The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse

This is one of Wodehouse's series of stories involving Bertram Wooster and his butler Jeeves, set in 1920's & 30's England. Wooster is the "more money than sense" yuppie bachelor, living in Mayfair, and Jeeves is more like a personal consultant, who is constantly getting Wooster out of scrapes, and smoothing over hangovers with his morning concoctions.

These books are a very good read for their sense of humour, and probably good to keep on the go while you read other books. They are written in Antique, upper-class English "She then went on to say that indeed, he was the lodestar of her life too...etc", which is delightful when the author is painting a character or situation in a humorous way - I wish I could be so subtle when being catty!! The story and characters are described with such articulacy that you can vividly imagine the story being played out in a huge country manor in rural England. The narrator of the book, Mr Wooster, is not necessarily the voice of reason - he is capable of self mockery, and always looks to Jeeves (his butler) for advice on how to handle tricky situations involving disagreeable Aunts, bratty teenage cousins visiting for the week, or the latest off-rails romance requiring deft steering in the right direction.

I suppose for me, the "take home" messages from reading this book were: that 1930's upperclass English had lots of time on their hands; but, like Jane Austen and Shakespeare before him, PG Wodehouse is brilliant at describing the human character and relationships with all their frailty, vanity, and silliness. You could take out the English gentry and replace it with any modern-day person with power and money who thinks they should be treated or perceived with a certain amount of respect, and write about people scurrying about trying to meet the approval of their superiors or peers, and people trying get away with things whilst maintaining the reputation they consider most suitable for themselves...