Bachelors Anonymous
P. G. Wodehouse
139 pages
First published in 1973

P. G. Woderhouse as a writer is so much associated with the 1920ties and 1930ties, that one tends to forget he only died in 1975 and kept writing books up until then. This is one of them.

Bachelors Anonymous, founded on the example of Alcoholics Anonymous is a group of Californian friends who use the same methods as the AA to keep its members from succumbing to the madness of marriage.

Ivor Llewellyn is a person who has succumbed to this madness, five times already. As he puts it, he has dinner with a woman, doesn't know what to say once the coffee comes and so proposes. His friend, Ephraim Trout, one of the BA members, travels after him to London to keep an eye on him. In the meantime Llewellyn already has hired Joe Pickering to protect him from inadvertent proposals and Joe himself has fallen in love with Sally Fitch.

Naturally, the paths of all of them cross and hijinks ensue and it takes some doing to put everything to right.

At 139 pages, this is short enough to not begrudge it its slightness. Nothing new here, it's the same old stuff as Wodehouse wrote fifty years before.