In 1545, in a remote Carpathian monastery, a tormented monk carves a throne from black oak felled beneath a blood moon. Its armrests are clawed hands straining to seize, its seat a lattice of thorns, its back an inverted Last Judgment where demons drag screaming angels into hell. Cursed in its final hour by a dying anti-cardinal, the Whispering Throne grants its sitter visions of tomorrow—exactly twenty-four hours ahead—but always two paths: one true, one the perfect, smiling lie. Choose w...

Did you ever have a recurring dream only to wake up one day and find it was NOT a dream?Wembley is an average and very successful fourteen-year-old. Everything comes easily to Wembley: the good and the bad; but still not without some effort. Of Welsh origin himself he can trace his ancestry back to both the Picts and the Celts. Once enemies, this proud warrior blood is now combined and flowing through the veins of our 21st Century youth. His parents had le...

In the near future, the world doesn't end with mushroom clouds or alien ships. It ends with a five-year-old girl from a nowhere Texas town running a fever that won't break.Lily Cole starts coughing in Crawford, Texas—a place of feed stores, Friday night football, and a little Tex-Mex café where everyone knows your order before you sit down. Her dad, Ethan, does what any parent would do: he carries her, burning with fever and whispering nonsense under her breath, into the tiny local...

Eight-year-old Danny Woods can do things no kid should be able to do—hear thoughts, feel fear like it's his own, and move the world with a shove of his mind. Every time he uses it, it costs him: migraines, panic, and blank spots he can't explain.After a fresh start in Texas with mom Nora, a glossy flyer arrives for the Gifted & Exceptional Youth Program—and a woman who calls herself Archer begins knocking. She's polite. Patient. An...

In this fresh collection of "Roughneck Grace" columns, New York Times bestselling author and humorist Michael Perry reinforces his reputation as a writer navigating between the transcendent ("The conga line was no longer a line, but rather a fluid knot of nearly a thousand happy children winding in and around itself throughout the aisles of the auditorium while Cyril Paul and the Calypso Monarchs played from the stage."), the quotidian ("Outside my window the June evening is winding down a...

In the 1990s, when he was a magazine freelancer hustling books off a card table at craft fairs, the mall, and out of his car trunk, Michael Perry self-published two books: Why They Killed Big Boy and Other Stories and Big Rigs Elvis, & the Grand Dragon Wayne. In 2005, after the success of Perry's book Population 485, Harper Perennial published Off Main Street, a collection of Perry's essays, magazine articles, and short fiction. Big Boy's Big Rig: Th...

A part-time emergency medical technician humorously chronicles life in a small Wisconsin town, featuring tales of romance and auto repair.Hilarious and heartfelt, Truck: A Love Story is the tale of a man struggling to grow his own garden, fix his old pickup, and resurrect a love life permanently impaired by Neil Diamond. In the process, he sets his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans. The result is a su...

“You can read Michael Perry’s Coop as an outrageously funny comedy about a semi-hapless neophyte navigating the pitfalls (and pratfalls) of the farming life. Please do, in fact. But scratch a little deeper, past Perry’s lusciously entertaining and epigrammatic prose, his ultra-charming combo of Midwestern earnestness and serrated wit, and you’ll find a reflective, sincere, and surprisingly touching-at times, even heart-cracking-story about a man struggling to put down roots.” — Jonathan Mi...

Brief essays by New York Times bestselling author Michael Perry on memorials and mercy, storms and farewells, family and fowl, barnyard ballets, the Sunday night sads, the wisdom of roadies, cucumbers and kindness, quotidian asparagus, appropo malaprops, pickleball, sushi boats and weird TV, the poetics of garlic, contrails, Mobius mind-grooves, quietude, Christmas tree injuries, cats, waffle houses, puffy partridges, bonfire bonhomie, dating in a hearse, and more. Gathered from his most r...

“Part portrait of a place, part rescue manual, part rumination of life and death, Population: 485 is a beautiful meditation on the things that matter.” — Seattle TimesWelcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin (population: 485) where the local vigilante is a farmer’s wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station...

New York Times bestselling humorist Michael Perry makes his fiction debut with this hilarious and big-hearted tale, a comic yet sincere exploration of faith and the foibles of modern life that blends the barbed charm of Garrison Keillor, the irreverent humor of Christopher Moore, and the audacious insight of Chuck Klosterman.Life is suddenly full of drama for low-key Harley Jackson: A woman in a big red pickup has stolen his bachelor’s heart, a Hummer-driving predatory dev...

New York Times bestselling humorist Michael Perry makes his fiction debut with this hilarious and big-hearted tale, a comic yet sincere exploration of faith and the foibles of modern life that blends the barbed charm of Garrison Keillor, the irreverent humor of Christopher Moore, and the audacious insight of Chuck Klosterman.Life is suddenly full of drama for low-key Harley Jackson: A woman in a big red pickup has stolen his bachelor’s heart, a Hummer-driving predatory dev...