If you've not read I Am Not Myself These Days, you seriously might want to. And I'm not just saying that because I read the entire book in one sitting at a chain bookstore and cheated the author, Josh Kilmer-Purcell out of royalties. It's a beautiful, funny, creepy book and there are drag queens and a crack addict boyfriend and oh yes, I heard he's happy now, so that makes it a little easier to read.

Josh Kilmer-Purcell's follow-up book,  The Bucolic Plague, is about how he and his partner of nine years (yay! He wasn't stuck with a crackhead boyfriend forever!) started a goat farm in upstate New York. I went to a reading before the book came out and it was more than slightly surreal; Josh's partner Brent patched in through rather patchy video because he was home wrapping some of the 14,000 bars of soap from one of their recent orders.  He sounded a little sleep deprived and maybe a tiny bit annoyed.

The newest book is part memoir, part queer relationship guide, part advertisement for family farms. One of my favorite stories starts the book: Josh surprised his partner by the purchase of 88 goats for their farm, and a mother goat giving birth charmed Brent into not being mad at him for the aforementioned purchase. Which makes me think Brent must really be one helluva guy. I grew up in rural Wisconsin and seen a fair amount of animals born and never once did I find it an even remotely charming experience.