Laughing Gas

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Summary: Read this before your next dentist visit
Review: Laughing Gas was the first Wodehouse I ever read. I knew his work through some Jeeves tales (and their TV adaptations), but I had never ventured outside of those characters. Seeing that the storyline was somewhat like the Freaky Friday genre of films, I wanted to see what Wodehouse would do with this already familiar plot. I was not disappointed and I have gone back to him whenever I wanted something to make me laugh--as long as it's not an audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil!

Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot (gotta love those Wodehouse puns) finds himself in the dentist's chair after an embarrassing incident seated next to child star Joey Cooley ("Idol of American Motherhood"), going through the same procedure. After the administration of some of the titular anesthetic, the two have an out-of-body experience. The mischievous Cooley, however, instead of returning to his own corporeal form, slips into Reggie's, leaving our hero left with the tot's as his only choice. Hilarity ensues, as they say, as little Joey likes to go around punching people in the nose and continues to do so under the guise of Reggie. Meanwhile Reggie is party to the stories going around about "his" behavior and is powerless to stop them while in his current pint-sized form.

Wodehouse takes this in all of the expected directions and invents a few new ones, to boot, making Laughing Gas one of his best novels. Well, one of the best I've read, anyway.

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Summary: FUNNIER THAN HOLY HELL!!
Review: This is one of P.G. Wodehouses's best books. Although he's never turned a tale anything but excellently, this is somehow more endearing than most. It starts out normal enough, with a man who just became an earl (Reginald, third Earl of Havershot) going off to Hollywood to save his alcoholic cousin from the deadly drink. He meets an actress by the name of April June, the very embodiment of virtue, on the way there-- or so he thinks. He also runs into his ex- finacee, whose engagement to him he bungled by way of a little accident with a cigar. After some very cold ice cream, he needs to have a tooth pulled. In the dentist's waiting room he meets little Joey Cooley, the child actor, Idol of American Motherhood, who will be undergoing the same torture as him. Well, both souls get administered some laughing gas, and this gives them the ability to be masters of the art of astral projection. But the thing is, little mischevious Joey puts his soul into Reggie's body, rather then his own. Reggie then has no choice but to inhabit the body of the child star with the golden curls. Now we've got a dilemma. See, Joey wants to poke everyone in the snout, and in Reggie's body, now has the strength to do so with optimum results. Uh-oh. And now Reggie is left with the mind of a grown man, but the mean Miss Brinkmeyer (the "tall, rangy, light-heavyweight, severe of aspect' woman with whom he shares a mutal hatred...animus is in the air) and all other of Cooley's keepers, who treat him like the eleven-year-old child they think he is. Double uh-oh.

This book is one of the funniest things I've ever read, not only because Wodehouse is a master of the English language and shows such a conatagious affection for it, but because it's a very zany tale that never fails to make you laugh and keep a smile on your face all day. There are so many more hilarious moments in this book, and not a page goes by without a good, hearty chuckle. I would highly recommend this book and all of Wodehouse's books, for that matter.

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Summary: Smartly Designed Reissues of Wodehouse Classics
Review: This was my introduction to Wodehouse, and I'm sure I'll come back for more. Clever and witty, the book about the soul switching between an English aristocrat, and a bratty Hollywood child star is something straight out of the movie world it pokes fun at.Wodehouse throws in plenty of funny and colorful characters while tying up plot points in neat little bows by the end.It should also be mentioned that the newly designed editions by Overlook Press are beautiful, compact, and a must have for collectors.