BooksOfTheMoon

Carry On, Jeeves (Jeeves, #3)

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 5 stars

I am a huge fan of P. G. Wodehouse, having come to his oeuvre quite late, particularly the bumbling but ever-likeable Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s personal gentleman, the inimitable Jeeves. This volume is an entire collection of Jeeves and Wooster stories, including several that go on to be referenced elsewhere in the canon. For example, the infamous article for Milady’s Boudoir is first written here and we get to see how the gastronomic artist Anatole came to work for Aunt Dahlia (the only good egg in a handbag of aunts). This volume also has a rarity: a story narrated by Jeeves himself, not Bertie. This could have been a disaster, as so much of the fun of the stories comes from Jeeves’ cunning plan, but Jeeves’ horror of Bertie adopting a child and his elegant solution do work and don’t spoil the magic at all.

The stories aren’t exactly what you might call inventive or artistic: Bertie, or one of his pals, gets into a scrape (often with an aunt) and Jeeves gets him out again, often through an unnecessarily complex plan. But they are very good fun, and Wodehouse’s prose is a joy to read. Bertie’s narrative voice is clear and distinctive and the whole thing just comes together.

If you’ve got a horror of upper class Englishmen of a certain era, then avoid like the plague, but for the rest of us, if you see this (or, indeed, any Wodehouse novel) don’t hesitate to pick it up!

Book details

ISBN: 9780099513698
Publisher: Arrow Books
Year of publication: 1925

Very Good, Jeeves! (Jeeves, #4)

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 5 stars

This volume contains eleven short stories featuring the immortal Bertram Wooster and his inimitable gentleman’s personal gentleman. This collection has several classic stories, including Jeeves and the Impending Doom, Jeeves and the Song of Songs and Episode of the Dog McIntosh. There’s the ongoing feud with Tuppy Glossop over that rotter’s practical joke, leaving Bertie hanging high, but not dry, the continuing curse of the aunts (despite Bertie’s protestations, I’m not sure Dahlia is that much better than Agatha) and, of course, Jeeves, striding through it all, with a pithy quote and a brain freshly fed on fish to help solve the Young Master’s problems.

PG Wodehouse is a master at this. I’ve never read a Wodehouse that I haven’t enjoyed and they are a sheer joy to read. This volume is certainly no exception to that.

Book details

ISBN: 9781841591421
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Year of publication: 1930

Service With a Smile (Blandings Castle, #9; Uncle Fred, #4)

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 5 stars

In this visit to Blandings Castle, we find the Duke of Dunstable plotting to steal the Empress, a new and insufferable secretary and, to cap it all, the Church Lads’ Brigade are camped all over the lawns. It’s a lot for the Earl of Emsworth to cope with, but he doesn’t have to do it alone. That general do-gooder, and all round nice guy, the Earl of Ickenham, aka Uncle Fred, is ready and willing to provide service with a smile.

Light, fluffy, funny and a balm to the soul, reading a Wodehouse novel is always a joy, and this is no exception. While I’m not as familiar with Uncle Fred or the inmates of Blandings as I am with Jeeves and Wooster, I’ve read some (and watched the BBC TV series) and it’s always nice to get better acquainted with them.

Book details

ISBN: 9780099513995
Publisher: Arrow
Year of publication: 1961

Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1)

By Terry Pratchett

Rating: 5 stars

It’s been several years since I last read this book and I’d forgotten just how funny it was. Full of bickering secret societies, class warfare and social climbing, dragons, insightful social commentary and humans brought up as dwarfs (well, a dragon and a human brought up as a dwarf) and also laugh out loud funny, Guards! Guards! is our first view of Captain Sam Vimes and his motley crew of city watchmen. Rereading this after some time, it’s like seeing photos of your parents when they were young. It’s slightly disconcerting to think that so many events that I think of as established fact are still in their future, they’re young and full of hope (well, Carrot is anyway) and Pratchett is still gleefully and energetically pastiching all the fantasy he can get his hands on.

Men at Arms will always be my favourite ‘Watch’ book on the Discworld, but Guards! Guards! is still a hilarious introduction to the Discworld, Ankh-Morpork and the City Watch (motto: fabricati diem, pvnc: ‘to protect and to serve’, according to Sergeant Colon).

Book details

ISBN: 9780552134620
Publisher: Random House
Year of publication: 1989

Full Moon (Blandings Castle, #7)

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 4 stars

The ninth Earl of Emsworth wants a portrait painted. Of his prize pig. His niece Prudence is whisked away from her wedding, to purgatory back at Blandings, because her mother and her aunt don’t approve of her intended, and his other niece Veronica wants to marry an American millionaire who keeps seeing a hideous face every time he takes a drink.

