Katherine May

Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in America is coming from a comedian—this comedian being Bill Maher. If you want to understand what’s wrong with this country, it turns out that one of the best informed and most thought-provoking analysts is this very funny pothead.

In A Few Quick Ones, P. G. Wodehouse brings together some of his oldest friends for a party. Jeeves and Wooster are there, so is Mr Mulliner and the Oldest Member.

A private detective who can make the guilty confess simply by smiling at them. An artist so intimidated by his morally impeccable cat that he feels compelled to wear formal attire at dinner. A devotee of Proust whose life is turned upside down when he inadvertently subscribes to a correspondence course on "How to Acquire Complete Self-Confidence and an Iron Will." These are just a few of the many members of the eccentric Mulliner clan whose lives and exploits are laid before the regulars of the "Angler's Rest" by that doyen of raconteurs, Mr. Mulliner, in a series of tall stories where lunacy and comic exuberance reign supreme.

All the zany Wodehouse characters are here: Bertie, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett, and Aunt Dahlia. All the humorous chaos of misunderstandings, puns, and pranks are present: someone must hand out prizes at the Market Snodsbury Grammar School, a lovers' spat finds Bertie engaged to Madeline, and a hunger strike causes the cook to give notice. The inevitable rescue by Jeeves, brilliantly conceived and executed, averts disaster and saves nitwit Bertie Wooster.