Here are 79 books that Right Ho, Jeeves fans have personally recommended if you like
Right Ho, Jeeves.
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I am a cultural historian, film critic, literary critic, editor, and essayist–and a closeted fiction writer–fascinated by ‘the fantastic’ in art or in life. And Christmas seems to me the perfect example of a time that unites realism and the strange–the time of ghost stories and nativities. I wrote a book on It’s a Wonderful Life (2023) because it triumphantly succeeds at bridging the connection between ordinary life and the marvelous. I have also edited anthologies of Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories, The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (Penguin, 2010), and Victorian Fairy Tales (Oxford World’s Classics, 2015), both of which include many seasonal classics.
Dickens did not “invent” Christmas, of course, but our modern understanding of it undoubtedly derives from him.
For long a Londoner, because of Dickens, Christmas still seems to me at heart a matter of foggy London streets, enclosed city houses, and window-lights and passers-by at dusk. Christmas means rituals, and I, among others, go through the yearly rite of re-reading A Christmas Carol. And every year, it’s just as vivid, as funny, and as moving as the years before.
Dickens celebrates Christmas as a time of renewal, and Scrooge finds redemption by finding the person he used to be and the person he ought to be now. Robert Louis Stevenson said that reading it made him want to do good things, and what better recommendation could there be?
Tom Baker reads Charles Dickens' timeless seasonal story.
Charles Dickens' story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, has become one of the timeless classics of English literature. First published in 1843, it introduces us not only to Scrooge himself, but also to the memorable characters of underpaid desk clerk Bob Cratchit and his poor family, the poorest amongst whom is the ailing and crippled Tiny Tim.
In this captivating recording, Tom Baker delivers a tour-de-force performance as he narrates the story. The listener…
When we were doing research for Dora the Explorer (I’m one of the show’s three creators), we read picture book versions of the episodes to preschoolers. The researcher would always begin by saying, “I’ve got a story to tell you.” The preschoolers would clap, cheer, and sometimes even hug the kid next to them. Then, my story would begin. At least with group 1, before we made a lot of changes, the children would invariably fall on their backs and beg to be taken back to class. Everyone longs to be told a great story. So, for my list, I picked some of the greatest read-aloud children’s books ever “told.”
Whenever I read this book’s opening lines, I sink under the author’s magic spell.
Forget Faulkner, forget Joyce, try Grahame’s poetic prose. When Grahame wrote this, the whole idea of writing books for kids was still fresh, and the idea of anthropomorphic animals was novel, too. The book is so good it still seems like something new under the sun.
If you don’t have a child available, pretend that a wise, kind adult is reading the book to you.
Spend a season on the river bank and take a walk on the wild side . . .
Spring is in the air and Mole has found a wonderful new world. There's boating with Ratty, a feast with Badger and high jinx on the open road with that reckless ruffian, Mr Toad of Toad Hall. The four become the firmest of friends, but after Toad's latest escapade, can they join together and beat the wretched weasels?
PLUS A behind-the-scenes journey, including author profile, a guide to who's who, activities and more.
Life is taking a bite of the comedy/tragedy sandwich, savoring the mix of flavors, deciding how you feel about the taste, and taking another bite. I love writing that can gather experiences from across the emotional spectrum and incorporate them into a narrative that is absurd and all the more true because of it. These five books do it better than the rest.
I love a book that makes me laugh out loud and feel something deep about the characters and the world it presents. Ignatius J. Reilly, this novel’s main character, is basically a blueprint for the modern incel: he’s rude, selfish, hypocritical, infantile, and inconsistently idealistic, and while he’d be a horror to interact with in real life, he’s absolutely one of the funniest characters in all of literature.
One of the many magic tricks of this book is making the reader realize they’re halfway rooting for Ignatius by the end of his inane New Orleans adventures.
'This is probably my favourite book of all time' Billy Connolly
A pithy, laugh-out-loud story following John Kennedy Toole's larger-than-life Ignatius J. Reilly, floundering his way through 1960s New Orleans, beautifully resigned with cover art by Gary Taxali _____________
'This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians . . . don't make the mistake of bothering me.'
Ignatius J. Reilly: fat, flatulent, eloquent and almost unemployable. By the standards of ordinary folk he is pretty much…
Nine Stories Told Completely in Dialogue is a unique collection of narratives, each unfolding entirely through conversations between its characters. The book opens with "God on a Budget," a tale of a man's surreal nighttime visitation that offers a blend of the mundane and the mystical. In "Doctor in the…
From books to television, one of my favorite qualities of good writing is a rich, inter-generational cast of characters, especially ones that feature significant roles for characters young and old. These stories do not span multiple generations; instead, they showcase characters of all ages interacting at one time, which makes for dynamic plots and relationships.
