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Cocktail Time
Cocktail Time
Aug 17, 2025 4:07 PM

Author:P.G. Wodehouse

Cocktail Time

A classic novel about Uncle Fred, the Earl of Ickenham by P.G. Wodehouse, the great comic writer of the 20th century.

Frederick, Earl of Ickenham, remains young at heart. So his jape of using a catapult to ping a silk top hat off his grumpy half-brother-in-law is nothing out of the ordinary - but the consequences abound with possibilities.

'A cavalcade of perfect joy.' - Caitlin Moran

Sunlit perfection... Bask in its warmth and splendour. - Stephen Fry

'The best English comic novelist of the century.' - Sebastian Faulks

'The greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness' - Julian Fellowes

Reviews

To have one of his books in your hand is to possess by way of a pill that can relieve anxiety, rageiness, or an afternoon-long tendency towards the sour. Paper has rarely been put to better use than printing Wodehouse.

—— Caitlin Moran

Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists. His world is perfect, his writing is perfect. What more is there to be said?

—— Susan Hill

P. G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit.

—— Christopher Hitchens

An incomparable and timeless genius

—— Kate Mosse

P. G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive.

—— Olivia Williams

P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply or with quite so much wit and affection.

—— Julian Fellowes

Wodehouse is a comic master.

—— David Walliams

For as long as I'm immersed in a P. G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day.

—— Marian Keyes

I'm a huge fan. Wodehouse writes proper jokes.

—— Jennifer Saunders

To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language.

—— Ben Schott

Ogawa is original, elegant, very disturbing. I admire any writer who dares to work on this uneasy territory - we're on the edge of the unspeakable. The stories seem to penetrate right to the heart of the world, and find it a cold and eerie place. Her spare technique is very skilled. Every word is put to work. She sets up a small vibration, a disturbance, which begins quietly and generates wider and wider ripples of unease. There are no narrative tricks, but the stories generate a surprising amount of tension. You feel as if you've touched an icy hand

—— Hilary Mantel, author of Beyond Black

Ogawa's tales possess a gnawing, erotic edge

—— Publishers Weekly

Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.

—— Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize Winning author of A Personal Matter

Each well narrated and haunting novella, about love, obsession and dark humour, has an unpredictable twist of viciousness coupled with compassion

—— The Hindu
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