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Summary: Great Summer Reading
Review: This book and a good chair were meant for each other. From the onset one realizes that it is a timeless tongue in cheek look at the lives of the self important. Anyone who has ever been on vacation with another person will enjoy the telling of this trip. The main character thinks that he does the majority of the work and is the only sensible one. The dog lends an air of sensibility and nonchalance to the status of his owner. Both my sister and I read this book and we attempted to tell our third sister about it. We could only get out a few words such as "Uncle Podger" or "cheese" before we would break up laughing. Needless to say the other sister did not get much out of of telling; and is now reading the book. It is the kind of book that you can read over and over and still laugh aloud. For those who wish to read it, I can only offer one piece of advice - buy two copies. You will want to give it to your friends to read but won't want to part with your copy.
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Summary: Victorian sedative
Review: This book is a very slow-paced story of a rowboat journey on the river. Many humorous incidents. Mark Twain's much better.
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Summary: Way too much fun
Review: This book is much funnier than any book written by a 19th-Century Englishman has any right to be! It's a delight, and I would definitely recommend following it up by reading Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog, a time-traveling take-off on Jerome's book.
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Summary: This is one of the funniest books I've ever read
Review: This book's gentle humor had me laughing out loud. I have passed it on to friends and relatives and had to replace my copy several times. The book seem to go in and out of print and is sometimes hard to find but worth the effort.
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Summary: Timeless Humor
Review: This has to be one of the funniest books ever written beginning with the opening chapter where the narrator reads a medical book and decides he has every disease in the book. From there, he and his two best friends decide to get away from it all with a boat trip up the Thames River -- and that's the book. It's full of one hilarious episode after another with little side tidbits on the historical places they pass on the Thames. Those few who have found the book dull need to understand that the story is written at the pace of a boat trip and not a television sitcom. It's any vacation where everything goes hilariously wrong and if for once the tent doesn't fall down in a pouring rain or the boat manages to not run into another boat, the narrator remembers another trip and tells the story of carrying an incredibly smelly cheese home--Warning don't read that chapter in public. People will wonder why you're rolling on the ground laughing hysterically. There's also a dog who's idea of being helpful is bringing a dead rat to add to the stew. The only weakness of the book is that I'd like to have seen much more of the dog. On the serious side, Three Men in a Boat proves that humor based on human nature is timeless. Also on the serious side, if you want a good look at how people lived in 1890, this book actually gives a vivid picture, including the nostalgia that the narrator feels for "the good old days". He finds life in 1890 too fast paced and with too many inventions coming on too fast. It makes you wonder at what point people will look back to 2001 as "the good old days".
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Summary: A book I will re-read frequently!! I love it.
Review: This has to be the most consistently funny book I have ever read. Jerome's writing style is a mix of Twain, Wodehouse and Austen. Every page contains something funny and memorable. He has the gift, comparable to Dickens, of bringing his characters to life. You know these guys, heck, you may BE these guys! It's wonderful! I am going to be buying extras as gifts; this is a book that must be shared.
Rating: 
Summary: Funny almost all the way through
Review: This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. So why only 4 stars? Because it's not consistantly funny. The problem seems to be that Jerome started to write a travel story, with some serious thought on history and life, and added a few humorous bits as he went along. His editor got him to tone down the history and emphasize the humor, but we, the readers, are still stuck with some dreary Victorian romantic musings.
But then there are the funny bits. And there are a lot of them. I'd say 80% of this book is funny, and a good 10% is hysterically funny. Well worth the dull patches.
WARNING: Do not read this in a public place. You WILL embarrass yourself by laughing out loud. The pages on cheese are especially deadly. I still giggle uncontrolably each time I re-read them.
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Summary: Caveat emptor!
Review: Those who purchase this Oxford University Press edition (ISBN 0194216543) expecting to read Jerome K. Jerome's delightful Victorian comedy classic "Three Men In A Boat" will be seriously disappointed, as this is NOT that book at all, but a bastardized children's edition "retold by Diane Mowat," replete with annoying cartoon illustrations. Avoid it like the plague and insist on the REAL Jerome K. Jerome!
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Summary: Three Men in a Boat
Review: Three Men in a Boat is a gem for anyone who enjoys social satire. Set in Victorian England, the book follows the adventures of three friends (and a dog) as they make their leisurely way up the River Thames in an open rowboat. At least this is the overt plot line. But the book is loaded with one hilarious anecdote after another, starting on the first page when the author digresses from a confession that he cannot read the diagnosis of any disease without concluding that he is suffering from it to the description of a visit he once made to the British Museum where, in "an unthinking moment," he leafed through a dictionary of diseases and discovered to his horror that he had the symptoms for every one except housemaid's knee. Needless to say, his doctor later tells him not to be such a nitwit! In addition to the comedy, there are rhapsodic descriptions of the river and life in general. In particular, the overnight stay in the vicinity of Magna Charta Island prompts an imaginary recreation of the signing of that "stupendous page of history" in June 1215. Listen to the almost poetic start to that passage: "It is a fine summer morning - sunny, soft and still." Beautiful writing. The book's rich and generous appreciation of the aburdities of the human condition imbue it with a sparkle and freshness that belie its age. It may not be for everyone, but it's certainly one of my favorite rereads.
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Summary: If a book can be perfect, this would be it.
Review: Tremendous amount of humor, hilarity, warmth, generosity, travails and triumphs both domestic and while travelling - this book has it all. It will make you weep with laughter. (I've always been partial to the scene with the canned peaches.)Jerome is one of those now-forgotten Victorian British writers whose names should actually be inscribed in gold on library walls. I would advise this book to anyone above the age of 12 with an even modest sense of humor. It is a tremendous antidote to the curse of modernity, which encourages us to believe that anyone alive in any period before this one must be hopelessly dull, boring, and have nothing to teach or share with us.
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