I couldn't settle on one P.G.Wodehouse book to recommend for the Bookhive List, because I have loved every one I've read equally, and I don't think any of them would be considered THE essential Wodehouse. The Jeeves stories are quite popular for obvious reasons (film and TV adaptations, the woefully mis-guided concept of "Ask Jeeves," etc. etc.), but all are excellent and if this is your cup of tea, you'll want to read the lot.
I came to Wodehouse via Evelyn Waugh, an absolute favorite writer of mine, who does much the same thing, that is, write fictional accounts of the British aristocracy between the wars, in the vein of Downton Abbey and the like, although Waugh gives his fiction a much bleaker and more macabre polish than Wodehouse, whose stories are pure fun and whimsy. Practically every line is a clever witticism and everything always works out for the heroes in the end, and yet that never protects them from getting into another scrape in the next novel (Wodehouse often recycles and repeatedly torments the same characters in novels and short stories). It is very light, fluffy reading material, but it never stoops to the kind of trashiness or sensationalism of a lot of popular fiction today -- there is never any violence (other than one bloke punching another bloke and them both falling into a fountain or something), and there is never any sex, and the plots are largely predictable, and yet they prove to be endlessly entertaining. I particularly recommend them on a relaxing vacation -- they make excellent poolside reading material.
The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books.
