Psmith is a delight, as always, but Mike is dull and the school stuff is kind of a mixed bag. One can really see how Harry Potter is a lightly updated version of one of these early 20th century school stories: school sports, mischief and hijinks after hours, and an unpleasant teacher with a grudge against our hero ( )

Originally published as the second half of Mike in 1909, this feels less like a second half and more like a sequel—which is why it makes perfect sense that the two halves were later published separately. (They had been serialized stories to begin with, so the whole idea of one or two novels is a little bit arbitrary anyway.)

Like Mike at Wrykyn (the republished name of the first half), this one isn't all that funny, but it does hang together. By far, the most interesting part is the introduction of Psmith (pronounced with a silent "P" as in "Pshrimp"), the first of Wodehouse's regular self-composed characters - and frankly an exaggeration of characters he'd already been noodling with in shorter stories. Psmith is a sort of Rubicon who, once crossed, signals a change of era. Can Wodehouse really make the audience believe in such a constantly unflappable character? Yes, he can. And thus the real Wodehouse is finally unleashed upon the world. ( )

Not as laugh out loud as some of his better stuff. There are still moment of Wodehouse genius, but it gets bogged down in a lot of details about Cricket matches. ( )

Mike and psmith in school spend a lot of time cricketing. This is a book that doesn’t speak well of Wodehouse’ writing abilities. Move on to something else by Wodehouse! ( )

Excellent. Wodehouse hadn't quite developed his style, but it is still laugh out loud funny in places. He clearly is making fun of the gung ho manly boys at school novels popular in the early 1900s. If only there wasn't quite so much about cricket. What is a wicket anyway, and how do you get one? And what would you do with it? ( )