All of this is, to me anyway, abidingly fascinating, and yet, as I explore these books, there’s a part of me that’s always saying “But you’re not really talking about reading”—about whatever it is that makes me cackle and snort when I have a P. G. Wode-house novel in my hands, even when I’m in bed and desperately trying to stifle the laughter lest I wake my wife up, which I always end up doing anyway, with the result that for some years now I have been forbidden to bring a Wodehouse book to bed.
