Funniest Book Ever Read

[mono]

Seeing that we have 'Books that made you change the way you view the world' (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4372) and 'Books that made you cry' (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2565), out of curiosity, I thought to begin this thread.
What books have you read that made you laugh?

A few of mine that come to mind:
The Liar by Stephen Fry,
All's Well That Ends Well, Comedy Of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare,
The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist,
Many various short stories and poetry by O. Henry, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, and Guy de Maupassant,
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer,
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

[Loki]

Great idea, Mono! :)

Strange to say, one of the only books to actually make me laugh out loud - though there have been a few - was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I laughed so loudly at the gypsy part that the leaves almost started falling off the roof! ;)

[Basil]

Jane Eyre made me laugh multiple times; here's one of my favorite lines from early on: "Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide'; read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'an account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G____, a naughty girl addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"

[papayahed]

America: The book. There are more but I can't think of them at this moment.

[Wendigo_49]

Catch-22 can always make me laugh.

[Rachy]

A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It's so cleverly written. Takingthe mick out of everything. One of the only books to make me laugh out loud!

[Miranda]

Blott on The Landscape and also The Throwback both by Tom Sharpe. The Throwback is really rude but hilarious - well I think so anyway.

[Jack_Aubrey]

Slaughterhouse Five.

[subterranean]

Catch-22 can always make me laugh.


Second that.........

[lavendar1]

While his books may not be considered 'literary,' anything by David Sedaris sets me to howling:

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

to name a few...

[caspian]

There's Jewish writer- Sholom Aleykhem- I can be wrong with English spelling . I laughed a lot and loudly at the end of his short story "My first love story". The story is very funny in general, but most funny part is end.
mono, I agree with you about William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and O. Henry. But I don't remember any funny story of Guy de Maupassant. I found them miserable, heart-braking.

[Razeus]

Catcher In The Rye

[faith]

I love books that make me laugh! here comes a few:

Nick Hornby: How to be good, About a boy (etc)
Tony Parsons: Man and Boy, Man and Wife
JK Rowling: Harry Potter
Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl

oh, and most of all: Frank McCourt: Angela's ashes

and ofcourse Cather in the rye, like Razeus says

[Erna]

'The importance of being Ernest' by Oscar Wilde.

[dahlia]

Frank Abagnel

[mono]

But I don't remember any funny story of Guy de Maupassant. I found them miserable, heart-braking.
I entirely agree with you, as many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories end with a surprise conclusion, but often not for the best. One story in particular, however, made me laugh with its dark, almost cruel humor: The Necklace.
Thinking of short stories, another humorous one that I absolutely loved: Gimpel The Fool by Isaac Bashevis.

[Helga]

Almost anything by Oscar Wilde is so funny and Midsummer night's dream and other comics by Shakespeare. And many others I have to think about.........

[EAP]

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

among others.

[kimpossible]

yos, yos, Catch 22 is da dopemaster shiznite, it is funkadellic fresh funny and yossarian is the ish dog, much props to my man Heller, represent

[byquist]

Woody Allen's "Horse Feathers" I think it's called
and agree with another, Catcher in the Rye

[amuse]

bridget jones diary and its sequel, the edge of reason. time and again: hysterical.

[faintingink]

of course oscar wilde.

i also find waiting for godot to be seemingly funny for reasons i really can't explain.

miriam toews a complciated kindness has some very funny bits in it.

but the king of all literary absurd ironic comedy
is
do de do de
John Irving.

i find him so incredibly funny. a pray for owen meany...ohmigod...everytime he has meany talk it's so freakin funny!

let me know whatcha think? :banana:

[Rechka]

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - funny, funny, funny.

[Rachy]

The Secret Diary of Adrien Mole, by Sue Townsend, I haven't read it for years, but I ermember it being funny!

[nothingman87]

"Bartleby the Scrivener" by Melville

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, and Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

"The Conversion of the Jews" by Philip Roth

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

[EAP]

Down and Out is funny?!

