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Talking Volumes
Shannon Olson is the Talking Volumes selection for March 2004.

AS HEARD ON
Talking Volumes
March 16, 2004
The author discusses Children of God Go Bowling with the Talking Volumes audience at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Featuring the music of The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band.

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Reading 1
Reading 2
Reading 3
Reading 4
• "All By Myself" sung by The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band
Audience Q&A

Midmorning,
February 20, 2004
LISTEN

IN THE FORUM
A Minnesota book club leads an online discussion about Children of God Go Bowling. Join the discussion.

RELATED LINKS
Children of God go Bowling book club guide from The Loft

Booksellers find 'Bowling' is right up their alley from Pioneer Press

 

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Talking Volumes
Children of God Go Bowling
by Shannon Olson
Penguin USA, 2004
Buy this book

(From the publisher) We first met Shannon Olson—our semifictional heroine—in Welcome to My Planet. Now, in Children of God Go Bowling, we find Shannon in her mid-thirties and still besieged by reminders that her life is anything but normal. Her friends are blossoming in marital bliss, everyone seems to own a home, and even her baby sister is having a baby. Why, in the march to adulthood, has she been left behind?

In an effort to be proactive, Shannon embarks upon a feng shui-inspired campaign to make room in her life for a future—or at least the hope of one. She joins group therapy (to meet new people), accepts blind dates (hey, you never know), and even gives organized religion a go (with mixed results). Of course, surprises await her in the struggle against anxiety-and from some unlikely sources.

With encore performances by Shannon's mother, Flo (called "one of the great moms of American fiction" by Garrison Keillor), and other indelible characters from Welcome to My Planet, Children of God Go Bowling is the heroic, heartbreaking, hilarious story of a woman making her life happen when it didn't quite happen for her.

About the Author
(From the publisher) Shannon Olson, author of Welcome to My Planet, has taught creative writing and literature at the University of Minnesota.

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