P. G. Wodehouse

The only audiobooks I remember listening to prior to this round, are CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity and a David Sedaris boxset (of which five of the CDs have lived in my car’s 6 CD changer for years). With the David Sedaris collection, you’d think that it would have occurred to me that, unless it was a cast production, the narrator chosen for books with multiple characters might be doing voices. But no. It didn’t really hit me until a bit of the way into my first book. I’d like to blame that bout of obliviousness to my desultory mental exhaustion, but I don’t know.

The Luck of the Bodkins [Jonathan Cecil] – I’ve heard of a few of his titles, but I’ve never connected them to be written by the same person. And it’s only been a year since I read his name to the point of committing it to memory. But now that I’ve had my first taste of Wodehouse, I feel like the 30-odd years that have come before now were lacking in some way. I don’t understand how I’m getting into him only now. I get that his style doesn’t appeal to everyone, but it’s totally my kind of humor–terribly British. So many layers of story converging and separating in such intricate and lovely ways. Sometimes when a story has multiple characters with their own narrative, it can get messy and some of the characters can end up reading like duplicates of each other, but here, they were very distinct and they all brought something specific to the story. I had so much fun listening to this. There were a number of available titles, but I chose this because I liked the sound of it. By chance it was the first in a series of stories about Monty Bodkin, an independently wealthy man who has fallen in requited love, but can’t seem to seal the deal. I’ll be listening to Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin next.

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Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin [Jonathan Cecil] – This is the second in the Monty Bodkin series. I enjoyed it, but The Luck of the Bodkins was better. I wanted to move on to Bachelors Anonymous, which is the last book, but it isn’t yet available as an audiobook.

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The Inimitable Jeeves [Frederick Davidson] – I couldn’t take the reader; I’ll have to go the old fashion route and read it myself unless I can find another recording.

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My Man Jeeves [Simon Prebble] – I was hesitant to try another book that wasn’t read by Jonathan Cecil, but this was pretty decent, Though I don’t know if I care much for a collection of short stories when you can’t skip tracks.

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Meet Mr. Mulliner [Jonathan Cecil] – Jonathan Cecil really is the best Wodehouse reader for me, but this was another collection of short stories.

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Hot Water [Jonathan Cecil] – This was a good story–like musical chairs, but instead of the chairs being taken away, they just get spread out and moved around–and it was a full length novel. I’m certain I prefer his novels to his short stories.

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