Wodehouse mixes up all this and more with glee, plonks it down in the picturesque setting of Blandings castle. The hon Galahad may not be Jeeves, but he’s still got what it takes to sort things out and ensure that nothing stands in the way of true love. I loved the characters, their Wodehousian antics and the whole shebang. Maybe not classic Wodehouse (I generally prefer the stuff that’s set pre-war) but still gloriously silly.

Book details

ISBN: 9781585678365
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Year of publication: 1947

Cocktail Time

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 5 stars

The fifth Earl of Ickenham is easily bored. And he has taken it upon himself to spread sweetness and light amongst all those of his acquaintance, or as some of those acquaintances might put it: meddle and interfere in others’ business. This book starts with Lord Ickenham shooting a brazil nut at his half brother-in-law ‘Beefy’ Bastable with a catapult. From then, a long, improbably Wodehousian chain of events is set in motion with, as they say, hilarious consequences.

This book is what happens when an actually clever upper class person gets to be the hero of the story. You get all the wit and madness of a Jeeves book, but with someone who doesn’t have to be prodded along.

Freddie Ickenham is a likeable character, sharp, but not so sharp that he doesn’t let tenuous and improbable chains of events build up before they are neatly untangled and all set straight, with the usual Wodehousian flair.

This is the first of Wodehouse’s ‘Uncle Fred’ books that I’ve read, but on the strength of this one, I’ll certainly be searching out others. Marvellous stuff.

Book details

ISBN: 035230197X
Publisher: Star
Year of publication: 1958

Good Omens

By Terry Pratchett

Rating: 5 stars

I always enjoy this witty novel about the end of the world. It’s got a real charm to it, and it was written when both writers were arguably at the height of their powers (Gaiman was in the middle of Sandman and Pratchett was still funny).

Re-reading it again for the first time in some years, I’m struck all over again by just how humanistic it is. How much it’s about the choices we make and the very fact that we are able to make those choices. It’s a warm book, and one that makes you care deeply about the characters, whether that be both the angelic beings who drive the plot, or the others who get caught up in Armageddon; from Anathema and Newton to the Them to Madame Tracy and the hilariously horrific Sergeant Shadwell. As this book makes very clear, your destiny isn’t fixed, and is altered with every choice you make.

Book details

Publisher: Corgi
Year of publication: 1990

Men at Arms (Discworld, #15)

By Terry Pratchett

Rating: 5 stars

The City Watch of Ankh-Morpork has just twenty-four hours to deal with mystery assassinations in the city and minority representation in the Watch.

This was one of the first Discworld books that I ever read and it remains one of my favourite. Full of wonderful language, characters that you grow to care about and the humour that made Pratchett’s name, I highly recommend this book.

Book details

ISBN: 9780552140287
Publisher: Corgi
Year of publication: 1993

Right Ho, Jeeves (Jeeves, #6)

By P.G. Wodehouse

Rating: 5 stars

You know what they say about the best laid plans of Bertie Wooster [1:]? So when Madeline Basset ends up accidentally engaged to Bertie instead of Gussie Fink-Nottle, his cousin Angela breaks up with Tuppy Glossop and the finest chef in England threatens to leave his Aunt Dahlia, it’s up to Jeeves to untangle the knots and ensure that everything gets sorted out.

A couple of episodes of the Jeeves and Wooster TV series were based on this book but it’s nice to see it in its full unabridged glory. I find Wodehouse eminently readable and great fun to come back to. His characters are obviously parodies but they capture the upper classes of the early 20th century so well. I love this stuff.

[1:] If not, here’s a hint

Book details

ISBN: 9780099513742
Publisher: Arrow Random House
Year of publication: 1934

Hogfather (Discworld, #20)

By Terry Pratchett

Rating: 5 stars

Hogfather is, in my view, one of the better New Pratchett books and one that I tend to come back to as an old favourite. It’s got Death, the Wizards, the Grim Squeaker and Susan (before she became really annoying) in a plot that involves belief, questioning one’s place in the world and plumbing.

Death’s continuing desire to understand, and become more like, Humanity plays a central role as he has to take the Hogfather’s place and deliver presents to children all over the Disc, while Susan has to piece together why he is doing it and what has happened to the Hogfather himself while holding on to her own humanity. The wizards spend most of the book doing what wizards do best (bumbling, arguing and eating or thinking about eating large meals) but in a genial manner that I couldn’t help but be charmed by.

This is an enjoyable take on Christmas, with Pratchett’s usual flair and digs, with his humour and observational comedy still strong and in service of the plot, rather than for their own sakes.

Book details

ISBN: 9780552145428
Publisher: Corgi
Year of publication: 1996

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