Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

Take three wasters who love their food, and a drop to drink, much more than any kind of effort; who are hypochondriacs, mischief-makers, and inveterate liars (er, sorry, story-tellers). Make sure that they like to show off, philosophise, bicker, and pontificate, while being largely incompetent. Put them in a small boat with an angelic-looking but evil-minded dog, give them frying pans, tents, kettles full of butter, lemons, but absolutely no cheese (that's very important, and I'll explain later), and send them off down the Thames for a week. Sound like fun so far? I think I'd rather walk over hot coals than actually be stuck in the boat with them, ...

I’m sure you’ll already have heard of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. I’m sure you’ll have also heard how brilliant it is. Well, if you haven’t, let me tell you. If you have, let me tell you anyway. The narrator is a medical curiosity – when he reads the medical dictionary, he finds that he has every condition ever diagnosed – with perhaps the exception of housemaid’s knee… Along with his two friends George and William (and Montmorency, the dog), and realising that men such as they need a holiday to cope with the stresses and strains of doing nothing every day, they plan a cruise down the Thames. No sooner is that decided, of course, than they all ...

A book that can make you laugh out loud is without doubt a very rare, and a very good thing - and this is the only one that I can remember reading that has done so consistently. It is the tale of three young men - the author (J.), George and Harris, together with the dog, Montmorency - who decide, after a bout of sustained hypochondria, to hire a boat and row up the Thames for two weeks, as a way of revitalising themselves. Of course they get into various little scrapes and mishaps - steam launches, locks and cats all get in the way - and these are recounted in such a dry and caustic style that you can't help yourself but laugh. The human characterisations ...