Guy Noir And The Straight Skinny

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.

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 screenplay of iconic radio host Garrison Keillor’s Robert Altman-directed major motion picture, A Prairie Home Companion, starring Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin. The day of reckoning has come to the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, home of A Prairie Home Companion. The show is closing, the theater is going dark. Station WLT has been sold to a broadcast conglomerate in Texas. The wrecking ball is poised to swing as the regulars—the Johnson Girls, Yolanda and Rhonda, and the singing cowboys, Dusty and Lefty, crooner Chuck Akers, and announcer Garrison Keillor—arrive for the last broadcast in a state of disbelief. But when the Dangerous Woman appears with her Botticellian hair and dazzling white trench coat, the final curtain catches them all by surprise. • Features a foreword by director Robert Altman and an introduction by Garrison Keillor • Contains an eight-page insert of photos from the movie set

Garrison Keillor makes his long- awaited return to Lake Wobegon with this New York Times bestseller The first new Lake Wobegon novel in seven years is a cause for celebration. And Pontoon is nothing less than a spectacular return to form-replete with a bowling ball-urn, a hot-air balloon, giant duck decoys, a flying Elvis, and, most importantly, Wally's pontoon boat. As the wedding of the decade approaches (accompanied by wheels of imported cheese and giant shrimp shish kebabs), the good-loving people of Lake Wobegon do what they do best: drive each other slightly crazy.

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.

Meet fourteen-year-old Gary. A self-described "tree-toad,"a sly and endearing geek, Gary has many unwieldy passions, chief among them his cousin Kate, his Underwood typewriter and the soft-porn masterpiece, High School Orgies. The folks of Lake Wobegon don't have much patience for a kid's ungodly obsessions, and so Gary manages to filter the hormonal earthquake that is puberty and his hopeless devotion to glamorous, rebellious Kate through his fantastic yarns. With every marvellous story he moves a few steps closer to becoming a writer. And when Kate gets herself into trouble with the local baseball star, Gary also experiences the first pangs of a broken heart. With his trademark gift for treading "a line delicate as a cobweb between satire and sentiment"(Cleveland Plain Dealer), Garrison Keillor brilliantly captures a newly minted post-war America and delivers an unforgettable comedy about a writer coming of age in the rural Midwest.

“Lake Wobegon Days is about the way our beliefs, desires and fears tail off into abstractions--and get renewed from time to time. . . this book, unfolding Mr. Keillor's full design, is a genuine work of American history.” —The New York Times “A comic anatomy of what is small and ordinary and therefore potentially profound and universal in American life…Keillor’s strength as a writer is to make the ordinary extraordinary.” —Chicago Tribune “Keillor’s laughs come dear, not cheap, emerging from shared virtue and good character, from reassuring us of our neighborliness and strength….His true subject is how daily life is shot with grace. Keillor writes a prose that can be turned to laughter, to tears…to compassion or satire, to a hundred effects. He is a brilliant parodist.” —San Francisco Chronicle

From Per Wahlöö—co-author with his wife, Maj Sjöwall, of the internationally bestselling Martin Beck series of mysteries—comes a novel about a political assassination in South America, and unassuming diplomat is chosen to take his place. The Provincial Resident of a desolate province in a South America has been assassinated. When Manuel Ortega, a minor diplomat, accepts the appointment as the dead man's successor, it seems a foolhardy decision. From the day he assumes his post he is plunged into a violent, corrupt world, where two extremist political factions are at odds. Ortega is caught in the middle, surrounded by people he's not sure he can trust--his alluring secretary, the cynical chief of police, and the sullen bodyguards who try to keep the Resident alive. As the tension rises, Ortega must take action, but the question remains: what will he do?