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Jeeves and the King of Clubs
Jeeves and the King of Clubs
Jul 2, 2025 7:39 AM

Author:Ben Schott

Jeeves and the King of Clubs

'Peerless in its wit, elegance and silliness.’ Evening Standard BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A Sunday Times PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR

__________________________________________________________________

Storm clouds loom over Europe. Treason is afoot in the highest social circles. The very security of the nation is in peril. Jeeves, it transpires, has long been an agent of British Intelligence, but now His Majesty's Government must turn to the one man who can help . . . Bertie Wooster.

'A most thrilling return of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster . . . it vibrates with the spirit and the rhythms of his heart.'

'Remarkably good . . . in its similes, pace and general zing, this yarn is eerily Wodehousian.'

Reviews

Peerless in its wit, elegance and silliness. It is the most successful homage to PG Wodehouse's Wooster and Jeeves stories to date. The footnotes are a joy of misplaced erudition. More of the same, please.

—— Robert Fox , Evening Standard, BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Schott rises to the occasion with a rebooting of one of literature’s great double acts that captures His Master’s voice and, above all, the famous Wodehouse rhythm... A brilliant conceit: a network of spies in livery, silently watching the movers and shakers.

—— The Times

His sensitivity to the tics and cadences of his characters’ speech and ways of being is uncannily acute, and full of the same freshness and resonance of perception as Wodehouse’s own style. . . it vibrates with the spirit and rhythms of [Wodehouse’s] heart

—— Matthew Adams , Sunday Times

An amusing and well-written homage to the master . . . Schott excels with a series of similes and metaphors every bit as striking as those Wodehouse came up with. A delight to read.

—— Observer

A most thrilling return of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster.

—— Sunday Times

Impossible to read without grinning idiotically. Tinkety-tonk!

—— Mark Sanderson , Evening Standard

A glorious procession of high jinks

—— Louis Wise , Sunday Times

Highly recommended

—— Daily Express

Remarkably good… in its similes, pace and general zing, this yarn is eerily Wodehousian. Blisteringly well done.

—— Quentin Letts , Daily Mail

A true delight.

—— Vanity Fair

A fizzy new homage... Schott burnishes the gleam.

—— New York Times

Glorious . . . undeniably an impressive, hugely enjoyable feat of ventriloquism.

—— Christmas Books , Country Life Magazine

It is hard not to warm to this hugely entertaining homage.

—— Mail on Sunday

The cast is a delight, with many characters who will be familiar to Wodehouse aficionados . . . his prose is elegant and charming and he captures the lilt and rhythms of the original . . . a warm, worthy and rollicking tribute.

—— Literary Review

This joyous and thoughtful tribute leaves you wanting more.

—— Sophie Ratcliffe , TLS

By Jove! It's a ripping old yarn... Dashed agreeably close to the master.

—— Daily Mail

A hugely enjoyable caper

—— The Week

There are laughs and admirable ingenuity in Schott’s confection

—— Irish Times

A book that is so close in spirit and style to the PG Wodehouse originals it’s like the real thing

—— The Sport

Top-notch fun.

—— S magazine

Succeeds triumphantly, both as light entertainment and as a tribute to the master

—— Country & Town House

In his first foray into PG Wodehouse homage/imitation/pastiche (whichever it may be) Schott appeared to hit the Wodehouse target dead on.

—— RTE

The astonishing account of murders in Alabama and Harper Lee's attempt to unravel the story.

—— Hugo Vickers , The Telegraph

Fascinating ... Riveting.

—— Evening Standard

A fantastical narrative that involves rampaging pirates, ghost women and princesses...Bold

—— Andrea Martin , Heat

This gripping and evocative novel questions the nature of the stories we tell ourselves and others

—— UK Press Syndication

A rollicking fantastical narrative

—— i

A wild adventure...full of splendid incident... There is much to enjoy in this novel -- the liveliness of Haddon's imagination and the virtuosity of his style

—— Allan Massie , The Scotsman

[The Porpoise] achieve[s] the truly Shakespearean feat of simultaneously conveying disgust at the darkest aspects of human behaviour and relishing them, making the reader feel horribly – and deliciously – complicit

—— Jake Kerridge , Sunday Express

Stamped with the same bold and original imagination… Haddon’s mash-up of myth and history may have a fantastical feel, but once the reader has adjusted to his exuberant originality they will find prose on every page that is pure joy

—— Jane Thynne , Tablet, *Novel of the Week*

Haddon writes with wrenching beauty about how the world inflicts itself on the disadvantaged... It's a testament to Haddon's prodigious gifts as a storyteller that this strange, epic adventure is so compulsively readable

—— Nicholas Mancusi , Time Magazine

A strange, tangled web of a story, drawing on ancient mythology and expanding into time travel… this innovative novel offers escapes into multiple worlds

—— Culture Whisper

Irresistible storytelling that slides between the present day and a mythic realm… A heady delight

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2019*

The novel draws on Shakespeare and Greek legend, and is the sort of mile-a-minute adventure you can get lost in for hours without realising