What’s so neat about this book is that it doesn’t just capture a light-hearted and moving glimpse into English academia; it provides glimpses into a man’s—an institution in himself—relationships with his wife, coworkers, and students.
I enjoyed the progression of time. Several generations of students interact with the aging, albeit the same, “Mr. Chips.” There’s something neat about that.
I'm a lot of things. I design games. I study literature and theater. I write novels that are messy fusions of literary and genre fiction. I'm endlessly curious. Each of my books starts with when I hear in my head, the voice of a character asking a question. It's always a silly question, and it's always the one that matters more to them than anything else in the world. "Why does being superintelligent make you evil?" became Soon I Will Be Invincible. "What are people who play video games obsessively really looking for?" became You. Answering the question isn't simple, but of course that's where the fun starts.
A cult novel from the early twentieth century, beloved of everyone from C.S. Lewis to Neil Gaiman to literally Kafka.
It starts at a peaceful suburban garden party, then plunges us into the secret anarchist conspiracy to bring down civilization, and the equally secret police force dedicated to stopping them. Duels, disguises, and mind-blowing revelations ensue, with writing just packed with Edwardian-era wit and charm.
Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are? Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'. In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty, When Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to…
I’m the author of The Dirty Parts of the Bible, which has
been a #1 Kindle bestseller in Humorous Literary Fiction on several occasions. In school, I hated the sorts of novels we were assigned. Unable to connect
with them, I read Cliff’s Notes instead. Then we were given The Catcher in the Rye. It was a
revelation—literature can be relatable, engaging, and funny?! The next novel to grab me this way was The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. Like Catcher, it was gritty and often dark,
addressing serious concerns—but it did so with humor. These books were
my gateway into enjoying fiction—and, ultimately, to writing my own story in
the same category of serious-yet-funny.
This is a little-known gem by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thornton Wilder (best known for his play Our Town). Published in the 1935, it’s a contemporaneous account of Depression-era America, following the misadventures of traveling salesman and religious zealot, George Brush.
Coming off as preachy and self-righteous, George sparks ire and outrage wherever he goes. Yet, he’s a sincere and decent person. At the end of his misadventures, George is humbled and begins to broaden his views, making him a complex, sympathetic character.
Though renowned during his lifetime, Wilder has been largely forgotten in favor of flashier contemporaries. All of his works are worth rediscovering, but Heaven’s My Destination is closest to my heart as it was a major inspiration for my own book.
The law of contract is ripe for feminist analysis. Despite increasing calls for the re-conceptualisation of neo-classical ways of thinking, feminist perspectives on contract tend to be marginalised in mainstream textbooks. This edited collection questions the assumptions made in such works and the ideologies that underpin them, drawing attention to the ways in which the law of contract has facilitated the virtual exclusion of women, the feminine and the private sphere from legal discourse.
Contributors to this volume offer a range of ways of thinking about the subject and cover topics such as the feminine offeree, feminist perspectives on contracts…
Dolça Llull Prat, a wealthy Barcelona woman, is only 15 when she falls in love with an impoverished poet-solder. Theirs is a forbidden relationship, one that overcomes many obstacles until the fledgling writer renders her as the lowly Dulcinea in his bestseller.
I fell in love with speculative fiction in high school (1967) when I found LOTR collecting dust on a library shelf in San Marcos, Texas. I majored in philosophy in college, which required a high degree of speculative imagination. Some might call my philosophizing bullshit, but seriously, it’s the only academic field that takes zombies seriously. I taught visual and multimedia design at Austin Community College, helping students commit their imaginations to realized projects. Love in the Ruins inspired me to write three speculative novels and dozens of published short stories.
I read this book every year. In my opinion, Walker Percy, along with Flannery O’Connor, is the premiere southern novelist of the last half of the 20th Century. I consider it one of the finest novels written and an example of the plotting, character development, use of language, and religious parody to which young novelists should aspire.
Percy’s novel blends Southern Gothic, science fiction, and comedy to create a world in which the racial divide in New Orleans blossoms into an apocalypse with hilarious and unpredictable results.
A pair of profound dystopian novels from the “brilliantly breathtaking” New York Times–bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of The Moviegoer (The New York Times Book Review).
