“Jeeves and the Wedding Bells” by Sebastian Faulks

Anna Barber: myartisliving

There are few things in this life which inspire a sense of giddy happiness as readily as an encounter with Jeeves and Wooster. P.G Wodehouse is a nonpareil storyteller; Bertie Wooster is utterly charming, warm-hearted and mad as a brush, and Jeeves is the unflappable deus ex machine, guiding his dotty master through the perils of 1920s high society with a deft and perfectly discreet touch. Wodehouse’s language is delicious, and offers us a glimpse of a version of England which we can only hope truly existed; even if we, his readers, cannot drift from country-house to country-house with our man-servants in tow, quaffing zonkers and extricating ourselves from an endless series of ill-advised engagements, it is strangely comforting to think that there was a time when a portion of the English did exactly that.

In “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells,” Sebastian Faulks has produced a hugely entertaining, and very…

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“Howards End is on the Landing” by Susan Hill

Anna Barber: myartisliving

I so rarely read literary criticism any more, and Susan Hill’s latest book has made me realize how much I miss it, and what a difference it would make to my armoury as a reader. The premise of Howards End is on the Landing is a simple one – rather than being seduced by the lure of best-seller lists and celebrity book-clubs, Susan Hill spent a year reading through the books she already owned. That choice leads her to revisit the authors she loves most dearly, and in doing so she is able to tell us stories about her life as a writer, and a reader, and the encounters she has had with some of the most important cultural figures of the past century.

I must confess that this is the first Susan Hill book I have ever read. I knew about The Woman in Black, of course, but…

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