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  • Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best

  • By: P. G. Wodehouse
  • Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
  • Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (101 ratings)
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Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best cover art

Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best

By: P. G. Wodehouse
Narrated by: Martin Jarvis
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Summary

The Collected Blandings Short Stories.

Blandings Castle is the home of Lord Emsworth, who likes nothing better than to potter at home in his enormous castle garden. But his rural idyll is once again set to be disturbed in these nine hilarious fables. No peace is possible when his sister Constance is let loose, and she is constantly trying to reorganise the household and its inhabitants! Without great success....

The nieces are unhappy, McAllister leaves at a difficult time, and then The Empress of Blandings - Emsworth's prize pig - goes off her pig-food! Put all this against the continuing complicated love affairs of Freddie Threepwood, not to mention Lord Emsworth's own love interests, and the stage is once more set for classic Wodehouse hilarity!

©2012 Canongate Books (P)2012 Canongate Books

What listeners say about Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderfuld stories and narration BUT

Star rating refers to stories and narration, recording leaves much to be desired.

Wodehouse never fails to amuse and Martin Jarvis never fails to get the characters` voices right BUT, Oh dear! Whoever arranged them for Audible download needs their head examined! No sooner has a story reached the end than the title of the next story is announced. No gap - almost no time for a breath! There should be a gap of at least two seconds - as it is there is no time to pause one`s Kindle in order to cease listening until the `next time`.Really, really aggravating.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Publisher’s incompetence mars a fantastic performance

The Stories are fantastic - Plum Wodehouse at his best. The performance is faultless with Martin Jarvis excelling as narrator and bringing the characters to life.
The puerile production standards of the publishers should shame and humiliate anyone who worked on this production or who didn’t bother to check it before release. It is little short of a complete disgrace to CANONGATE books.
It is not rocket science to separate individual chapters so that the listener can find the chapter they seek. Neither is it anything other than shoddy carelessness to not list the contents of the audiobook in the title details. And it is little short of a sacking offence to “road rail” the title of the next chapter within a millisecond of the last words of the previous chapter - thereby completely ruining Martin Jarvis’s nuances. The directors of CANONGATE Books should hang their heads in shame. They prove yet again, that they don’t really care for their listeners comfort as long as they make money. These are not the only publishers guilty of treating their listeners exclusively as cash cows. Sad.




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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent but gaps too short

This book is excellent. I have been in rapturous laughter upon the tube and various buses in London. PG Woodhouse's prose is as ever wonderful and glorious, his stories witty, meandering and some how exactly the kind of light relief one needs in the modern day. The performance is perfect. How the reader is able to convey such a variety of voices, expression and onomatopoeia so well is marvel.

There is one issue which leaves a bad taste, the pauses between the short stories are far too short, sometimes not even a breath! This should be fixed and is a disappointment. It means one is unable to linger on the climax of said story.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Blandings and PG Wodehouse at their best...

Brilliant and gentle. A witty and delightful potter through the Emsworth chronicles. Superbly read by Martin Jarvis..

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Magical collection of the best of Lord Emsworth!

Where does Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

The combination of P.G. Wodehouse's sublime prose and the brilliant narration and characterisation by Martin Jarvis is simply too good to miss. Pure joy.

What other book might you compare Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best to, and why?

Martin Jarivs has narrated a number of P.G. Wodehouse books. Get them all.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

There are scenes of great humour and farce, fabulous plot twists, wonderful characters and, finally, a few scenes that are really touching.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

These stories put you into a World you don't want to leave.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

These short stories are a real find. Each is perfectly written and enormous fun and of course brilliantly read by Martin Jarvis who is I think by far the best of the narrators available through Audible. Would very much recommend as a perfect gift.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Wonderful narration, poor production

Martin Jarvis is excellent as ever, but as many others have noted there are some production flaws with this book. More of a niggle, but the absence of a pause at the end of each story is maddening.

The stories themselves aren’t Wodehouse at his absolute best - they’re a ragbag written over the years, some of which feel like sketches for longer works that he’s chosen not to develop further - but there’s loads to love here, especially when read by MJ.

Worth purchasing if you have some credits to burn!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great fun to listen to

I very much enjoy the characters of P. G. Wodehouse and his superb story telling

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Hilarious

Lord Emsworth at his finest. I almost died laughing .
Pure heaven. Characterisations fabulous, I don’t know how Martin Jarvis managed to keep a straight face

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Loved it.

A gentle, easy listen. Old fashioned, but timeless, With quaint humour that had me smiling and chortling several times.

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