From Brideshead to Saltburn: why we can’t get enough of country house stories
These posh piles hum with violence and confusion. An ideal landscape for fiction, argues the comedian and writer, whose debut novel was sparked by wondering: does Jeeves ever feel class rage?
January 2024
Ultimate summer reads
The ultimate summer reading list: 15 funny books to make you laugh
From hilarious fiction by Terry Pratchett and PG Wodehouse to memoirs by Patricia Lockwood and Adam Kay, your beach reads are sorted courtesy of Guardian Australia’s staff and critics
October 2023
Bob Mortimer and India Knight among shortlistees for the Wodehouse comic fiction prize
The comedian and the journalist join four others on the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse shortlist, which rewards witty writers with champagne and a pig named after their book
April 2023
Top 10s
Top 10 aunts in fiction
So often defying the conventions of their age, these inspiring figures are also dependable boons for nephews and nieces in books by authors from Jane Austen to JK Rowling
February 2022
Top 10s
Top 10 cooks in fiction
From PG Wodehouse’s ‘peerless’ Anatole to John Lanchester’s merciless Tarquin Winot, a novelist chooses her favourite kitchen creations
September 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 novels of the 1930s
Books that made me
Alan Johnson: ‘I read Animal Farm at 14 and it changed my life’
January 2021
Why does British comfort culture still revolve around the ruling class?
Emma Beddington
From PG Wodehouse to Bridgerton, our affection for fictional aristocrats seems boundless. Is this one reason why the toffs in government get away with so much, asks Emma Beddington
November 2020
In brief: The Black Book; Jeeves and the Leap of Faith; Tender Is the Flesh
A fascinating study of Hitler’s hitlist of English dissidents
October 2020
Crossword blog
Crossword blog: a puzzle from the world of Jeeves and Wooster
We talk to novelist Ben Schott about the cryptic crossword he has created for PG Wodehouse’s characters to solve
July 2020
Graphic novel about warring ice-cream trucks scoops first for Wodehouse prize
Matthew Dooley’s Flake wins the annual award for comedic fiction ‘in the spirit’ of the Jeeves and Wooster creator PG Wodehouse
April 2020
Books that made me
Sally Rooney: 'I want the next thing I do to be the best thing I’ve ever done'
The Normal People author on the joy of Jeeves and the influence of JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
June 2019
From the Observer archive
From the archive: PG Wodehouse and the love of dogs
It’s 1975 and the Observer Magazine is dedicated to life with our four-legged friends
February 2019
Brief letters
The dangers of a little bit of this and that
Brief letters: Student loan interest | Rooks and crows | PG Wodehouse | Adding this and that to recipes
December 2018
Books that made me
Andrew Miller: ‘Should I have read Don Quixote? War and Peace? Huckleberry Finn? Probably'
Book of the day
Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott review – bang-on Bertie Wooster reboot
November 2018
Jeeves and the King of Clubs review – spy capers with a PG certificate
Ben Schott’s new ‘Wodehouse’ novel is an amusing and well written homage to the master
October 2018
PG Wodehouse fans delighted at plans for Westminster Abbey tribute
Books that made me
Javier Marías: ‘I gave up on Karl Ove Knausgaard after 300 pages’
September 2018
Books blog
A book by any other name: why does the US change so many titles?
Stuart Turton’s new novel The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle has been supersized to Seven and a Half – and not because Americans die more often
