Keillor to open his own bookstore

(AP) - Garrison Keillor is going from bestselling author to bookstore owner.

Keillor, who hosts the "A Prairie Home Companion" public radio program, plans to open a bookstore in the Blair Arcade building in November, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Thursday.

Keillor confirmed his plans to The Associated Press. In an e-mail, he said he's doing it "because I am fond of independent bookstores, like to walk into them and sit and read in them, and it's time I make some contribution to my neighborhood."

There's also a connection between the building where Keillor plans to open his bookstore and one of his favorite authors, St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald.

According to the Pioneer Press, the Blair Arcade building was once known as the Angus Hotel, and it was home to Fitzgerald's mother, Mollie, who lived there off and on after the death of his father, Edward, in 1931.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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