Replay

This book by Ken Grimwood was published a while back, but I had not heard of it until recently. A radio interview I was listening to had people describing favorite books, and this was one that was mentioned. Sounded like a great premise, so I decided to try it out.

It was very good from the start. Actually got better as it went along too which is a plus.

In the book, the main character dies at about age 43 at the beginning only to find himself returned to age 18 with full memory of his later life and world events. He goes through several cycles of this, and he follows different paths. Since he knows things, he can place bets and buy good stocks and make lots of money. He does lots of soul searching along the way. I am leaving out some of the details so as not to ruin the story for people who have not read it yet.

Made me really think about what would I do if I got to live such a crucial period in life over and over. Not an easy thing to decide on I think.

Give it a try.

Lake Wobegon Days

This is a book by Garrison Keillor of NPR/Prairie Home Companion fame.

I had heard about this book for years, but didn't know what all the fuss was about until I started listening to Keillor's radio show recently. His Lake Wobegon stuff is funny, even though I am no fan of his or NPR's usual politics.

I did like the book, but I was surprised that it was not funnier. Although I did laugh out loud a few times, much of it seemed "serious". Perhaps, it would be funnier if Keillor read it to you, then you could hear the changes in his voice that might make it seem ironic and hence funnier. Just reading it to myself, he sometimes seemed anything but funny.

I think he should have toned down the long footnote on the "95 Theses 95" in any case, as it was very negative and hard to take as humorous for the most part - and as a footnote that went on for pages, it interrupted the flow of the text. I wish he had not used footnotes at all but included the stuff in them in the text, especially given how his story went all over the place anyway. Some reviewers were annoyed with the apparent jumping around, but it didn't bother me that much - this seemed to make it more realistic as in a friend telling you stories about their hometown over the course of many meetings.

I saw several of his books recently for the first time, and this was the first one I read. I think there are two others I will try and see how they go.