New York socialites, the newspaper business, country life, travel, Hollywood, the publishing industry, and, last but not least, himself. His self-portrait: "Under a forehead roughly comparable to . . . Piltdown Man are visible a pair of tiny pig eyes, lit up alternately by greed and concupiscence. . . . Before they made S. J. Perelman, they broke the mold." Sophisticated and supremely mischievous, Perelman is an acrobat of language who turns a phrase and then, before the reader has time to finish admiring his agility, turns it again. Most of the Most of S.J. Perelman (part of the Humor and Wit series of Modern Library) is a lengthy, though abridged, volume of the Perelman pieces from 1930 - 1958, many of which originally appeared in the New Yorker, among other magazines. This book should not necessarily be read straight through, as I did to my slight regret, as it can become a little overwhelming. There is some dating in the material but it is more of a delight how little effect time has taken on the comedy. The best pieces are, without a doubt, the marvelous Cloudland Revisited sequences where the author looks at books and movies he admired in his youth to see what horrible things time, experience and maturity have done to them. These selections are the treasures of the volume. A fine look at the almost lost art of a certain form of humour writing at its height. A wonderful volume to be savoured slowly. This