"hospitals would do well to stock Lord Emsworth and Others in the gift shop, next to the “It’s a Boy!” balloons"

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/019_04/10595

DEC/JAN 2013

Rated P. G.

The master humorist's letters tell a different kind of story

ED PARK

Far be it from me to dissuade the more steely-minded from packing Serious Literature—what Bertie Wooster would term an “improving book”—for the birthing room, tomes in which the stakes are high, the narratives opaque or vertiginous, the revelations life-changing. My life was going to change; I needed something casual on that cold December day, a book that wouldn’t upset my fragile mental state: entertainment without conflict, verbal dexterity solely in the service of comic relief. What I am saying is that hospitals would do well to stock L.E.A.O. in the gift shop, next to the “It’s a Boy!” balloons.