This book is really lovely. It's Jerome attempting to be slightly serious - occasionally he even gives good advice, presumably entirely by accident - but with all the irreverence and the good humour that you might expect. I sometimes wonder that his other books aren't more well-known - other than Three Men in a Boat, that is - and it's nice to know that this one exists, in a nice fresh cover.

'On the art of making up one's mind' is a collection of essays by Jerome K Jerome recently published by Hesperus Press. I suspect I was picked for an Early Reviewers' copy as I already have quite a few JKJ books, so I was slightly disappointed to find that these essays were a selection from 'The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow' (which I already own) rather than something new. The only indication of this is on the imprints page and within the Foreword by Joseph Connolly, and I felt it would be useful to potential purchasers to have mentioned this on the 'blurb' or elsewhere on the cover.

Having said that, I enjoyed rereading the five essays, which are perhaps the best ones from the original book. Some aspects and comments are surprisingly modern, considering they were originally written over 100 years ago, but I did find that most of the essays ranged from the almost slapstick funny (for example 'adventures' with a rocking chair in the 'on the exceptional merit attaching to the things we meant to do') to dragging on a bit when you felt he was making the point of the story one too many times.

I find that although I enjoy reading 'reflections on life' (I am a fan of modern writers in ths kind of style such as Miles Kington) I tend not to remember much about them later, so such books can easily be reread. And this small volume is a good introduction to some of the 'other' writings of JKJ, which although not as consistently good as something like Three Men in a Boat are nevertheless enjoyable. ( )

First a confession, I may be the only person in the reviewing group never to have read 'Three Men in a Boat', and I came to this collection of essays not knowing what to expect but here is my take.

In British comedy every generation has a defining 'mould breaking' movement they think of as 'theirs'. For me it was Monty Python and their precursors, for the generation before The Goons. As your heroes fade and are replaced, the more you start to see British comedy as a progression. Jerome is firmly in this progress of comedy. These essays are amazingly modern for late Victorian writing and very funny, both gently expressed and yet bitter in places.

The comparisons with PG Wodehouse are the most obvious, Wodehouse must surely have read Jerome and been heavily influenced by him, I was particularly struck by this in 'On the Exceptional Merit Attaching to the Things We Meant to Do' which covers the craze for making practical objects by DIY or by recycling junk. Some Wodehousian extracts:

"One chapter explained to a man how he might make flowerpots out Australian meat cans, another how he might turn butter tubs into music stools, a third how he might utilise old bonnet boxes for Venetian blinds: that was the principle of the whole scheme, you made everything from something not intended for it, and as ill suited to the purpose as possible."

On encountering a home made rocking chair - "I threw myself into it lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the ceiling. I made an instinctive movement forward. The window and a momentary glimpse of the wooded hills beyond shot upward and disappeared [...] the next moment I lost my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was rushing past me."

Although I enjoyed the book I thought the introduction very badly written, or perhaps just badly sub-edited. The very first page contains six sets of parentheses (parentheses are always the sign of a sloppy or lazy writer) and despite being short, the foreword is rambling and repetitive and lets down an interesting book. ( )

A nicely-got-up little book of essays: amusing, annoying, entertaining, long-winded, diverting, philosophical, misogynistic, insightful, boring, clever, and occasionally wise essays. There is also a useful introduction and a brief concluding biographical note. Best taken in small doses.

Note: this review refers to the Hesperus Press (2010) edition. ( )

"It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one."

This slim book is elegant both in appearance and content, a pleasure to look at and to read. The witty, beautifully-crafted essays, taken from Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow are similar in tone to that of his autobiography, My Life and Times, recognisable from the more famous Three Men in a Boat, but not as frothy. Despite the darker tone, this collection of five essays made me laugh out loud: it’s full of wonderful vignettes of Edwardian life: the runaway horse, for instance, who turns out to be going home alone because his master has been too long in the Rose and Crown, or the practical recycling of egg boxes: “with a sufficient supply of egg boxes…no young couple need hesitate to face the furnishing problem”. In my youth it was packing cases.

It might be considered that Jerome is unfair to women, since here they are often the target of his observations, but we have only to remember Three Men in a Boat to see that he is as gently scathing of masculine foibles. Human nature is his subject, and I must admit that the conversation between the two women getting ready to go out (“On the time wasted in looking before one leaps”) reminds me too much of my mother and myself, but the man in this essay has been dismissed in a short paragraph at the outset, making an inconsiderately brisk exit when he knows that if he announces his intention beforehand, he will be detained while his wife decides what errands she wants him to run. His writing is characterised by opposition in both sentence – “let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug” – and idea – his all-too human Cinderella, dissatisfied with her new life, contrasts with the fairytale idyll. His humour depends on contraryness.

Jerome flouted convention by writing in colloquial English, and that is what makes his style so accessible today. He is chatty, matter-of-fact, energetic and forceful, he takes off on divagations and his taste for farce foreshadows the later writing of P.G. Wodehouse, but in miniature – where Wodehouse creates a canvas of improbability, Jerome paints the detail in the corner. This he combines with delicious (and very British) understatement and self-deprecation. This is just the sort of book that I like to leave by the bedside for guests to pick up and dip into. Since I finished it I’ve picked up the autobiography again, because Jerome is an excellent companion. ( )