Winner of the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, the “dazzlingly gifted” Southern philosophical author Walker Percy wrote two vividly imagined satirical novels of America’s future featuring deeply flawed psychiatrist and spiritual seeker Tom More (USA Today). Love in the Ruins is “a great adventure . . . so outrageous and so real, one is left speechless” (Chicago Sun-Times), and its sequel The Thanatos Syndrome “shimmers with intelligence and verve” (Newsday).
My writing life is a mixture. I have written novels of crime fiction, many featuring Sherlock Holmes, as well as a variety of sleuths of my own creation. I was editor of the monthly journal of the Crime Writers’ Association for twenty years and have written several plays, non-fiction books as well introductions to numerous literary collections. While I admit that my writings veer towards the serious and dramatic, in my social life I think of myself as a light-hearted fellow and as an antidote to my own dark fiction I enjoy having my spirits lifted by witty and amusing tales that help to raise the spirits.
If you know of Gyles Brandreth, the writer, broadcaster, and polymath you will know what to expect from any work of his. Subtitled The Diary of a Lifetime it contains extracts from his diaries from 1959 to the year 2000. It is a wonderful book to dip into, one that is full of enthusiasm and positivity. It is quite amazing the number of famous people that Brandreth has encountered over the years—not just names from showbusiness but artists, writers, politicians, sportspeople, and royalty. The book is stuffed with anecdotes most of which are highly amusing and are often presented in a self-deprecating manner.
This is a diary packed with famous names and extraordinary stories. It is also rich in incidental detail and wonderful observation, providing both a compelling record of five remarkable decades and a revealing, often hilarious and sometimes moving account of Gyles Brandreth's unusual life -- as a child living in London in the 'swinging' sixties, as a jumper-wearing TV presenter, as an MP and government whip, and as a royal biographer who has enjoyed unique access to the Queen and her family. Something Sensational to Read on the Train takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from the era of…
I’ve been “big-five-published” in contemporary fiction, Indie-published in speculative thrillers and I – only last year – rejected several publishers in favour of self-publishing books Jane Austen herself might have loved. A Jane Austen fanatic from an early age, I know most of the novels by heart, and appear to have succeeded (to some extent) in understanding her style. My Susan – a unique imagining of Austen’s Lady Susan as a young girl – is both award-winning and bestselling and my Harriet– an imaginative “take” on Austen’s Emma,has just been selected as "Editor's Pick - outstanding" on Publishers Weekly.
I could have picked most of the Jeeves novels - though the Mulliner stories are almost as funny - of the immortal P.G. Wodehouse, but this one is especially full of panache. Bertie Wooster is forced to pretend to be Gussie Fink-Nottle in Deverill Hall - a stately pile infested with any number of critical aunts - and the machinations Jeeves is involved in while sorting out the love lives of the rest - not Bertie, on this occasion - are brilliantly done. A great introduction to Wodehouse, for the uninitiated - for the aficionados, a treat.
Follow the adventures of Bertie Wooster and his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves, in this stunning new edition of one of the greatest comic novels in the English language. Steeple Bumphleigh is a very picturesque place. But for Bertie Wooster, it is a place to be avoided, containing not only the appalling Aunt Agatha but also her husband, the terrifying Lord Worplesdon. So when a certain amount of familial arm-twisting is applied, Bertie heads for the sticks in fear and trepidation despite the support of the irreplaceable Jeeves.
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people – gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number of…
I am Peter C. Bradbury, and it was reading the books of P.G. Wodehouse that attracted me to the career of being a butler. I have also always loved murder mysteries, so when I started writing, I combined those aspects into my first book. I chose these particular books because of the details and the subjects. I was a butler for over twenty years in the UK and the USA, and it annoys me when household staff are incorrectly portrayed. I love movies like Gosford Park and series like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. The butler sees and hears everything, so I like the writers who know that.
I loved the interactions between the butler and his employer. The author understood the relationship, and I really liked how he put humor and sarcasm into the conversations. In my opinion, a butler needs to be grounded; otherwise, it can be a really stressful job. The main character, Jeeves, recognizes that he is the perfect employer for a male butler and doesn’t want the situation to change.
My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse is a collection of comedic work featuring three of Wodehouse's famous characters. Bertie is an idle rich man, who is always ready to help his friends. However, he would never be able to do so without the help of his odd but intelligent valet, Jeeves. Said to be the prototype for Bertie, Reggie Pepper is also rich Englishman dedicated to assisting his friends, however, unlike Bertie, he often has to act as the brains in any situation he is in, as he does not have a useful assistant like Jeeves. This collection of stories…