[blp]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
and
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
by Hunter Thompson

Old Times by Harold Pinter (especially the bit where the man says 'My name is Orson Welles you know')

Jane Eyre too.

Evelyn Waugh - almost anything except Sword of Honour or Brideshead Revisited

Blood and Guts in Highschool
and
Great Expectations
by Kathy Acker

Oh yes and

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

[Rachy]

Jane Eyre? Why's that then?

[strategos]

I'm normally disinclined to read humorous fiction, but I've always found Dicken's 'Great Expectations' to be pleasantly amusing.

Connie Willis' 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' is a more modern satire that I've found enjoyable, as is Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', though in a slapstick sort of fashion.

[PennKen2009]

I thought that The Three Musketeers was funny in many parts. Athos how he is always so calm in the face of danger is an example.

This is one of my favorite/funny parts, the chapter entitled Porthos:

http://www.public-domain-content.com/books/three_musketeers/25.shtml

[subterranean]

oh, and most of all: Frank McCourt: Angela's ashes




Do you mean laugh in ironic sense? Cause I hardly remember giving a laugh (coz of funny things) when reading that book.

[Eliza]

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. I loved the thread concerning the family's cleaning solution and the reappearing blood stain which evenutally reappears in emerald green.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Serious subject matter but Scout's pranks and innocent observations of the adults around her were hilarious.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. I laugh hard when I see grammatically incorrect or mispelled signs, so this book was an awesome find. Her comments on those who never learned how to correctly punctuate are witty and sharp but really, really funny. (Disclaimer: this member makes no promises on her own punctuation or grammar abilities. Just liked the book.)

[Monica]

Jerome Jerome's "Three Man in a Boat". I was laughing all the way through but the best scene was when they were trying to hang up the painting :D

[rodanho]

i think i laugh most while reading three men in a boat. it is such an interesting book, with so many funny anecdotes and witty descriptions. i just followed the experiences of the characters with bursting laughter and excited cries. i think this bood stands for the very essence of the english humour literature.

[rukhshanda]

infact i want to read that books.may be that books make me happy.may be i would be able to smile again.maybe

infact i want to read :goof: that books.may be that books make me happy :banana: .may be i would be able to ;) smile again.maybe :confused:

[mono]

Wow, I forgot about this thread. Fairly recently, I read a book that made me laugh so hard, I probably looked ridiculous in my favorite coffeehouse (and it seems, from previous posts, that others agree):
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

[Sally Brown]

Books that made you laugh... Mumble, mumble...
The answer is... 42!
But you should have read Douglas Adams's books to know why.
They're really amusing.

Bye,
Sally

P.S.: 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. But the ultimate question is still unknown...

[Jack_Aubrey]

Slaughter House Five

[scruffy_danny]

A Touch of Daniel - Peter Tinniswood

This book is halirious. I honestly havn't laughed harder while reading any other book. It starts off slow but when you begin to understand the characters it's unputdownable, almost addictive. It also protrays the stereotypical north english person and seeming as I live in that area I really related to it. Sure comical genuis...

[sir_alex]

The first Atremis Fowl book was really hilarous, and the whole collection is a great laugh in itself.

[PistisSophia]

Anything by Loretta LaRoche

Introduction to Quantam---cute cartoons!!!

Bill Mahr - New Rules!!!

[Scatterbrain]

Anything by Wilde

[Mark F.]

Anything by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett will always get a laugh out of me. Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest and Gide's Les Faux Monayeurs.

[baddad]

Slaughter House Five


.....yup, funny stuff...........

[mono]

Anything by Loretta LaRoche
I saw a speech of hers once, and could not have laughed harder, as she has such a contagious optimism and good spirit that brings smiles to anyone's face. Oddly, I had no idea she wrote books, but only thought her, perhaps, a motivational speaker through humor. :D

[B-Mental]

I thought that Don Quixote Book I my Cervantes was hilarious, soda shootin' out the nostrils funny.

