P. G. Wodehouse Essentials
Nothing goes wrong in Wodehouse that a valet cannot fix. The Jeeves stories are the front door; Psmith and Blandings wait further in.
- Nothing bad ever really happens, that's the trick. Bertie blunders into some engagement or aunt-related disaster, Jeeves quietly fixes it, and the fun is all in Bertie's narration, which is silly and perfect in the same breath.
- Bertie decides he can fix everyone's love lives better than Jeeves, and the wreckage is glorious, peaking when a newt-obsessed Gussie gives a drunken speech at a school prize-giving. Nothing sad ever happens, the sentences themselves are the treat.
- You’ll be glad to spend time with Psmith, who can talk his way through Blandings Castle while treating every social crisis as an opportunity for elegant nonsense. The plotting is gloriously tangled, with mistaken identities, a stolen necklace, and Lord Emsworth’s beloved Empress of Blandings quietly stealing scenes.
- The first Blandings book, and already Wodehouse has the machine humming: an absent-minded earl pockets a valuable scarab, and two broke Londoners sneak into the castle as servants to steal it back. Light as anything, genuinely funny, and the below-stairs etiquette scenes alone earn their keep.
- Every story starts with a stranger in the Angler's Rest making the mistake of mentioning something, and Mulliner having a nephew whose life proves a point about it. If you like watching a shy curate or a timid photographer spiral into glorious absurdity, this is happy nonsense done properly.