Home from the Vinyl Cafe: A Year of Stories - Hardcover

McLean, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743270002 ISBN 13: 9780743270007

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2005

Synopsis

A collection of homespun stories by the popular radio personality and author of the best-selling Vinyl Café tales follows the foibles of Dave, Morley, their children, and their pets as they struggle with such challenges as an athletic supporter, a frozen Christmas turkey, and a summer camp. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Stuart McLean hosts The Vinyl Cafe twice weekly on CBC Radio, reaching 700,000 listeners. His stories have all been bestsellers in Canada, and he has twice won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour - for Home from the Vinyl Cafe and Vinyl Cafe Unplugged. He is professor of broadcast journalism at Ryerson Polytechic University in Toronto.

From Publishers Weekly:

Colloquial, interlocking stories chronicle the ups and downs of a suburban Toronto couple in this warm-hearted latest by Canadian author and broadcast personality McLean (Stories from the Vinyl Café). "Holland" considers the courtship and marriage of Dave, the owner of the eponymous record store, and his wife, Morley; early differences in perspective (she thinks eating raw onions is gross; he can't stand those frou-frou chive snippets in his eggs) lead them to a spontaneous skating trip to Holland to cement their romance. "Sourdough" concerns what happens when a neighbor asks Dave to baby-sit the starter for his precious sourdough bread; the sweet, charming "Burd" charts the consequences of Dave's decision to feed an unlikely avian visitor. Dave's daughter and niece enter the picture in subsequent stories, and McLean includes funny scenes about holiday dinners and road trips as well as poignant thoughts about the inevitable failing of Dave and Morley's parents. McLean's natural flair for storytelling helps overcome the limitations of the Lake Wobegonesque conceit, and while he reaches for overly cute, contrived humor in several entries, the overall package is highly enjoyable.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0743270002
• ISBN 13: 9780743270007
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272