MobileRead July 2009 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[pilotbob]

For for the July 2009 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 7 days. We will start the discussion thread for this book on July 26th. Select from the following books.

My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
In this 1919 short story collection, P.G. Wodehouse’s beloved star characters, the very silly Bertie Wooster and his unflappable valet Jeeves, must face the perils of pushy relatives, swooning debutantes, and the hare-brained schemes of well-meaning friends.

This collection also features the fictional hi-jinks of another favorite Wodehouse character, the hapless Reggie Pepper, whose piles of money never seem to make up for his utter lack of intelligence. Wodehouse will keep every reader giggling at the wild adventures in which Reggie manages to find himself and the ridiculous dilemmas from which the lucky Bertie is rescued, without fail, by the ingenious Jeeves.

Topper by Thorne Smith
It all begins when Cosmo Topper, a law-abiding, mild-mannered bank manager, decides to buy a secondhand car, only to find it haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners--the reckless, feckless, frivolous couple who met their untimely demise when the car careened into an oak tree. The ghosts, George and Marion Kerby, make it their mission to rescue Topper from the drab "summer of suburban Sundays" that is his life—and they commence a series of madcap adventures that leave Topper, and anyone else who crosses their path, in a whirlwind of discomfiture and delight.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of The Dog) by Jerome K Jerome
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.

The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers, the jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

Augustus Carp, Esq. - Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Bashford
It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed -- then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world.

For some time -- I am now forty-seven -- I had been feeling this with increasing urgency. And when not only my wife and her four sisters, but the vicar of my parish, the Reverend Simeon Whey, approached me with the same suggestion, I felt that delay would amount to sin. That sin, by many persons, is now lightly regarded, I am, of course, only too well aware. That its very existence is denied by others is a fact equally familiar to me. But I am not one of them. On every ground I am an unflinching opponent of sin. I have continually rebuked it in others. I have strictly refrained from it in myself. And for that reason alone I have deemed it incumbent upon me to issue this volume.

The Silence of Colonel Bramble by by André Maurois
Translated from the French by Thurfrida Wake; Verses translated by Wilfrid Jackson. Whitlock writes in the Introduction about The Silence of Colonel Bramble: Every English officer one met was chuckling over it, and pointing out Old So-and-so in its pages as the original of this or that type. It was a picture not only of the Lennox Highlanders, but of every regimental and brigade mess in the army.

[lilac_jive]

First to vote, yippee! I'm super excited about this month's selection.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

First to vote, yippee! I'm super excited about this month's selection.

You're a fast little monkey!

BOb

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

You're a fast little monkey!

BOb

Nah, just good timing

[rgeorg]

Are any of these books available as public domain?
-- Nevermind, found the first 3 books at least! (abacci.com, gutenburg.org)

[dreams]

Originally Posted by rgeorg

Are any of these books available as public domain?
-- Nevermind, found the first 3 books at least! (abacci.com, gutenburg.org)

A quick check came up with:

Topper and Three men in a Boat, on MR and at Feedbooks.

My Man Jeeves and Augustus Carp by Himself on MR.

[acemccloudxx]

I would have voted for "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis but none of those listed interest me.

[JSWolf]

What makes this book club vote so special as to need to be on the frontpage?

[pagansoul]

Just pulled Jeeves off Amazon to my iphone Kindle for free and set about reading it. So far it's really cute. I may have to go and see the old (Thank you Jeeves 1936) movie they made on the book.

http://www.deepdiscount.com/viewprod...uctId=11006846

[khalleron]

That's mean, making me choose between Wodehouse and Jerome. Both those books are absolutely delightful - I voted for 3MiaB, but Jeeves will also satisfy!

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by acemccloudxx

I would have voted for "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis but none of those listed interest me.

Ah, but you can't fully appreciate "To Say Nothing of the Dog" unless you've read Wodehouse AND "Three Men in a Boat."

I can't really see how you could appreciate it at all, myself.

[MelC]

Originally Posted by pagansoul

Just pulled Jeeves off Amazon to my iphone Kindle for free and set about reading it. So far it's really cute. I may have to go and see the old (Thank you Jeeves 1936) movie they made on the book.

http://www.deepdiscount.com/viewprod...uctId=11006846

TV series - Jeeves and Wooster also extremely good. Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, how can you go wrong?

Mel

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

I voted for Three Men In A Boat - I keep meaning to re-read it, especially after watching the reruns of the recreation of the journey that Grif Rhys-Jones, Rory McGrath, Dara o'Brien and Loli the dog did.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What makes this book club vote so special as to need to be on the frontpage?

Jon, the team discussed a way to increase participation in activities here at MobileRead -- other than giveaways -- and felt that announcing the Book Club on the front page would be a way to get the attention of members who might not know that the Club exists.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by MelC

TV series - Jeeves and Wooster also extremely good. Hugh Laurie as Wooster and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, how can you go wrong?

Mel

The Topper TV series was pretty good too. The just don't make shows with alcoholic St. Bernards anymore.