What BOOK are you reading right now?

I forget now who the famous critic was who was quoted as saying, "By the beard of the Prophet, there is only one funny man in the world and his name is Wodehouse." The quote, though, was part of the blurb on the back of the Pocket Books paperback of most of the Jeeves stories. If I remember correctly (I was only a teen-ager back then), I had picked it up for a dime at a used books bookstand.

Hyperbole, perhaps, but not really an overstatement. Wodehouse had a sense of humor that could make me roar with laughter even if I was in severe physical pain at the time. Enjoy, DrMom!

I finished Stalin's Ghost, it was quite satisfactory.. and am taking a break catching up on New Yorker magazines. Yesterday I learned about Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest/more powerful people, and today, the artist Bruce Nauman.

I always picture Jeeves and Wooster as Steven Fry and Hugh Laurie, after watching the series. I get that Laurie is a big deal now as "House," which I haven't seen (well, 1/2 of one episode, which was good), but I always think of him as Bertie Wooster. (He has such a BRITISH face, I was amazed at how American he managed to be in what I saw of "House.")

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2009/06/01/cartoons/090601_cartoon_a_a14249_p465.gif

My husband and I use to read Wodehouse short stories to each other when taking road trips. It passed the time nicely. I don't think they are snooty Osso. Well - maybe they are - but it is more about setting a stage for that type of society to me. They always had a British flavor - with that great type of humor. And apparently he generally wrote based in pre-war, upper class English society, even though he spent most of his life in France and the United States.

This is a great link to a website that has a nice little biography about him and some links to some of his works:
http://www.online-literature.com/pg-wodehouse/

We loved them. Have two of his short story collections. Some of them I had to read twice to understand (that's just me) but others were so funny and just really entertaining. I think you will enjoy it Dr. Mom.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2009/06/22/cartoons_20090615?slide=12#showHeader

Thanks osso, Merry Andrews, Soz and Mismi ( for the link especially).
I am enjoying the humor. There are many words that I do not know. Some I did not even find in the dictionary. I want to improve my vocabulary but at the same time stopping to look up words is very unpleasant. Any suggestions ?

agreeing with soz, i always picture fry and laurie when reading jeeves and wooster stories

Between us, hamburger and I have about 60 or 70 of the Wodehouse books, as well as several of his biographies. My newest car has just been named Percy (following the Wodehousian trail of Egbert and Algernon ).

I can't read Wodehouse on the subway. My cackling is too disturbing to the other patrons.

My current subway reading? the much more sober A Room With A View. Lovely in its own way, but certainly not Wodehouse.

this is on my short list of books I'm looking for right now

I just loked for that on Amazon out of interest, and found no such title by a Begley.

I did find this:

"Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves"

by Sharon Begley


http://www.amazon.com/Train-Your-Mind-Change-Brain/dp/0345479890/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245733498&sr=1-1


Is this what you two are discussing?

There IS a "Change your Mind Change your Life", but not bey Begley:

http://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Life/dp/0553373196/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245733436&sr=1-2

Autobiography by John Julius Norwich, "Trying to Please".

It's really very good.

And coincidentally he mentions P G Wodehouse who was living in Paris at the end of WWII when the author's father was sent there as British Ambassador. Wodehouse was in some disgrace at the time as a Nazi sympathiser (and lived in France during the war)

There is a " Change your Brain, Change your life" by Dr. Amen. I have that.
One of my friends went to Amen clinic to have SPECT scan after reading the book.

ehBeth, you have the right book by Sharon Begley. I wrote the title inexactly. It is a bit of a wonkish read but fascinating. If one alternates it with a lighter book, to allow the brain not to get overstuffed, it can be got through.

oops, my reply was to dlowan mostly.

Right at the moment, I'm reading James Micheners "Chesapeake".
I read it years ago, and found it recently in our local public library.

One of the very few Michener books that I actually found interesting and fairly well done.

I need to read Room with a View, thanks for the reminder.

Next in line for me, a real book fatty, about nine hundred pages, but not as thick as Suitable Boy was, if I remember correctly....

Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games

Women in Love. Chap 1 Sisters. Where Ursula and Gudrun are discussing marriage. I've read it before but I'm older now and I think it might be more amusing this time.

I saw the movie, but long ago, little memory of it. That's Lawrence, right? I read him about travel, not... women.