
The Lager Queen of Minnesota
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Judith Ivey
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By:
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J. Ryan Stradal
About this listen
A National Best Seller!
“The perfect pick-me-up on a hot summer day.” (Washington Post)
“[A] charmer of a tale... Warm, witty and - like any good craft beer - complex, the saga delivers a subtly feminist and wholly life-affirming message.” (People)
A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate and the secrets of making a world-class beer, from the best-selling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest
Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself.
With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country, and makes their company motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots. It's Blotz." Where Edith has a heart as big as Minnesota, Helen's is as rigid as a steel keg. Yet one day, Helen will find she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home...if it's not too late.
Meanwhile, Edith's granddaughter, Diana, grows up knowing that the real world requires a tougher constitution than her grandmother possesses. She earns a shot at learning the IPA business from the ground up - will that change their fortunes forever, and perhaps reunite her splintered family?
Here we meet a cast of lovable, funny, quintessentially American characters eager to make their mark in a world that's often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we're surprised, moved, and delighted.
©2019 J. Ryan Stradal (P)2019 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Stradal’s writing is sharp and funny while still managing to treat each character with warmth and respect...this is an ultimately hopeful and heartwarming story.... Readers will love watching these truly original characters overcome their challenges and take care of each other. An absolutely delightful read, perfect for a summer day with a good beer and a piece of pie.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
“This charmer of a tale is a loving ode to the Midwest, the power of persistence and, perhaps above all, beer.... Warm, witty and - like any good craft beer - complex, the saga delivers a subtly feminist and wholly life-affirming message.” (People Magazine)
"Delightfully intoxicating...will make you smile with its droll humor, and its poignant moments will stop you to reread and confirm that they are really that good. In beer-geek slang, Stradal’s novel is ‘crushable’ - easygoing, well-balanced, super-drinkable with tons of flavor...and will make you go back for more.” (USA Today)
“The Lager Queen of Minnesota is pure reading joy: warm, funny, informative, and full of heart. It is impossible not to root for Stradal's characters, who are so vivid, and relatable that you will miss them every time you set the book down; indeed, if you set it down at all.” (Jonathan Evison, New York Times best-selling author of Lawn Boy)
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Story
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention", must solve the mystery of this haunting.
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Addictive and surprising
- By Amazon Customer on 11-25-21
By: Louise Erdrich
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The Magician
- A Novel
- By: Colm Toibin
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the 20th century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice.
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Terrific listening experience
- By M. Mead on 09-17-21
By: Colm Toibin
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Tidelands
- The Fairmile Series, Book 1
- By: Philippa Gregory
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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On Midsummer’s Eve, Alinor waits in the church graveyard, hoping to encounter the ghost of her missing husband and thus confirm his death. Until she can, she is neither maiden nor wife nor widow, living in a perilous limbo. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run. She shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marshy landscape of the Tidelands, not knowing she is leading a spy and an enemy into her life. England is in the grip of a bloody civil war that reaches into the most remote parts of the kingdom.
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Please pay close attention to the opening scenes and description of the land and sea
- By paula wright on 09-02-19
By: Philippa Gregory
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The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
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The Nature of Fragile Things is a 5 star listen!
- By Kathy… send to help my husband to sleep!! on 02-04-21
By: Susan Meissner
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The Marriage Portrait
- A Novel
- By: Maggie O'Farrell
- Narrated by: Genevieve Gaunt, Maggie O'Farrell
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and to devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding, Lucrezia is thrust into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must make her way in a court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed.
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If You Love Alternate Histories, Get This
- By Jim on 09-26-22
By: Maggie O'Farrell
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The End of October
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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At an internment camp in Indonesia, 47 people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons - microbiologist, epidemiologist - travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city....
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Powerful. prophetic, with the heros we need
- By tina on 04-30-20
By: Lawrence Wright
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Great Circle
- A Novel
- By: Maggie Shipstead
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Alex McKenna
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe.
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So glad I was drawn to this book.
- By timbo on 05-23-21
By: Maggie Shipstead
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Sea of Tranquility
- A Novel
- By: Emily St. John Mandel
- Narrated by: John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
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An excellent listen.