—— ShortList, *Summer Reads of 2019*

[The Porpoise] confirms the sense of a gifted writer letting his talent off the leash at last… Mind-bending yet marvellously readable, it stakes Haddon’s claim to be one of the best writers in Britain right now

—— Daily Mail, *Summer reads of 2019*

Haddon conveys all this with startling granularity: the stinking, seething Jacobean London traversed by the ghosts of Wilkins and Shakespeare… Haddon's novel creates, throughout, a looming sense that something very bad but not quite perceptible is in the process of unfolding: a terrible half-glimpsed fate that the characters are powerless to resist

—— Adam Smyth , London Review of Books

The Porpoise begins as a page-turning thriller and soon shifts into something slippery and strange – but remains propulsive throughout

—— New Statesman

Mark Haddon’s best novel yet. The Porpoise begins as a propulsive thriller…and segues into a classical-world adventure that reinvents the story of Pericles in prose of a hallucinatory vividness

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian, *Books of the Year*

The Porpoise reworks legend with the compelling force of a thriller

—— Lindsey Hilsum , Observer, *Books of the Year*

[An] exquisite retelling of Shakespeare’s Pericles

—— Claire Allfree , Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*

Thrilling, dramatic and exquisitely written, The Porpoise combines myth and reality to enthralling effect

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

Vuong…[is] a keen anthropologist of the contemporary American experience.

—— Jessica Loudis , Times Literary Supplement

A beautiful novel full of raw feelings.

—— Laura Waddell , Scotsman

[A] phosphorescent debut novel… Vuong layers past and present brilliantly in a shifting series of brief episodes and striking mood-musings from within the mind of his protagonist… the hyperreality of Little Dog’s self-awareness is always a delight.

—— Mark Hudson , Tablet

Staggering, sensual and poetic

—— Pandora Sykes

[A] stunning debut… Ocean Vuong crafts lyrical, masterful prose in this emotionally-powerful piece of story telling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is sure to stay with readers long after they have put the novel down.

—— Eastern Daily Press

A brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity.

—— Asian Art Newspaper, *Books of the Year*

A tender exploration of violence, migration and language.

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian, *Books of the Year*

This romantic, lusciously written debut lingers over kisses.

—— Robbie Millen and James Marriot , The Times, *Books of the Year*

A magical synthesis of memoir, fiction and poetry.

—— Joyce Carol Oates , Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

So very full of beauty and power. Also, grace.

—— Tommy Orange , Observer, *Books of the Year*

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong is a stunning, relentless work of pure passion and I was captivated from the go.

—— Úna-Minh Kavanagh , Sunday Independent *Books of the Year*

A story that is deeply relatable, understandable and can find common currency with us all. He uses his differences to connect us, to show the links that bind us, to explore violence, masculinity, poverty and yearning… you’ll quickly get carried away by his undercurrents into spaces and places you’d perhaps never thought of exploring or even realised existed.

—— Gscene

Vuong’s gift lies in his ability to write with beautiful specificity while digging into the wounds of immigration, culture, queerness and memory. I’ve read many very good books in 2019 but none have obliterated me like On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

—— Katie Goh , Skinny, *Books of the Year*

Ocean Vuong is a magician with words. When he writes, it's as if language itself is dancing. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is… a brutally honest exploration of race, class and masculinity. This debut novel is a luminous, mesmerising gift.

—— attitude, *Books of the Year*

Astounding.

—— Malin Hay , Upcoming

Vuong jettisons the prose for poetic verse, with Roland Barthes, Duchamp’s Fountain and queer love all collapsing into splintering lines of verse. Vuong’s sentences are so beautiful, sometimes I would say them over and over again in my head, hoping I might be able to trap them in there.

—— Annie Lord , Independent

[Vuong is] brilliant and so flexible with language and has such an understanding of what an emotion incarnate is, he is able to not condense it but to heighten it across languages, across countries, across codes as characters speak to one another. He's peerless.

—— Bryan Washington , Observer

[A] triumphant debut novel... On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous felt like a true masterpiece being crafted before my eyes, and I was devastated to see the novel draw to a close. I truly can't recommend this book highly enough - I don't remember the last time I was so floored after reading something that I had to take the rest of the day off speaking to family... a passionate, eye-opening journey, and is most certainly one to be added to your lockdown reading list.

—— Rebecca Scott , Glasgow Guardian

Beautifully written... Unlike anything I have read before

—— Ellie Down , Exeposé

An engrossing coming-of-age story.

—— Mariella Frostrup , Sunday Times

[Vuong] is an author of incredible and magical talent, with many of his paragraphs reading like the most beautiful poetry... An absolute must-read

—— Glamour

Raw, lyrical and at times hearth-wrenching, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a book of real beauty

—— i

For a long time after I read this, I could still feel the impact of his story. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an experience that you need to have.

—— DIVA

I read the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong while on tour and the language often stopped me in my tracks... powerful.

—— Dua Lipa , Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Inventive... [On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous] just stops you as a reader to marvel at the beautifully constructed narrative

—— Art Newspaper
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