Sep 16
2019
On a recent trip to Canada, I picked up Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo, a beautifully packaged little collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories from Arrow Books, who blithely describe it as "A Wodehouse Pick-Me-Up!". Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo consists of three short stories: two Mulliner tales, including the title story (about a meek curate who turns into an ass-kicking, name-taking problem solver...
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Sep 16
2019
This week we're giving away Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo, which has the dubious honor of being the most over-packaged collection of P.G. Wodehouse short stories I've ever seen. A full review will follow shortly, but here's a spoiler: this is a lot of wrapping for very little gift. This giveaway will run through 11/09/19...
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Feb 25
2019
The last book I reviewed left me convinced we're all about to die, so this week I wanted something soothing—and soothing, for me, usually means P.G. Wodehouse. I picked up a copy of Young Men in Spats, a collection of Drones Club, Mulliner, and Uncle Fred short stories, and, while definitely not the author's most impressive work, it did its anxiety-reducing job...
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Feb 25
2019
After our latest Book Giveaway, I decided to balance things out with little P.G. Wodehouse: our current book on offer is his short story collection Young Men in Spats. A full review will follow shortly, and this giveaway will run through 5/10/19...
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Jul 9
2018
During a recent trip to Powell's Books in Portland, OR, I picked up Wodehouse on Crime: A Dozen Tales of Fiendish Cunning, an oddly packaged collection of P.G. Wodehouse stories edited by D.R. Bensen. Wodehouse on Crime features stories from all over the Wodehouse universe: Jeeves and Wooster, Mulliner, Lord Emsworth, Ukridge. Wodehouse was perhaps the furthest thing on Earth from a hardboiled crime writer, but a surprising number of his plots hinge...
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Jul 9
2018
We are currently giving away a copy of this extremely ugly but amusingly-titled P.G. Wodehouse collection: Wodehouse on Crime: A Dozen Tales of Fiendish Cunning, originally published in 1990. A full review will follow shortly, but meanwhile, take a gander at that guy lurking on the far left of the cover. Doesn't he look like a beefier Benedict Cumberbatch...
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Aug 21
2017
I firmly believe that P.G. Wodehouse is best experienced in the short-story format. Sure, I've laughed myself sick over individual scenes in his full-length novels, but let's face it: every Jeeves and Wooster novel is really just a short story on steroids, so why bother with the needlessly hulked-out version when...
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Aug 21
2017
This week's Book Giveaway is my all-time favorite P.G. Wodehouse collection: the 1989 omnibus edition The World of Jeeves. This hefty sucker contains all 34 Jeeves and Wooster short stories, and is (in my opinion) the best organized and most accessible way of enjoying Wodehouse's work. A full review will follow shortly...
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Mar 6
2017
Utterly Uncle Fred is an omnibus edition of P.G. Wodehouse's stories about the irrepressible Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham. This collection includes the novels Cocktail Time, Uncle Dynamite, and Service With a Smile, and well as the short story that introduced us to the character, "Uncle Fred Flits By"...
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Mar 6
2017
This week's Book Giveaway is the P.G. Wodehouse omnibus Utterly Uncle Fred, which consists of one short story ("Uncle Fred Flits By") and three novels: Uncle Dynamite, Cocktail Time, and Service With a Smile. Any one of these, including the short story, would be well worth the cover price, so you can only imagine their combined awesomeness...
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Jan 23
2017
Regardless of whether they're 20 pages long or 200, P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories are always the same: heavy on whip-cracking aunts, hapless young men, formidable young ladies, and romantic misunderstandings that can usually only be resolved by making an ass out of poor Bertie Wooster. Since there are so few differences between his novels and short stories, I prefer the short stories—they cram just as much awesomeness into far fewer pages...
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Jan 23
2017
This week's Book Giveaway is P.G. Wodehouse's 1949 Jeeves and Wooster novel The Mating Season. I'm just sayin', apropos of... nothing special: in times of stress, there is nothing like Wodehouse. A full review will follow shortly...
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May 19
2016
Another quickie guided tour of the sequels and series installments I've read this week:
P.G. Wodehouse's 1952 novel Pigs Have Wings is one of the funnier standalone Blandings Castle stories. (Like most of the Blandings adventures, this one involves several thwarted love affairs and a threat to the health and well-being of Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's prize pig.) I usually...
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Dec 29
2014
P.G. Wodehouse's short story collection Blandings Castle is divided between six stories set at Blandings, the country estate of the ninth Earl of Elmsworth, one story about Bertie Wooster inamorata Bobbie Wickham, and five stories about the Mulliners of Hollywood. The Mulliner and Wickham stories have a little bite to them, but the Blandings section represents Wodehouse at his most shamelessly soothing...
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Dec 29
2014
Let's ease into 2015, shall we? In the interest of kicking off the new year with a little comfort reading, this week's Book Giveaway is Blandings Castle, a collection of non-Jeeves-and-Wooster short stories by P.G. Wodehouse. A full review will follow shortly, but here's a spoiler: it's Wodehouse at his most Wodehousian...
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Sep 2
2014
Carry On, Jeeves is a collection of ten of P.G. Wodehouse's early Jeeves and Wooster short stories. Nine are told from the point of view of Bertie Wooster, a wealthy, genial, mentally negligible young Englishman; the tenth is narrated by Jeeves, Bertie's unflappable and infinitely resourceful valet. There are no surprises in a Jeeves and Wooster short story...
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Sep 2
2014
In honor of back-to-school week, I've chosen something soothing for this week's Book Giveaway: Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse. It isn't my favorite Jeeves-and-Wooster collection, but it's pretty much ideal reading for anyone feeling overwhelmed by constant demands for calculators, kleenex, and signed permission slips...
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Dec 10
2013
Sebastian Faulks's book Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: An Homage to P.G. Wodehouse was formally approved by Wodehouse's heirs, who apparently hope that Faulks can introduce a new generation of readers to Wodehouse's most famous creations: the “mentally negligible” Englishman Bertie Wooster and his ever-resourceful valet, Jeeves. Frankly, I doubt it. I mean, Jeeves and the Wedding Bells might amuse Wodehouse groupies*, but...
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Jun 11
2013
Flavorwire recently put together a slideshow of pop-culture-inspired video games you can play online for free, and three of their choices were based on books: a "pretty epic multi-part online Flash game" based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos stories called Arcane, a strategy game called Dune II, and an "interactive fiction" adaptation of...
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Jun 6
2013
According to The Guardian, Robert and David Goodale's play Perfect Nonsense—an adaptation of P. G. Wodehouse's 1938 book The Code of the Woosters—will open in England at the Duke of York's Theatre on October 30th. The play will star Stephen Mangan (star of the BBC's Dirk Gently TV series) as Bertie Wooster and Matthew Macfadyen...
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Dec 27
2010
Isn't this a beautiful sight to behold?The picture doesn't do it full justice, but I assure you: in real life, this recent repackaging of two of P.G. Wodehouse's full-length Jeeves and Wooster nov...
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Jul 17
2006
Excerpt from: The World of Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse Why you should buy a copy of your very own:Because no one on God's green earth does this sort of humor like Wodehouse. And these paragraphs are...
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Aug 14
2004
American readers may be surprised to learn that P.G. Wodehouse (creator of the British icon Jeeves, the penultimate "gentleman's gentleman") is actually quite the figure of controversy in Great Br...
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