In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of "Truck: A Love Story" gives readers a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Perry (Population: 485) is that nowadays rare memoirist whose eccentric upbringing inspires him to humor and sympathetic insight instead of trauma mongering and self-pity. His latest essays chronicle a year on 37 acres of land with his wife, daughters and titular menagerie of livestock (who are fascinating, exasperating personalities in their own right). But these luminous pieces meander back to his childhood on the hardscrabble Wisconsin dairy farm where his parents, members of a tiny fundamentalist Christian sect, raised him and dozens of siblings and foster-siblings, many of them disabled. Perry's latter-day story is a lifestyle-farming comedy, as he juggles freelance writing assignments with the feedings, chores and construction projects that he hopes will lend him some mud-spattered authenticity. Woven through are tender, uncloying recollections of the homespun virtues of his family and community, from which sprout lessons on the labors and rewards of nurturance (and the occasional need to slaughter what you've nurtured). Perry writes vividly about rural life; peck at any sentence-"One of the [chickens] stretches, one leg and one wing back in the manner of a ballet dancer warming up before the barre"-and you'll find a poetic evocation of barnyard grace. Photos. (May) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Perry appears to be writing his autobiography on the installment plan. In Population: 485 (2002), he describes his experiences as a volunteer EMT in his Wisconsin home town. In Truck: A Love Story (2006), he chronicles his twin love affairs with a fixer-upper truck and a woman. Now happily married, with a stepdaughter and a baby on the way, he's taking up residence in a Wisconsin farmhouse, where he and his wife intend to live frugally, peacefully, and this might be the hard part self-sufficiently. It's a bit of a culture shock, suddenly being thrust into the living-off-the-land milieu, but Perry draws on his childhood for inspiration: he grew up on a farm, watching his own father, a man of the city, learn to be a farmer. Coop (the title refers to the author's dream project, a chicken coop he builds with his own hands) is typical Perry: written in an easygoing, talk-to-the-reader style, with a self-effacing sense of humor and an ability to conjure up vivid mental pictures with a few well-chosen words.--Pitt, David Copyright 2009 Booklist From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.