If you read one author in your life, make it Wodehouse

Is that a daft thing to say, in the face of Shakespeare, Milton, Hemingway, et al? Perhaps it is daft, but perhaps that's the point. If I had to read one author for ever more, I think I'd rather have Wodehouse's sublime form of daftness at my bedside than anything else. Wodehouse isn't just a writer. He's a friend for life, restoring the warm glow in gloomy times.

He's also, without doubt, one of the truly great artists of English. What appears to be the lightest and frothiest of confections is achieved only through meticulous construction and painstaking effort over detail.

I've picked Leave it the Psmith to stand for the whole Wodehouse oeuvre, because otherwise this section would be absurdly long. This was the first of his books I ever read (a beautiful Folio Society edition illustrated by Paul Cox, who was born to draw Wodehouse). It's actually the last of the four Psmith books (the P is silent, in case you didn't know), and the best of an excellent bunch. One of its special pleasures is that this book weaves Psmith's story into the life of Blandings Castle, one of Wodehouse's other great sagas.

Psmith himself - a garrulous gadabout with a heart of gold - is an immortal character. His dialogue (or, more frequently, monologue) is up there with the best of Wodehouse. Tempted as I am to quote him, Wodehouse's writing is so tightly (albeit almost invisibly) constructed, quoting anything out of context always leaves one feeling that the joke hasn't fully come across. A bit like showing someone a few squares of coloured glass and saying, 'Look how beautiful this rose window is.'

So all I will say is that Christmas is approaching, and few presents will bring greater pleasure than the Psmith books - or just about anything else this wondrous writer ever writ.