Interviews and reading for the week ahead

I'm reading Michael Perry's latest book "Coop - A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting". What is it with chickens? Seems like everybody's doing it! Michael Perry gives readers his very real, back to the basics, life in rural Wisconsin. Read his description of his concern over his father's new "lifestyle".

My father recently joined the community choir. Sounds innocuous enough - sweet, even - but my immediate reaction was to phone my brother John and ask if he thought Dad might be smoking reefer. Four decades I've known my father, and he has led an avowedly quiet life. He works hard, he works quiet, he works above all to avoid any public act more conspicuous than renewing his driver's license. And now suddenly he's out there on tour (Chetek...Bloomer...Sand Creek... it's all a crazy blur), ascending the risers to raise his voice in public.

Tune in this week for my conversation with Michael Perry.

Also on the docket, for a different reason, is the vampire tween novel "Betrayed: House of Night Book Two". My thirteen year old friend Erika (maybe you've heard her excellent cohosting on the Friday morning show with us?) asked me to be her reading partner for a class project. Little did I know I'd be entering the odd world of teenage vampires. Except for the bloodsucking, the all night school sleep during the day thing and markings, these kids have the same issues facing any others. Issues of acceptance, trust, romance, independence, responsibility and friendship. Did I mention bloodsucking? Yup, bloodsucking! This is our final week of the project.

Another interview coming up this week is with Erik Reece. Erik's new book is called "An American Gospel - On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God".

Reece describes how he found a Christianity he could embrace in Jefferson's famous Jefferson Bible, which stripped out all references to the miracles and divinity of Jesus, emphasizing instead his teachings about how we should behave towards one another in the here and now.

I also watched a very literary movie last week, while I was off on my writing retreat. I'd seen the movie before, but I watched the commentary with Helen Hunt. The movie is called "Then She Found Me" and it stars Helen and is also written and directed by her. I found Helen's comments a fascinating look at an artist. You can see the trailer here: