Keillor brings Lake Wobegon's Fourth of July to hilarious life

"Liberty,"

by Garrison Keillor

Before another Fourth of July comes around, give Garrison Keillor permission to tickle your funny bone.

"Liberty" will test your housemates' willingness to allow you to laugh aloud for extended periods without calling for the men in the white jackets.

It's the story of an Independence Day celebration -- and the preparation for the big event -- in Lake Wobegon, the fictional Minnesota hamlet Keillor has made famous on public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion" show.

Those familiar with Keillor's weekly monologue will recognize many of the characters.

The hero of this fun read is mechanic Clint Bunsen. He's the architect of one of the most successful Fourth of July parades in the nation, but he's bruised a few egos along the way, and some of the townsfolk are out to depose him.

Some don't like, for example, that he's thrown out the cavalcade of farmers driving their John Deeres down Main Street and replaced them with more exciting acts -- the St. Cloud Shriners Precision Rider Mower Unit, for example -- and they are out to get Clint even though he's made Lake Wobegon's Fourth so spectacular that CNN is sending a crew to cover it for the second straight year.

No good deed goes unpunished

In typical Lake Wobegon fashion the culture of the town won't allow room for an individual to enjoy too much success, and no idea is ever allowed to be presented without its downside casting a dark shadow over any potential good outcome.

Keillor has the naysayers down pat.

In a lovely passage that describes those who accuse Bunsen of being a tyrant as he chairs the parade committee, Keillor's familiarity with Scripture and his insight into human frailty burst off the page:

"If they had been at the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus brought forth the miracle of the loaves and fishes, they would've thought, 'Did he wash his hands. Where are the napkins? How long was that fish cooked?'"

Sound familiar?

Fair warning: Keillor's imaginative libido has his hero stumbling off the marital-fidelity track, and some readers may be offended by some of the frank and explicit language in this Viking book.

On the whole, though, "Liberty" offers a commentary on humanity that points society in the right direction by shining a spotlight on those times when we and our neighbors fail to be all that the creator gave us the potential to be.

And it's hilarious. -- bz

Golf book offers chance to sharpen your short game with God

"And God Said Tee It Up!",

by Gary Graf

Gary Graf is not a theologian, nor does he pretend to be.

But he's done a whale of a job of research about both great memories in professional golf history and down-to-earth spirituality that move readers painlessly from the the fairway to reflecting on their own relationship with God.

The stories about golf's great moments and the detail that describes the particular holes at great golf courses like St. Andrew's, Winged Foot, Troon, Oakmont and Pebble Beach are likely to be gobbled up by sports fans.

When it comes to connecting those moment to faith, Graf takes more of a regular-guy, meat-and-potatoes approach. A scholar might take exception to linking which club to use to appreciating all the gifts God gives us, but you know, it's really not all that much of a stretch. And Greg Norman's dying -- in the Masters -- and rising to terrific success in several businesses is a good reminder of not only Jesus' dying and rising but our own.

As Graf writes, "Granted, Norman's fall and subsequent rise are but poor human analogies to something divine and mysterious. But each and every day we must die to something old and rise to something new. . . . Life presents us with the opportunity for rebirth, if we are open to it. As for Jesus, paradoxically his most devastating moment -- his crucifixion -- was the catalyst for his crowning glory."

Take a hole at a time

Each chapter heading is a hole on a golf course -- including the 19th, the post-match session in the clubhouse to congratulate and commiserate -- and that makes for 19 short reading sessions if you read a chapter at a time.

That would be a good way to play -- I mean, read -- "And God Said Tee It Up!"

You can only absorb so many golf facts and so much golf history in one setting before they become a blur, and that will give you time to reflect on the spiritual points that Graf offers for pondering in each chapter.

The stories of Lee Trevino, Payne Stewart, Arnold Palmer and more are good copy, as are the background anecdotes about the naming of holes called "The Pulpit" and "The Valley of Sin," the berms called "Church Pews," and the course called "The Sistine Chapel of Golf" -- Cypress Point Club at Pebble Beach, where "every hole is a work of art."

Thanks to Acta Publications for being willing to get "Tee It Up" into print. -- bz

What was it like to be pioneering man in the West?

"As Big as the West:

The Pioneer Life of Granville Stuart,"

by Clyde A. Milner II & Carol A. O'Connor

Granville Stuart, like thousands of others in the mid-1800s, dreamed of making it big in that great expanse of the western territory of the United States.

Stuart had yet a bigger dream than most; he wanted to be important, not just rich.

When mining for precious metals didn't earn as much of a fortune as he thought it should, he sought wealth and esteem in cattle ranching. Hobnobbing with the likes of Teddy Roosevelt as a founding member of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Stuart did well for himself -- but just for a while.

An ego as big as the West?

This meticulously researched account of Stuart's life story could double as an early history of the state of Montana. Stuart felt he had played a huge role in that history -- and it might be a recognition he deserved, too -- but his reach never quite realized his ambition, either in wealth or fame.

Rather than Stuart's life being "as big as the West," as this Oxford University Press title suggests, maybe it was Stuart's ego that was that size.

Along the way Milner and O'Connor's history bears important information about the land-grabbing practices and the abuse of native peoples, the assumed racial superiority of Caucasians of the time -- and ours? -- over Indians, vigilante justice, and the rise and fall of fortunes thanks to the boom and bust of the industries that were supposed to make millions for investors back down the Missouri and points east.

Stuart's ego surfaced in politics, too. Always feeling he deserved government jobs because of his work for the Democratic Party, Stuart wasn't shy about asking for positions in government at any level, and he was sometimes rewarded and other times ignored in his quests.

Who can explain how this failed rancher from the middle of Montana is, in the 1890s, appointed the U.S. minister to Uruguay and Paraguay!

Is this a great country, or what? -- bz