thedailychannel.com — recommended books

A Wodehouse Bestiary
by P.G. Wodehouse

What ho, what ho, what ho! Another sterling collection of stories by the master. If you've never encountered the humour of P.G. Wodehouse, too bad! But this is as good a place to start as any. Not only is he quite the writer, prosewise, but he can cobble together the most excruciatingly suspenseful plots.

Indeed, what other writer could have a character say "Oh, I say look at that whacking huge rat! LooLoo LooLoo Loooooooo!!!" at the precise moment when you would quite reasonably expect him to be proposing a lifelong union of two hearts that beat as one, in short, marriage? The rat being, in this case, one of the animals used as an excuse for collecting the stories together and wringing a few more pennies out of the beaten-down consumer.

I say it's worth it! P.G. Wodehouse was knighted Sir Plum for a reason, and this is it. Well, perhaps not this exact collection of snappy side-splitting episodes, but perhaps one or more of the 90-odd volumes like this one. Believe me, if you're depressed the cumulative effect is just what you're lookin' for.

Plus, culinary ideas abound. Never in my right mind would I have considered whopping up a steaming mass of scrambled eggs and herrings one fine afternoon, at least not until I read one of the stories in this book.

Ramble on over to amazon.com, old chap, and snag a copy of A Wodehouse Bestiary by P.G. Wodehouse but before you do, you ought to be warned that someone there has written a review every bit as exhortatory as this one. On second thought, forget it. You probably don't need any laughs right now anyway.

reviewed September 6, 2001