- By Mark on 04-11-22
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The Lies That Bind
- A Novel
- By: Emily Giffin
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Will Damron, Vikas Adam, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s 2 AM on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001, and 28-year-old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar in New York’s East Village, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she’ll ever make it as a reporter in the big city - and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, Matthew.
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So Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 06-05-20
By: Emily Giffin
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How Lucky
- A Novel
- By: Will Leitch
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Daniel leads a rich life and considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy - despite the fact that he’s suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair. Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he’s not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he’s almost sure he sees her being kidnapped.
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No need for Political Jabs
- By Melissa on 08-12-21
By: Will Leitch
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The Dictionary of Lost Words
- A Novel
- By: Pip Williams
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
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Enchanted
- By Lulu Can on 04-07-21
By: Pip Williams
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The Lions of Fifth Avenue
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.
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Exhilarating
- By Joanna Butler on 08-20-20
By: Fiona Davis
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The Floating Feldmans
- By: Elyssa Friedland
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Sink or swim. Or at least that's what Annette Feldman tells herself when she books a cruise for her entire family. It's been over a decade since the Feldman clan has spent more than twenty-four hours under the same roof, but Annette is determined to celebrate her 70th birthday the right way. Just this once, they are going to behave like an actual family. Too bad her kids didn't get the memo.
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Definitely a fun listen!
- By Sandy Edwards on 08-09-19
By: Elyssa Friedland
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Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club
- A Novel
- By: J. Ryan Stradal
- Narrated by: Aspen Vincent
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Mariel Prager needs a break. Her husband Ned is having an identity crisis, her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day, and her mother Florence is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, seeing it as a saving grace, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed.
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Just okay
- By Joy Pahl on 05-14-23
By: J. Ryan Stradal
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Thank You for Listening
- A Novel
- By: Julia Whelan
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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For Sewanee Chester, being an audiobook narrator is a long way from her old dreams, but the days of being a star on film sets are long behind her. She’s found success and satisfaction from the inside of a sound booth and it allows her to care for her beloved, ailing grandmother. When she arrives in Las Vegas last-minute for a book convention, Sewanee unexpectedly spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger.
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Julia Whelan is the GOAT
- By echo404 on 08-03-22
By: Julia Whelan
What listeners say about The Lager Queen of Minnesota
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-04-20
What a Gem!
This book was just what I needed while catering to the whims/whines of my sick family over Winter Break. The story is fantastic but I think it is the narrator's voice - Minnesota *spot on* - that really sells this funny read. I don't think this book would be as good in paper or kindle form as it is enjoyable a listen. I think for listeners/readers who've enjoyed Where'd you Go Bernadette, Big Little Lies and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, you'll surely enjoy this. Cheers!
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8 people found this helpful
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- C. Durdin
- 08-10-19
Delightful
I was not sure what to expect but the local PBS station's book club chose this as the August selection. What an utter delight this book has been! Interesting premise about something I knew very little about - making beer. That is the background story but added so much enlightenment about beer making is evolving.
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- Kristie R.
- 01-31-20
beautiful, fun read
Loved the book, especially the stories of strong, complex midwestern women. Chose it for my book club, plus also gave it as Christmas gifts.
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- Mrsrichard13
- 09-22-19
Phenomenal
This book was a joy to experience. Three character plots intricately interwoven. Easily one of my favorites.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-21-19
Great book!
love it this book!!
The Narrator makes it even better!!
I would highly recommend listening.
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- Kindle Customer
- 07-27-19
So Wonderful!
Loved this book so much-from the perfect accents each character employs to the pace and scope of the story. Tough and tender, this book really moved me. More beer, please!
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- BertaJean
- 06-24-20
cute story
This was a cute story, but it was hard to get used to the narration.
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- Sewing Fan
- 05-21-21
Minnesota
Being from Minnesota I felt some of the characterization over done. Loved the story, would recommend but would read instead.
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- tracy
- 02-19-20
Fantastic brew of a story!
A superb homage to the beers we all grew up with & a super family tale
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- Anonymous User
- 09-30-20
High praise
Loved this! The narration was spot on! Great story!
I could and will listen to it again!
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