cover image A Noel Perrin Sampler

A Noel Perrin Sampler

Noel Perrin. Dartmouth Publishing Group, $25 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-87451-551-0

This generous sampler contains 14 excerpts from A Passport Secretly Green , written while Perrin was a student at Cambridge in England in the 1950s. The essays reprinted here along with 11 new pieces showcase the author's quick wit, particularly endearing because he enjoys the joke that's on him. Perrin's uncommonly observant views educate as well as entertain. Most eloquent when discussing the English language, he also provokes thoughts on modern marriage, libraries, skiing duffers, New York's golden age, academe. It is difficult to choose a favorite from the rich selection, although ``Answers to Poets' Questions'' is a contender. There are delicious surprises in the piece as Perrin replies to Emily Dickinson's ``Are you nobody, too?'' and James Russell Lowell's ``And what is so rare as a day in June?'' (June)