Forgive me its by Cervantes, not my Cervantes. I will practice more diligence in future posts.

[Themis]

I thought "The Importance of being earnest" was really funny. My favourites, though, are by Idilko von Kürthy. Alas, I think there aren't any translation of her books, yet.

[Pendragon]

If you want to laugh so hard you loose your breath...

Dave Barry

Pat McManus

Douglas Adams (especially his Dictionary Deeper Meaning of Liff written with John Lloyd

Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary

Lewis Grizzard (Some get a little too earthy for my taste, but the man's killingly funny)

Robert Fulghum (He's a modern philosopher with a wicked wit and an hilarious outlook on life.) ;) ;) ;) :lol: :lol: :lol:

[A Hard Rain]

Don quixote ,
Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut.
Slaughter house 5
breakfast of champions

ham on rye and post office by bukowski

the things they carried

huckleberry finn

[mickeymack]

Anything by P G Wodehouse makes me laugh, especially the Jeeves and Wooster books. In fact I am reading Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves at the moment and it's wonderful,Light as a soufflé but witty and entertaining. If you haven't read him I strongly recommend him to you. If everyone read Wodehouse there would be no depression in the world!

[underground]

maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.

the latest book that i remember laughing at more than ten times is nick hornby's a long way down. :D

[subterranean]

Some people I know mentioned this book as a very funny one also..However, haven't got the chance to read it...


I thought "The Importance of being earnest" was really funny.

[samercury]

maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.


That's pretty much the same for me too :D... Right now I'm reading this book called The Year My Life Went Down the Loo- by Katie Maxwell. It's hilarious :lol:

[subterranean]

Maybe you are, because I can not imagine someone's laughing when s/he read books like Crime and Punishment..

Perhaps.. ironic laughs?!


maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.

[Sarah's_Chanson]

I don't know whether this entirely counts as it isn't really fiction but a book that I can't stop laughing at is 'The World according to Jeremy Clarkson.' obviously by Jeremy Clarkson.

I love his TV show 'Top Gear' despite not knowing anything about cars, because it is really funny and the book is just as good.

It's filled with loads of small chapters with his opinion on everything from health and safety laws to the European Union and is a great read!

[Schokokeks]

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving: very deftly written, Owen and his best friend are very comical yet heart-breaking characters. Very good read!

[sdevans]

I stumbled across the title to this thread while tracking a URL that had entered my web site so I registered today to respond and offer a challenge to those who care about this timeless question.

I am the author of the golf book - 'Who Were the Red Ball People?'.

According to Golf Today Magazine:
“‘Who were the Red Ball People?’ rivals the famed 'Golf in the Kingdom' but with much more panache and hilarity.”

“. . . This may be the funniest book I have read in my adult life. The specific vocabulary created by the author and the terms WILL find their way into the golf lexicon, I am almost certain!”

{snip}

[Behemoth]

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov was v.funny, in a clever way
Hard Times by Charles Dickens was v. funny in certain places, particularly when "facts" are mentioned e/g: "In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir: nothing but Facts" and "ready to have imperial gallons of Facts poured into them.." Reminds me of an awful French teacher I used to have lol ;)

[Idril]

Most of the books I would mention have already been listed, A Confederacy of Dunces, Master and Margarita and I would add Bulgakov's short story, Heart of a Dog, if simply for the dog's 'human' name, Polygraph Polygraphovich and the greatest thing is when someone gets his name wrong and calls him Telegraph Telegraphovich. :lol: :lol: People have already mentioned Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and I would like to add a shout out to Adams' The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, the scene with a naked Thor with floorboard glued to his back is absolutely priceless and to add to the Pratchett thing, Good Omens, the book he wrote with Neil Gaiman is the funniest story about the apocalypse ever written. ;) Everything is Illuminated had some truly hilarious moments and Infinite Jest also had moments of comic genius.

