A story of murky family secrets set against Norway's midwinter near-perpetual night, Berlin Poplars still manages to twinkle

Ragde's writing is self-effacing and subtly crafted, an ideal tool for splintering the brothers' stout outer panelling of Norwegian wood to expose the steamy sauna of turmoil within

It's darkly funny, grabs you at the start and doesn't let go... if you want a treat, race to get this book, because it's truly heartwarming, and so, so funny

Compelling, and the final truth telling is shocking

The prose . . . is so gloriously funny you can relish the book over and over again.

Quite possibly the funniest book the master of comedy ever wrote.

A sheer joy to read.

'Anything by PG Wodehouse' was a common response when asking around for people's comfort reads. It's very hard to pick just one, but this - with Roderick Spode, Aunt Dahlia and plenty of sneering at cow creamers - is fairly close to perfection.

It's illegal to put together any list of the funniest books in English without including Wodehouse. [His] incredibly delicate descriptive touch (for example, of a particularly burly character: "as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment") and sense of timing elevate a country house farce involving a policeman's hat, a cow-creamer and a would-be British fascist leader into something which glows with an effortless, sunny brilliance.

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

Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny

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

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

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

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

The greatest comic writer ever

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

Sublime comic genius

You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour

The handsome bindings are only the cherry on top of what is already a cake without compare