The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Before he became famous for messing about in boats, Jerome K. Jerome made his name with this 1886 collection of fourteen leisurely essays. Adopting the pose of an amiable idler with nothing better to do than think aloud, he ambles through subjects like being in love, feeling shy, the tyranny of babies, the misery of bad weather, and the odd workings of memory. There is no argument to follow and no lesson to take away, only a warm, self-mocking voice that finds the comedy in ordinary life and the quiet melancholy underneath it. The pieces read like conversation with a witty friend, and they show the light touch that would soon make Three Men in a Boat a classic. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.