Cover of Acres and Pains

Acres and Pains

If you can spare the time to drive sixty miles into the backwoods of eastern Pennsylvania, crouch down in a bed of poison ivy, and peer through the sumacs, you will be rewarded by an interesting sight. What you will see is a middle-aged city dweller, as lean and bronzed as a shad's belly (I keep a shad's belly hanging up in the barn for purposes of comparison), gnawing his fingernails and wondering how to abandon a farm.Thus begins Acres and Pains, S.J. Perelman's unique testament to the joys and tribulations of country living. Acres and Pains describes the purchase and transformation of the Perelman property, Rising Gorge, as our hero transforms himself from city lazybones to country squire.Eudora Welty called S.J. Perelman "a National Treasure."

Audience
adult
Length
short · 128 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Acres and Pains? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Acres and Pains. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Ferrari in the Bedroom Shares humor, memoir
  2. I Took a Lickin' and Kept on Tickin': And Now I Believe in Miracles Shares humor, memoir
  3. The Post Office Lady with the Dragon Tattoo: An Essay Shares humor, memoir
  4. If Love Were Oil, I'd Be about a Quart Low Shares humor, memoir

“If you want more of the same (memoir), start with these.”

  1. The Bad Beekeeper's Club
  2. Flying with the Rich and Famous: True Stories from the Flight Attendant who flew with them
  3. Look at Me, Look at Me!
  4. Living Loaded: Tales of Sex, Salvation, and the Pursuit of the Never-Ending Happy Hour

“If it was the humor that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Don't Fight With the Garden Hose and Other Lessons I've Learned Along the Way
  2. Paper Cuts
  3. Rag Soup (An Emmett Love Western Book 5)
  4. How to Talk Minnesotan: Revised for the 21st Century

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Masala Farm
  2. Hot Summer Lust
  3. The Self-Reliant Homestead: A Book of Country Skills
  4. Making Cheese, Butter Yogurt: (Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletin A-283)