Rating: 
Summary: Funny observational humor
Review: Humor is very hard to write. Jerome K. Jerome does a fine job in his "Three Men in a Boat" -- it's a light, frothy sort of humor that brings to mind a 60's comedy movie. The characters are irritable and inept, and the things that tick them off (packing luggage, setting up a tent, dealing with women in nature, cooperative rowing) are still very relevant today. For example, people who hate jet-skis can find parallel rants on the steam-powered launches that annoy Jerome and his sailing buddies. The occasional dips into seriousness (English history, a single-mother suicide) take up a net 2 pages total, and don't happen to detract from the overall humor. My favorite line is spoken by Jerome to the overzealous cemetary watchman, who can't believe Jerome doesn't want to view some open tombs: "Leave me immediately or I shall climb over the fence and slay you." The book gets 4 stars only because (like most observational humor) it leaves the mind easily, and doesn't display the unity of meaning, humor and characterization that modern readers expect from a 5 star book. This book is an excellent series of hilarious essays loosely strung together in the form of flashbacks, but it is not a novel per se. One of its greatest achievements is that it is still readable today, quite accessible to a modern audience.
Rating: 
Summary: not mine
Review: I can only tell that this kind of humor is special. So, if you notice that this kind of humor is not yours stop reading because you might get bored. If it is, well, you'll laugh.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, but old
Review: I can't say anything that anyone else has not already said so I'll just add that I probably missed about half the humor because it's just too old.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Find--Read It!
Review: I entered into THREE MEN IN A BOAT with the understanding that it was a laugh riot. At first I thought, yes it is witty in the extreme, but in places it is a tad Victorian cute, the forerunner of today's sitcoms and stand-up comics. The more I got into it, though, the more I appreciated it on many levels. Verdict: It is fresh stuff 115 years later, it is very funny, and it deserves classic, not backlist, status. THREE MEN IN A BOAT is classified as fiction but not for the usual reasons. Had it been written after 1995, say, it would have probably been called creative nonfiction. What Jerome did was to synthesize many occasions shared with his real life pals into a "travelogue" of a boating trip taken up the Thames, from Kingston into the Reading area. This premise offers up countless occasions for mishaps, which Jerome milks for all they are worth. In those moments in which something is not happening, he tells related stories, or performs a stand-up comic riff. As he and his mates pass landmarks along the river, he offers up historical information, colored of course with his views. Apparently, England lays claim to Elizabeth I being everywhere much as the eastern United States claims Washington slept in every town. It is ironic to read his sighs over modern life: if he only knew that urban sprawl had only begun and weather forecasting has not improved that much in a hundred years. In a positively clairvoyant moment, he presages the Antiques Roadshow mania of "2000 and odd" while speculating if the lowly implements and souvenirs of daily life would become the treasures of the future. The insights into Victorian preoccupations are priceless.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, timeless classic.
Review: I first read this book as a set book at school and was immediately enthralled. Over the years I have picked it up time and time again and it never fails to make me laugh. I made the mistake once of reading it whilst I was heavily pregnant and had to quickly run to the loo! Take some time out and go with these Victorian gentlemen on a trip down the river Thames you won't be disappointed.
If you enjoyed this book you will also enjoy 'The diary of a nobody' by G & W Grosssmith, published in 1892
Rating:
Summary: A hilarious romp
Review: I found this book by first reading the time-travel science fiction book "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis. It's an homage to this book, and after finishing TSNotD (which I highly recommend), I bought a copy of Three Men in a Boat. It's a wonderfully hilarious insight into a fascinating time in history.
Rating:
Summary: This recording is the best BOT ever!
Review: I have listened to hundreds of books on tape. None has ever provided the pleasure this one was. Three Men in a Boat is an amazing book, oh yes. As the reviewers say...brilliant, scathing, funny, clever and a permanent fixture in the mind after one reading. Years later you'll remember the cheese in the train or the vanishing friend in the field or the way Uncle Podger hangs a picture. And I cannot imagine a smile won't come to your lips when you've done so.
But Ian Carmichael clearly inhabits this book, making each voice come alive, offering an absolutely spellbinding reading. He is serious, pompous, twee, giggly, ponderous, ironic and hysterical when needed. No review can do it justice....you must hear him read the story of the mounted trout or the glass of water to know just what a great actor can do with wonderful prose. Listen. Listen again. And again. You won't be able to restrain yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely delightful
Review: I laughed out loud through the whole first chapter, and when I was done, I thought to myself, even if I don't read another page of this book, it was worth it, just to have read this one chapter. To my delight the rest of the book was just as good, at least! This is one of the best books I've ever read. Buy it. Read it. And have one of the best experiences of your life!
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: I read this after reading Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog (which is sort of a remake of Jerome's book). I was worried that, after Willis' book which is fantastic, I would be disappointed by Three Men and a Boat but no such thing! Jerome is hilarious and his characters are wonderfully unselfconscious English eccentrics. Their journey down the river (taken b/c of poor health-all the characters are hypochondriacs) had me laughing non-stop. I can't understand why this book is not better known. If you are an Anglophile, a history buff or, even just a lover of eccentric characters, this is the book for you. Buy it, rent a boat and float down the nearest river reading this! You won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: It will make your sides ache
Review: I read this book at least five times and will read it again. My favourite episodes are those related to Uncle Podgers, one of the most comic characters in English fiction after Fielding's Parson Adams. Jerome is so pleasant and yet so "serious" in his way of writing that you can almost hear his voice narrating along. The contrast between the style and the content is what makes the book irresistibly funny. A must read for everybody. Buy this book: you won't regret it! (By the way: has anybody got lost in Hampton Court's Maze? Let me know!)
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