Reviews and Comments

This 1997 release is Keillor's first full-length novel. Earlier books were collections of "New from Lake Wobegon" stories previously told on public radio. I liked Wobegon Boy and following John Tollefson who leaves Lake Wobegon to take a job managing a new public radio station in upstate New York in order to avoid getting married to a high school sweetheart and regular bedmate.

Plenty of dry humor. He is so scared to bring his gf to Lake Wobegon, but the happy ending couldn't have occurred if he never did.

I liked how Keillor used the imagery of Tolleson's history in rural Midwest to introduce new ideas to upstate New York, like a restaurant built all around serving fresh sweetcorn. Never mind that such a thing good never actually survive as anything more than a hobby for a rich man IRL.

The story about Tollefson having to deal with sexual harassment charges in public radio and the college owned station wanting to change from primarily classical music to all talk seems like an unsightly foreshadowing of Keillor's own life when he was called out in the #MeToo movement and his final advice to the public on the matter is to never be friends with any women you work with.

The 2006 Audio book was of high quality with Keillor reading the work himself, as a radio actor would be one to do.

SantaThing Christmas '24

This Audiobook was originally released as a podcast. That means each "episode" ended with a full list of producers, voice actors, directors etc.

A Fuill cast audio production told without a dedicated narrator follows the story of one historian who recieved permission from the Federation to travel Sedialpha 5 to find what mire we may know about Khan 25 years after his interaction with Kirk. She boards Sulu's Excelessor and is assisted by an ear young Ensign Tuvok.

She finds all the old tapes made by Lt. McGyvors and we learn more than we every thought possible.

I found tne original discovery of the selphieels disturbing but I might not have if I hadn't been plagued with nightmares of the earworms after seeing Star Trek II as a kid.

All in all a fine story, some weird while that I could nitpick about, but you did not miss anything is you didn't hear it.

Another week 'till I get home and this is the only book I have left.

I liked in, In fact I really loved the IDEA of this book. A group of robot duplicates of SG-1 employed by the NID to try to steal technology from worlds the SGC has said can't be done. There are like six different versions of these duplicates each with slightly modified code some work better than others, and one goes completely rouge.

The execution, however, left me wanting. It got really confusing having several characters named "jack O'Neil" they tried to help you tell the difference, like Jackson Alpha, and Dan and one named O'Neil talking to another named Jack, but it wasn't consistent and I frequently forgot where I was, particularly with them switching time lines back and forth, I kept having to go back to the beginning of the chapter to find out where in time and space we were at. At least they had those clues built in. I thought it might make a good movie or T.V. episode, but I'm not sure how they'd do the ending in a way that would be both believable and not vomit inducing. Alas we'll never know.

Don Walliams the self-proclaimed king of comedy was unsuccessful at getting me to laugh even once. I managed one smile at the idea of the major staying at home and yanking on his own Christmas cracker.

The story starts off well enough, a 1980s boy named Elvis wants nothing more than to see Santa, which apparently in England requires a very expensive ticket to stand in line at the department store. This santa ends up being his estranged father who isn't the busy rich businessnan mom said.

He goes back to the toy store on Christmas eve to see if it really was dad, and to buy mom a christmas present. He gets locked in the store and a group of thieves are trying to rob it like Home Alone 2. Three hours of bad Elvis Presley jokes later the real father Christmas saves the day, and several points that could have easily been wrapped up were not and specifically referenced to in case there was a sequel. The world would be better off without one.

The high full cast audio book is the only saving grace. I understand it's a middle grade reading level, but you can make good humor and good writing for 4th graders.

I liked this book, but it wasn't what I expected. The subtitles "three women that survived" was a bit of a misnomer for a number of reasons: One, it wasn't just about these three women, but about their whole family; Two, while each of the three sections was named after Grandma, Mom, and kid appropriately they all where from the same perspective and the same family; Three, the portions of the book that were most interesting where actually from the men's perspectives. It indicates that this is the story of the Mennonites that survived the Soviet holocaust against German farmers. However upon reading it I am convinced that calling the capture of the Mennonite property and the exploitation of their labor for the greater good, was no difference than that of others sacrificed for the Russian revolution.

It was different to read a book where the leftists, particularly the anarchists, where portrayed as the antagonists. Thesee simple mennonite farmers were welcomed by the Czarina to come to Ukraine to tame the Russian soil as she being of German heritage herself was aware of the Mennonite history of growing something out of nothing invited them with a promise to be free to worship and live as they please. Great until the Russian Revolution. Young menonites turned on their tradition to take up arms, particularly after the Nazis showed up.Women were regularly rapes by the red army. They came to Germany to sVe their lives, but eventually most of them died when the Russians took Berlin. They attempt to return to their simple ways but this was impossible in East Germany, they escaped to West Berlin and emmegraged to Paruaugy. Again these farmers take something for nothing but their youngest can't take her arranged marriage and bolts to town.

I had thought they were going to be turned on by the Nazis but as the entire European narrative was based on the evil communists that was disappointing. All in all fairy entertaining finished in just a week.

I thought his book was going to be about setting stuff up to make sure you wouldn't become a burden when you can't work anymore. While they're was some of that most of the new content in this book was focused on getting conservative Christians to ignore the liberal Christians saying that there shouldn't be any rich Christians and you should give away more of your wealth. As a left leaning Christian I find some offense in that. That being said a lot of his points on the matter makes sense, you can do more good for the kingdom long term if you invest it now and donate it later, all while ensuring no matter how much you make you always tithe 10% and giving is only beyond that once you have proven you can take care of your family's living expenses regardless of what happens, but the way he says it is really grating. Similar reasons I don't listen to his radio show generally.

Most of the good stuff in here he said before in his Fincial Peace University courses, which I do highly recommend to anyone, especially if you are in debt.