[TEND]

Hmm, I think I'm the first to post this but I find many passages of Hemingway quite funny and I laugh out loud quite frequently throughout many of his novels. Particularly in 'A Farewell to Arms' mostly during the first bit of the book some of the conversations just made me laugh out loud.

[Bysshe]

Anything by P.G Wodehouse is always uplifting, and I think most of the Jeeves stories have made me laugh. Then there are a few Evelyn Waugh novels (Vile Bodies, mainly - and certain parts of Brideshead Revisited). Oscar Wilde, of course...

And then there's Bridget Jones's Diary. :)

[ClaesGefvenberg]

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams....

/Claes

[Boris239]

J.C. Jerom "Three men in a boat" is probably my favorite.
Short stories by O'Henry, Zoschenko(Russian author), Max Beerbohm
Hasek's "Good soldier Svejk" is bloody hilarious. The Russian equivalent is Voynovich's "Adventures of Chonkin"

[literaturerocks]

the jungle books by rudyard kipling made me laugh last night :D

[Underman]

Both Don Quixote and A Confederacy of Dunces are hilarious.

[Union Jack]

Faust, Goethe.

[subterranean]

Last one that gave me big smiles: Lady Windermere's Fan by Wilde. Hillarious :D

[Schokokeks]

I laughed a lot when reading To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee recently. The children's perspective is just too hilarious :D A great book.

[smoothherb]

puddinhead wilson by mark twain

[Kameo]

Bulgakov's short story, Heart of a Dog, if simply for the dog's 'human' name, Polygraph Polygraphovich and the greatest thing is when someone gets his name wrong and calls him Telegraph Telegraphovich.

Im glad that Heart of a Dog makes you laugh :) but imho it serious story enough. Try Ilf & Petrovs "The Golden calf". Guess you`ll be pleased. ;)

Mark Twain and Ilf & Petrov are favourite

[Idril]

Im glad that Heart of a Dog makes you laugh :) but imho it serious story enough.

I realize it's a serious book and he's making some very serious points but there are humorous moments...such as the mix-up with the name. That's one of the things I enjoy about Bulgakov, in the midst of these very serious and philosophical novels and stories there are these moments, a phrase or a conversation or a scene that just kills you because they are so profoundly funny. He can go back and forth between farce and profound so seemlessly.

[stlukesguild]

Midsummer's Night Dream- Shakespeare
Tristam Shandy- Laurence Sterne
Don Quixote- Cervantes
Myra Breckenridge- Gore Vidal
Miss Lonelyhearts- Nathaniel West
Tin Drum- Gunter Grass
Lolita- Nabokov
The Confederacy of Dunces- Toole
The Physicists- Friederick Durrenmatt
As I Lay Dying- Faulkner
various short stories- Flannery O'Conner
Master and Margarita- Bulgakov
The Fetishist- Michel Tournier
various tales from the Decammeron- Boccaccio
Tartuffe- Moliere
Confessions- Rousseau
A Modest Proposal- Swift
various short stories- Franz Kafka
Mason and Dixon- Thomas Pynchon
Everything is Illuminated- Jonathan Safron Foer
various short stories- Tomasso Landolfi (especially Gogol's Wife)

I don't doubt there are many more... and there are many books that can inspire laughter followed by sadness or seriousness like the graveyard scene in Hamlet or any number of the books in this list. I might also note that many of the books on my list are undoubtedly of a rather dark humor (As I Lay Dying) or more of a dead-pan irony (Kafka) than an easy guffaw.

