false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255676010m/5633583.jpg 5633583 4 <blockquote> <p> In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and a baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of <i>Truck: A Love Story</i> gives us a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country. </p> </blockquote> <p> Last seen sleeping off his wedding night in the back of a 1951 International Harvester pickup, Michael Perry is now living in a rickety Wisconsin farmhouse. Faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home, Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood—his city-bred parents took in more than a hundred foster children while running a ramshackle dairy farm—for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father. </p> <p> And when his daughter Amy starts asking about God, Perry is called upon to answer questions for which he's not quite prepared. He muses on his upbringing in an obscure fundamentalist Christian sect and weighs the long-lost faith of his childhood against the skeptical alternative ("You cannot toss your seven-year-old a copy of <i>Being and Nothingness</i>"). </p> <p> Whether Perry is recalling his childhood ("I first perceived my father as a farmer the night he drove home with a giant lactating Holstein tethered to the bumper of his Ford Falcon") or what it's like to be bitten in the butt while wrestling a pig ("two firsts in one day"), <i>Coop</i> is filled with the humor his readers have come to expect. But Perry also writes from the quieter corners of his heart, chronicling experiences as joyful as the birth of his child and as devastating as the death of a dear friend. </p> <p> Alternately hilarious, tender, and as real as pigs in mud, <i>Coop</i> is suffused with a contemporary desire to reconnect with the earth, with neighbors, with meaning . . . and with chickens. </p> 5805003 1 5 2009 Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting total:197|5:54|4:80|3:53|2:9|1:1| 197 768 495 71 5 1 false false Sun May 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 28 06:26:37 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 11:11:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 06:07:37 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 21 05:37:56 -0700 2009 i laughed...i even cried...and i drove my husband crazy by laughing out loud a ga-zillion times on the beach!]]> 3 1 false false Thu Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 04 10:26:21 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 21:33:19 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 04:08:28 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 04:15:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Jul 16 05:21:08 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 20 05:09:44 -0700 2009
Having...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jul 25 18:11:06 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 18:16:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jul 21 08:09:26 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 08:18:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jun 03 21:26:16 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 11 15:04:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 13:30:53 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 13:17:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 true false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 11:18:48 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 02 13:35:55 -0800 2009 1 "A Year Of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting”

by Michael Perry

Book Review by Jay Gilbertson

The widely popular author of “Population-485, Truck” and many others (and he si...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 09:36:58 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 09:36:58 -0700 2009 Population: 485). But I did enjoy it, for the most part. Occasionally I got bored with the reminisces about making hay in his childhood, or his family's experiences at a tiny evangelical c...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 06:06:49 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 10:45:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 17:17:46 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 17:29:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Oct 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 11:52:11 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 11:55:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Nov 17 20:03:40 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 17 20:06:05 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 11:37:14 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 09:23:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 10:39:57 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 10:44:23 -0700 2009 If you are a little interested in farming/keeping meat
animals you will learn a little bit about the emotional side
of it and how to go about it. This book is about family and a sense of place
more than anything. I enjoyed it, tho...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 07 14:14:08 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 14:14:22 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Nov 16 17:35:40 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 16 17:37:56 -0800 2009
My only criticism is that, while Perry is an excellent writer and storyteller, I feel that some of his passages get a little long windedly descriptive. (on the plus side, if you were studying for the GRE, i...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 27 23:31:44 -0700 2009 Fri May 22 15:28:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5633583