A wonderful, quick read. The book is divided into many short chapters, covering different aspects of rural life in Vermont. The only part of the book that I didn't enjoy was a short section about raising sheep and preparing them for slaughter. That being said, it's true to lifestyle this book discusses, and is certainly a worthy inclusion. All in all, this can serve as an instruction manual for flatlanders looking to make the jump. ( )

The Washington Post called him a rural essayist in their obituary for him, and said that his writing showed a well-furnished mind. I concur. This was an easy to read, but thought provoking and memorable collection of essays. There was not a lot of how-to information for the hands-on agrarian, but the arm-chair agrarian, as well as the real thing, will find the essays quite satisfactory. He writes about making maple syrup, building fences, making your own fence posts, butter-making, snow-mobiles, selling firewood, and the Vermont countryside, which, he says, will soon look just like New Jersey, only with hills. But he could have written with equal interest about almost any country related topic and he'd be worth reading.

According the Post, "Mr. Perrin taught American literature at Dartmouth for nearly 40 years and was an authority on modern poetry, particularly that of his fellow New England farmer, Robert Frost," and it shows in the polished paragraphs of his prose.

One of the marks of a good book, in my opinion, is that when you finish reading it you keep thinking about it. That's true of First Person Rural.

Another mark of a good book is that when you finish it you have added other books to your reading list, and that is also true of First Person Rural. My list is considerably longer, and you can get a glimpse of what it might look like and why over at Loganberry books, where they say that Perrin's

First Person Rural series contain some of the best gentleman farmer anecdotes ever.

If you like the writing of a Fadiman or E.B. White, you'll like the prose of Perrin. If you enjoy the countryside, including the inconveniences and paradoxes of a countryside where covered bridges rest on steel struts and country store owners spend an hour unwrapping packages of crackers to put them in a country barrel, you'll enjoy Perrin.

He only died about three years ago. I wish I had discovered him while he was still living. I would have liked to have written him a thank-you note. ( )