[superunknown]

Heller - Catch 22 (funniest book I've ever read)
Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated as well (although it seems that ultimately the book is funny as an attempt to hide the fact that it's tragic)
Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (mostly serious, but the one part that made me laugh was Madame Khohklakov's typical ramblings of an old woman; we've all heard old women going on and on and on exactly like her)
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Federico Andahazi - The Anatomist
Bulgakov - The Heart of a Dog
Gogol - Diary of a Madman, The Nose
Nabokov - Lolita
Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest (the beast with two backs is hilarious)
Voltaire - Candide

I can't say I found Miss Lonelyhearts or As I Lay Dying particularly funny books, though. Not sure where you found the humor, both of them seemed to be racked with utter hopelessness.



i also find waiting for godot to be seemingly funny for reasons i really can't explain.

What's hard to explain? There's some great quotes.

VLADIMIR. You should have been a poet.
ESTRAGON. I was (Gesture at his rags.) Isn't that obvious?

Or how about Vladimir saying, after a full minute or two of silence, "That passed the time."

How about Vladimir rushing offstage to urinate? Or Lucky's "thinking"? Or the hat-switching routine? There's lots of humor in Waiting for Godot, although you have to see it rather than just read it to really appreciate the humor in it.

[Woland]

Most of these have been mentioned but Ill second them

Master and Margarita
Heart of a Dog
Good Omens (Monty Python meets the apocolypse)
The Importance of Being Earnest
Twelfth Night (Malvolio and Feste)
Comedy of Errors
Quixote
Tartuffe is brilliant

[Ella]

And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game by David Forrest. I think this book may be out of print but grab this book if you can find it. It's slim like a novella but every page is hilarious, and the title just brings a smile to my face. The story begins with, you've guessed it, Albert and a tiny island off of England. The island becomes world news when the Brits, Americans and Russians all begin to buy a piece of the island.

[ElizabethBennet]

A few of the funniest books I have ever read:
Three Men in a boat~Jerome Jerome - just hilarious from start to finish
The Importance of Being Earnest~Oscar Wilde - definitely one of his funniest works
The Undomesticated Goddess~Sophie Kinsella - I laughed till the tears came
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelth Night~William Shakespeare
She stoops to Conquer~Oliver Goldsmith - The confusing mix-ups are so funny.

That's all I can think of right now.

[Theshizznigg]

There was one part earlier on in Lolita that made me chuckle. Humbert wanted to don his army boots, take a few paces back and run at a charge to boot his cheating wife in the bum.
I find the works of P.G. Wodehouse, always make me laugh or smile.
As strange as it is, I actually can relate to some of the character archtypes.
Aside from that, I usually derrive good humour from most books. Though I can't say a book has ever had me splitting sides.

"Reason against logic. Sometimes reasonability is not logical, nor is being logical entirely reasonable."

[Whifflingpin]

Damon Runyon - how come no-one's mentioned him yet? He can be rolling-on-the-floor funny.

Kipling's short story "The Village that voted the Earth was flat" made me cry with laughter the first time I read it.

Richard Powell's "Tickets to the Devil" and "Don Qixote USA"

Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King"

[subterranean]

Anything by Wilde


Hear hear!

But I suppose Salome must be excluded

[Fango]

Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!

I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.


Anyone?

[PeterL]

Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!

I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.


The funniest novel that I have read was "The Aluminum Man" by G. C. Edmondson. Of course, "Bored of the Rings" is one of the funniest things in the history of humanity, but it is a parody, so it doesn't have especially sophisticated humor.

[Idril]

Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!

I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.


Anyone?


If you like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you should check out Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series, he also wrote a book called Good Omens with Neil Gaiman that is a riot!

Have you ever read any of Adams' other books? He wrote two 'Dirk Gentley' novels, Dirk Gentley is a holistic detective with very interesting methods and bizarre cases. The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul is my favorite of those two and I would highly recommend them to anyone.

[mtpspur]

I'm not so sure of the 'comic' aspect but I enjoy Keith Laumer's Retief series as satire -- making jabs at diplomatic relations between planets. Laumer was in the Air Force himself about 10 years before I began my career (19 good years--2 bad ones) but he has great insight in what I have come to believe (least as far as PEACETIME Air Force--Appearance is EVERYTHING, substance is a bonus.

