Never since childhood have I been so thoroughly immersed in a book

An 18th-century reader, raised on a high-minded diet of elegy and pastoral, must have felt stunned on first encountering the jagged prose of a Daniel Defoe, with its street-wise populism and delight in the commonplace

Robinson Crusoe has a universal appeal, a story that goes right to the core of existence

Defoe should surely be credited with inventing the English novel

Defoe was an imaginative genius

I was drawn to the intellectual speculation and psychological depth of Murdoch’s writing, and the experience of reading her brought the realisation that, for me, thinking would always be the greater part of reading.

The effect of the novels is to convey to us reality, unfolded, shaking out light and air from between its newly perceived and freed layers

There are some breathtakingly eloquent passages

Passionate, well-informed

The story is exciting and memorably analyses the way in which fanaticism can wreck the most inoffensive lives

I've recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it's like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music

The greatest comic writer ever

Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee's Knees. And then some

I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language

Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work

To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius - no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment

Compulsory reading for anyone who has a pig, an aunt - or a sense of humour!

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

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

My only problem with Wodehouse is deciding which of his enchanting books to take to my desert island

The Wodehouse wit should be registered at Police HQ as a chemical weapon

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

Sublime comic genius

Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in