Best of PG Wodehouse, Jeeves, Blandings…
WHAT HO! Celebrating The Very Best of P G Wodehouse & My New Friends on Goodreads
Goodreads has got to be the Ultimate Home for Bookworms.
Created “to help people find and share books they love,” Goodreads has become a kind of library and a kind of gathering of friends. And every friend there has a deep love of books. And many of those friends share that love in their own words.
I know I’ve discovered many books there. Some I’d never heard of. Some were familiar — but I’d never really dipped into those particular pages.
While I’ve never had the time to accept a Reading Challenge, and often go days without getting logged in, I still follow members’ Bookshelves and Recommendations.
I welcome “Be my friend on Goodreads” emails, always hit the ACCEPT button — and spend some time checking out my new friend’s MY BOOKS.
I’ve thrilled at winning books through the popular GoodReads Giveaways. Especially those Advanced Reading Editions. And putting on heartfelt Book Reviews of my favourites of those — as well as some of my Discoveries and Longtime Faves: SEE Brian Alan Burhoe’s Book Reviews – Writers, Artists & Stories
It was on Goodreads that I discovered (Re-discovered, actually) Pelham Grenville “Plum” Wodehouse and his comic stories.
I had only read a few stories of his over the years, usually in humour anthologies, and hadn’t really been captured by Plum’s world. Maybe because the Wodehouse world was a “blissful Eden of perpetual English summer, populated by dim-witted aristocrats, formidable aunts, and brilliant valets.” Not the lively, working family Appalachian hills I was born and (mostly) grew up in.
But lists of Goodreads comic fiction again and again included Wodehouse near the top. And Jeeves. And writers like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett loved him…
So after a while I decided to check him out again.
Hooked!
WHAT HO! THE BEST OF P G WODEHOUSE – A Book Review
With no more works from Terry Pratchett — and my collection-completing edition of John Mortimer’s RUMPOLE AND THE PENGE BUNGALOW MURDERS sitting smug and comfortable on my bookshelves, I’ve welcomed and cheered my late-in-life discovery of Plum Wodehouse.
On the back cover of WHAT HO! THE BEST OF P G WODEHOUSE, you’ll read this little quote by Sebastian Faulks: “P G Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century.”
I’m not quite ready to agree wholeheartedly with Mr Faulks. Not yet. But with each Jeeves book, each Blandings trove, I’m getting there.
In his Intro to WHAT HO, Stephen Fry tells us: “In my teenage years the writings of P G Wodehouse awoke me to the possibilities of language…”
Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I discovered Plum too late. Jeeves and Lord Emsworth of Blandings, Ukridge and Uncle Fred will never completely overwhelm my deep affection for my personal hero Horace Rumpole, that proud, that defiant Old Bailey Hack. But they’re trying.
WHAT HO is a glorious collection of short stories, letters, articles, notes about writing, and extracts from novels & autobiographies. What a read!
And being me, my fave story in this collection is a rare exception from his usual lighthearted farce and gentle satire. “Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend” is heart-felt sentimental comedy, a Chaplinesque story of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, and a little Fresh Air Child from London named Gladys, whom he discovers locked in a garden shed for stealing food from the tea tent. Sentimental comedy requires moments of sadness, tragedy and brief heroics, ingredients not often found in Plum’s writings.
Yes, my fave Plum story so far. Although “Uncle Fred Flits By” is a close second.
Some say WHAT HO! THE BEST OF P G WODEHOUSE isn’t the best introduction to the master’s work. I say, “Well, my dear old thing! Pack your spare dickey and toothbrush and prepare for a well-mannered journey to a world of innocent mirth.”
“Live Free, Mon Ami!” – Brian Alan Burhoe
And — Cheers to My Present & Future Friends on Goodreads! Join Me Now! Just CLICK Here…
UPDATE: I posted this Book Review first on March 8, 2017. With new thoughts added May 13, 2026.
I’ve added more Plum titles since.
Many more. He’s popular. And I’ve found him in old used book shops, local thrift stores and (specific titles, increasingly more costly) on AbeBooks.com.
Why do Jeeves and Bertie tickle my funniest bones?
And Lord Emsworth is my new literary hero in my old timey mind. Love Blandings Castle, its rambling hallways and bee-buzzing green gardens. Somewhere beyond that castle are “at least seven pubs.”
I think I visited Blandings Castle long ago. I would have been four, almost five. My memories of just then are not set in cerebral cement. I’ve written about those years we lived in Yorkshire in my Life & Works.
Post-War England was still rationing — but you could travel by steam train cheaply. And we did. And you could visit old castles and stone churches for free, as well as what Tolkien called “unmechanized farmlands.”
In my later years in England, age six, seven, eight, we visited Helmsley Castle and York Minster Cathedral, Both I remember vividly. And a few times saw Kirklees Priory Gate House, where the Abbess had betrayed Robin of Loxley. Pontefract Castle (“The dungeons are locked today.”) and St. Mary’s of Beverly (The White Rabbit Church — that White Rabbit). Others.
But early on, yes, I’m sure we stayed there, at Blandings. Certain. Positive. Unshaken in my belief. Where else would we have been served such perfectly golden kippered herring for breakfast?
FURTHER READING: Life & Works of Brian Alan Burhoe – All About Us & More. Web Archived.
FAVE WODEHOUSE QUOTE: “Life is too short to take things seriously. Embrace the chaos and have a jolly good time!” – Uncle Fred, aka Lord Ickenham
TAGS: Bertie Wooster, best of Wodehouse, book review, friend on Goodreads, CivilizedBears, Horace Rumpole, Jeeves, John Mortimer, P G Wodehouse quotes on life, funniest Wodehouse, Rumpole of the Bailey, Uncle Fred.
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