#47 Psmith, Journalist, by PG Wodehouse (Century Hutchinson Limited)

Regret wasn’t a feeling I was expecting after embarking on this challenge. Enjoyment yes, interest definitely, maybe a bit of boredom, but certainly not regret – yet that was my overwhelming emotion after finishing Psmith, Journalist, my second PG Wodehouse book.

I should clarify. It’s not regret at having read this particular novel, but rather a sense of guilt that I waited this long into my life to tackle any of Wodehouse’s celebrated oeuvre. Which, so far, is brilliant.

In the front of my copy of Psmith, Journalist, there is a list of all of PG Wodehouse’s books. Excluding autobiographies, there are 92 in total and the way I’m feeling at the moment, little would make me happier than reading the complete works over the 12 months and adding on another eight books by other authors to complete the century and my challenge.

It’s not possible, of course. Not only did I read 40-odd books before picking up my first Wodehouse novel, Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin, I’m also limited to some extent by what’s available in the library. That and the fact that I’m trying to read new authors – and who knows what other wonders are out there – means my eye must occasionally wander away from the shelf of Ws. But I hope that illustrates just how eagerly I’m devouring his work.

The books themselves sound insubstantial. Psmith, Journalist tells the tale of an Englishman in New York, who alters the direction of a cosy weekly newspaper into a hard-hitting tabloid taking on social issues and attracting the attention of local gangs, but Wodehouse is so witty and his use of language so deft that it’s a real joy.

When I visit the library (about which I promise I’ll write more another time), I take out about nine or 10 books at a time, and I then try to sort them into some kind of order to ensure a bit of variety and that I don’t have to read two similar books back-to-back, and so forth. This month, it was a real struggle not to throw the system (if not the books) out of the window and read the Wodehouse straight away, and I can give no higher praise.

So, rating time:

#47 Psmith, Journalist, by PG Wodehouse (Century Hutchinson Limited) - 9/10

Next up: One Day, by David Nicholls (Hodder and Stoughton)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating

#43 Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin, by PG Wodehouse (Penguin Books)

Another novelist I'd never read before was PG Wodehouse, and it's taken me around four years to take the advice of TC (who also recommended Paul Auster, by the way), although I overlooked his suggestion that I begin with the classic Jeeves and Wooster series. After completing the book, the main question I was wondering was ‘why had it taken me so long’?

I read Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin while stuck at an airport for around five hours waiting for the plane upon which I was due to fly to be fixed, and I can honestly say that this book was the only reason I managed to maintain my patience.

Thoroughly enjoyable, with lots of neat post-modern asides from the writer to the reader, Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin is not only funny, its chaotic and convoluted plot meanders this way and that as the reader sympathises with the main character and his efforts to first prove himself worthy of marriage and then try to escape from his engagement – with added criminals, movie moguls, private detectives, nightclubs and the obligatory (in a Wodehouse novel, apparently) large country house.

Set in a world in which butlers and the like are the norm, I have to admit I was thoroughly charmed.

So, rating time:

#43 Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin, by PG Wodehouse (Penguin Books) - 9/10

Next up: Occupied City, by David Peace (Faber and Faber Limited)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating