What book could you read over and over again?

That’s an easy one to answer. What book, or in my case books rather, could you read over and over again?

Duh!

Books by the Master, but of course.

He is the man variously described as a master wordsmith, wizard of words, the great British comic novelist, one of the most widely read humorists and so on.

“….An absolutely unrivalled craftsman of English prose” says Shashi Tharoor, himself a master in the English language, of him.

I know many of you, sadly enough, have no idea of whom I speak. He is the one and only Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.

A couple of decades back I was chatting with a nephew of mine who had moved to England along with his parents while he was still a kid. Our conversation turned to books and I excitedly told him of my all-time favourite author. Wodehouse. Sadly enough, he had not even heard of him let alone have read any of his books.

I was flabbergasted. How could that happen? He was in England! How do you not know of Wodehouse in England, I wondered. But there you have it. He was a closed book to the then new generation. I am not even going to try asking the latest generation if they have heard of this skilled craftsman of the English language.

I am forever indebted to my pen friend Satheesh who was a great fan of the Master and waxed eloquent about him in his letters to me. You must read him, he insisted. I did, and there was no looking back. Subsequent days and nights, weeks, months and years too, would find me chuckling to myself reading his books. His hilarious play of words had me hooked from the word go.

Along the way, I have tried interesting people in his books. I always like to share my joy. And here was someone who gave me immensely of it through his words, turn of phrases and intricate sentences. In fact some of them started on a book by him out of curiosity after listening to me laughing out loud by myself.

Alas! I could find none who loved him the way I do. There was a faint flicker of hope when the L&M (Lord&Master as I call my husband) picked up a book of his and read it through, even (almost) liked it. But that was it, the next one was left midway through as ‘I don’t fin it interesting!’

Sigh.

Till the Penguin (a nickname for the friend I picked up along the way in the blogging world) came along, no one seemed to have the same passion for Wodehouse books the way I did, the same as the one friend who introduced him to me at fifteen years of age. But of course, I have come across many more admirers of the Master online in groups dedicated to him. Some of them are quite young too.

To answer the question more specifically, among all Wodehouse books, the ones I’d read over and over again slightly more than the rest are the ones that feature Psmith, Gally Threepwood, Earl of Emsworth, Uncle Fred, Jeeves…. Oh let it be. I guess I’ll read them all, anytime, anywhere.

©️ Shail Mohan 2025