager. In between return visits to the mythical Wobegon, John romances historian Alida Freeman and embarks on a disastrous business venture with a New Age builder. And that's the plot, such as it is. There isn't a strong narrative thread running throughout this book, and I think that this is one of its strengths. Like many people's lives, John Tollefson's doesn't run to order. This might make for a very incoherent novel, but Keillor carries this off exceptionally well. The humour and wit are exceptional, and make 'Wobegon Boy' a huge pleasure to read. I was sorely disappointed that the book actually had to end, since it had easily put me into a very buoyant mood. Exceptional.
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