S. J. Perelman (1904-1979) wrote for the Marx Brothers films Horse Feathers and Monkey Business and won an Oscar for his screenwriting on Around the World in Eighty. He remains best known for his many sketches and essays penned for The New Yorker during its golden age of humour. Author and New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik has selected the very best of his comic pieces, including his parodies of books and films, his biting social satire, autobiographical pieces, and a selection from the celebrated Cloudland Revisited series, in which Perelman revisits books and films from his childhood.