The Inimitable Jeeves: Dip Into the World Of Jeeves & Wooster

Jeeves & Wooster. Wodehouse at his best

Sometimes, I like books that truly need to be read completely within a few days. But I also love books that I can just dip into and read a chapter at random.

This Wodehouse book has been a favourite for more years than I care to remember.

I can quote passages from this book. I feel as though I know the characters intimately.

I've never tired of it after all these years. It features my favourite Wodehouse characters and some plots that make me laugh over and over again.

Short stories - but connected

The great thing about this book is that each chapter is a short story in itself. This makes it ideal for dipping into from time to time.

And yet it is also a novel where the events take place chronologically. Read it in one delicious session or dip in and enjoy chapter whenever you please.

Scrapes & solutions

Bertie Wooster and his friends (notably but not exclusively the wonderful Bingo Little) find themselves in various scrapes. Bingo will keep falling in love with the most unsuitable girls and Bertie's Aunt Agatha will keep finding unsuitable girls for her nephew.

Only Jeeves' 'super-colossal' brain can extricate them from the threat of these perilous liaisons.

Jeeves sometimes has his own agenda too. Exactly why doesn't he want Bingo to marry the hopelessly unsuitable Mabel the waitress? Despite his disapproval of Bertie's shirts and cummerbund, will he help him get out of an engagement to the dreaded Honoria Glossop?

You'll laugh out loud

I do. And that's unusual for me. But being transported to another world and another era - a time when butlers (or rather 'gentlemen's gentlemen') ruled the household is just a pure joy.

I would recommend any book by P.G. Wodehouse but this is an absolute cracker. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

One P.G Wodehouse book is never enough.

If you have had the good fortune to have only recently discovered the works of P.G. Wodehouse, then you're in for a complete treat.

There are many more books for you to enjoy in the future.

See too the DVDs below featuring the best actors who have ever portrayed Jeeves and Wooster - Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

When Bertie met Reggie

In the video clip below, Bertie Wooster has had a bit of a night. In common with all his friends, he tends to enjoy great revelry on the evening of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

In this instance, his revelry has included stealing a policeman's helmet,for which he was jugged.(Locked up in a police cell, in Wooster parlance).

The following morning, he is hauled in front of the judge an, still terribly hungover, fined for his misdemeanour.

He blearily makes his way home where he lives alone. He has recently been obliged to dismiss Meadowes, his gentleman's gentleman, because 'the blighter has been stealing my socks'.

He just manages to collapse on the bed when the doorbell rings, and rings, and rings and rings. Still lacking any powers of speech,thanks to the excesses of the previous night, Bertie answers the door. There he sees a polite, bowler hatted gentleman who explains that he has been sent by the employment agency.

Bertie still can do no more than gurgle. Jeeves, for it in none other than he, recognises the problem at once. Entering the flat and heading to the kitchen. he prepares his own secret preparation - a tonic that his previous gentlemen have told him that they've found invigorating after a late night.

Bertie drinks it up and is immediately restored. 'I say!' he remarks."I say! You're hired!'

Completely perked up, Bertie repairs to his club where we are introduced to his cousins -Claude and Eustace, Barmy, Dogface ... and then a wonderfully formidable Aunt Agatha. Delightful.