This country is going through a marvelous regional revival, as we all take more pride in local traditions, accents, flavors, produce--and authors. A great example of the latter: Mike Perry, author of Truck, Population: 482, Off Main Street and Coop; winner of both GLBA and MBA book awards for his wonderful memoirs 
about Wisconsin small-town life and his willingness to get on the road to 25, 35, even 50 stores each time! He has made the "Motel 6 tour" famous.
It occurred to us several years ago that because Mike is such a great guy, has an NPR voice and enraptures trade show audiences each fall with his humor and self-deprecation, we ought to send him farther afield. So, in successive falls, he spoke at the MPIBA show and then at PNBA, and sure enough, he was great AND his sales--of books about Wisconsin--caught on in those regions.
So now what do for Coop, a real-life, back-to-the-land book, now in paperback? Mike's knee-deep in all of it. Sh*t Mike Shovels, if you will. And there is joy in the smells, in the birth of a daughter, of choosing seeds, of family and friends.
Revelation # 2: There are a LOT of readers and "grow local" and "back to basics" people in the Northeast, as well as a line of bookstores perfectly aligned along the New York Thruway and Massachusetts Turnpike. Sooooo, Mike's doing the Buffalo-to-Boston run June 12–24, with events almost every day!! A reading here, a dinner with local biz folk and farmers there. I'll be with him part of the time; Shelf Awareness's Bob Gray will catch him along the way; ditto a lunch at the NAIBA Trunk Show and Boston meet-ups with NEIBA's Steve Fischer.
And all the time, he'll be talking with local radio, especially NPR. New Hampshire NPR is already talking him up and playing his music. By the way, Mike has a way with a guitar and a song lyric, and his new CD with the Long Beds, Tiny Pilot, is out, and I love it. Mike is going to blog about his adventures, too.
The Thruway/Turnpike Motel 6 tour includes stops on June 12 at Talking Leaves, Buffalo, N.Y.; the 13th at Lift Bridge Books, Brockport, N.Y.; the 14th at River's End, Oswego, N.Y.; the 15th, a NAIBA lunch in East Syracuse, N.Y., and Colgate University that evening; the 16th at Oblong in Rhinebeck, N.Y.; the 17th at the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, N.Y.; and June 18 at Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt. Then a coupla days off, but Mike will visit more stores just to say hi. Then on the 21st he'll be at Toadstool in Keene, N.H.; the 22nd at Gibson's in Concord, N.H., and then on the 24th, the finale, at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass.
Look in Shelf Awareness starting next Monday, the 14th, for reports from the road by Mike Perry--author, farmer, singer, songwriter and all-around good guy.--Carl Lennertz
