Rating: 
Summary: Laughed
Review: I ordered this book off the back of reading a history of London (recommended as supplementary reading). Whilst I found it a little slow to get into the story, about one quarter of the way through you get totally involved in Charles Pooter's soap-opera, day-to-day adventures... and all of a sudden you are looking forward to the next page, and the next page! A very quick read that takes to you back to life in the late 1800's.
Rating: 
Summary: charming and timeless
Review: I was reminded of this book after reading that George Grossmith spent many years with the Gilbert and Sullivan company and is portrayed in a very interesing fashion in the film "Topsy Turvy." It was available in a very inexpensive editon from amazon.co.uk and I read it quite quickly and found it delightful. It is truly enjoyable and informative to read the slice-of-life story of Mr. Pooter, an archetypal middle class creature whose idiosyncracies would be recognizable [and, unfortunately, beaten to death] in a current TV sitcom. His problems at home and at work, and his relations with family and friends, are delightfully communicated and it is fascinating to see both what is tied to his own time and what is recognizable to us, today. The story is lightly drawn but there is a subtle undercurrent of profound social commentary.
Rating:
Summary: charming and timeless
Review: I was reminded of this book after reading that George Grossmith spent many years with the Gilbert and Sullivan company and is portrayed in a very interesing fashion in the film "Topsy Turvy." It was available in a very inexpensive editon from amazon.co.uk and I read it quite quickly and found it delightful. It is truly enjoyable and informative to read the slice-of-life story of Mr. Pooter, an archetypal middle class creature whose idiosyncracies would be recognizable [and, unfortunately, beaten to death] in a current TV sitcom. His problems at home and at work, and his relations with family and friends, are delightfully communicated and it is fascinating to see both what is tied to his own time and what is recognizable to us, today. The story is lightly drawn but there is a subtle undercurrent of profound social commentary.
Rating:
Summary: Fun book
Review: Perceptions of class as told in the diary of Charles Pooter (truly a nobody), is filled with much insight into Victorian times as is wrenched in irony. Fun, light read.
Rating:
Summary: Funny sides of Life!
Review: Set in the early 19th century,a delightful look at a town clerk,Charles Pooter's life through his diary entries. Filled with many funny,witty and ironic thoughts,events and situation. The most amazing part is the Mr. Pooter is just an average working-class Englishman and one day after moving into a new house with his wife decided to start recording his life.Pooter's wrote about his work,his boss,his family friends,his wife,his son,his son's love affairs,his new bathtub and even his trouser. Grossmith made trivial hosehold matters sounds so amusing and facetious. Everything revolving him seem so bizarre and facetious. Warmhearting family reading filled with numerous comic relief and wrote with great sense of humour. British humour at it's best and an unique timeless classic.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Entertaining
Review: The 'Nobody' of the title is one Charles Pooter, an ordinary middle-class Londoner in the late 19th century who reasons that if Pepys and Johnson can write diaries to entertain people, why should his diary be any less exciting? And so we are amused by such characters as Pooter's unpredictable son Lupin, his good friends Cumming and Gowing, and not least Pooter himself, whose most fascinating and hilarious trait is his tendency to write people off as lacking in humour when they fail to laugh at his occasional pun, whilst exhibiting a distinct lack of humour himself when it comes to some of the more trivial aspects of life. Pooter's descriptions of the mundane, as well as the occasionally unusual, happenings of daily life are told in extraordinary detail, which brings a real vividness to some of the amusing predicaments our friend finds himself in. And he really is our friend by the end of the book. There is a certain air of pathos about this man that proves quite endearing. His Victorian prudery and sensibility provokes much laughter (reading this on the train to London, I had to put it down a couple of times to avoid drawing attention to myself), yet also provokes a certain affection for a character who is as tragic as he is admirable. That is, despite some of his more pathetic idionsyncracies, the warmth and genuineness of his character shine through.
Rating:
Summary: Cummings and Gowing
Review: The funniest book ever written. Just get it.
Rating:
Summary: Cummings and Gowing
Review: The funniest book ever written. Just get it.
Rating:
Summary: Probably the funniest book I have ever read
Review: This book details the minutia of the daily life of a London city clerck. The main character, Charles Pooter, is one of a generation in Victorian England attempting to establish his place in the middle class. The Diary is a chronicle of the minor offenses and meager triumphs that make up Mr. Pooter's life. Were I a better person, I should be ashamed that I found the narrator's pathetic life so very funny.
Rating:
Summary: Amusing!!
Review: This book is full of common everyday people, what is important to them, and how the generation gap forms. Very brief and as the name implies a diary. You see yourself as well as people you know in this funny little book.
I found myself laughing out loud several times at the jokes, as well as running physical comedy described in this book. The thing I found most poignant is the reason Mr. Pooter is writing this diary. It is meant that when he is gone, dies, his wife and son will have something of himself that will make them laugh and remember him well. Even though he threatens to stop writing the diary, he also finds that he cannot, that the diary has become a part of him and that at times it is were he can be most brutally honest, while hiding his feelings especially from his son, and at times his wife.
Enjoy this book, PLEASE. It is a little known classic, and if you do not mind my recommendation finish is and then read "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons. These should tickle your funny bone and give you a brief respite from your eveyday troubles.
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