[aeroport]

It isn't a novel, but Washington Irving's History of New York is rather funny - in what certainly could be called a "sophisticated-ish" sort of way.

[PeterL]

I'm not so sure of the 'comic' aspect but I enjoy Keith Laumer's Retief series as satire -- making jabs at diplomatic relations between planets. Laumer was in the Air Force himself about 10 years before I began my career (19 good years--2 bad ones) but he has great insight in what I have come to believe (least as far as PEACETIME Air Force--Appearance is EVERYTHING, substance is a bonus.

Almost everything by Keith Laumer could be regarded as satire.

[Fango]

Thanks, gang, I appreciate the replies...

I haven't read Adams' other books, mainly because I'm keen to diverge before I indulge into one author. :)

Hey, I'll see about Terry Pratchett (and Good Omens). I certainly heard about him.

Not a lot of female comic writers around, eh?

[Virgil]

A really funny novel is Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim. You can read a little blurb here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Jim

[Fango]

Hmm, well, I took some time to review the suggestions, and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy Bored of the Rings. It reminds me of -- http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/fantasy.htm

[vili]

My favourite Douglas Adams would actually be "Last Chance to See", which is totally brilliant. I can also join Idril in recommending Gaiman & Pratchett's "Good Omens", which really is rather much like Adams (and perhaps not surprisingly, Gaiman having written an Adams biography).

Adams himself talked a lot about the old master of humour, P.G. Wodehouse. I have only read very little of his stuff, but he is pretty funny.

Wodehouse (the writer of the Jeeves series) also now reminds me of Hugh Laurie (who acted in the TV series, and is now Dr House in "House M.D."), whose first book "The Gun Seller", is apparently a riot, or so I have heard. Someone told me it is very "Dirk Gentley like", which I think is the highest recommendation there is when it comes to books that you read for laughter.

[Whifflingpin]

Try Jasper fforde - start with "The Eyre Affair"

Check out Tom Holt, who has written some very funny books, as well as some serious ones.

[Danika_Valin]

Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.

[Charles Darnay]

Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.

I don't know if I would reccomend this book for it comic nature (although I do agree with you that it had a certain wit to it), but I would still encourage anyone to read it becasue it was fantastically written and inspiring.

[PeterL]

Hmm, well, I took some time to review the suggestions, and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy Bored of the Rings. It reminds me of -- http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfadyen/notthenet/fantasy.htm

Bored of the Rings is better.

Another really funy author is Tom Holt. "Who's Afraid of Beowulf" and "Flying Dutch" should be considered two of the classics of humorous fiction.

Goergoe MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels are also very funny in an understated way. The interplay with Sherlock Holmes in the last book is one of the funniest scenes in literature, and it satirizes Holmes.

[Idril]

Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.


I don't know if I would reccomend this book for it comic nature (although I do agree with you that it had a certain wit to it), but I would still encourage anyone to read it becasue it was fantastically written and inspiring.

As long as you warn them that that along with it being quite funny in places, it can also be a little sad and depressing I think it would be ok and that it's actually a biography and not a novel. It was recommended to me because of it's humour and I was surprised at the serious nature of the subject matter but I still appreciated the recommendation.

I thought of another brilliant comic novel, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. It's an insanely funny book.

[Mary Sue]

Anything by P.G. Wodehouse, who makes fun of the British aristocracy in his madcap comedies of the 20's and 30's. I would especially recommend "Right ho, Jeeves", "Thank You, Jeeves", "The Code of the Woosters", "Laughing Gas", and/or "Uncle Fred in the Springtime."

And then there's Peter Cannon, who wrote hilarious crossover stories in which Wodehouse characters, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, confront the monsters of H. P. Lovecraft. The book is called "Scream For Jeeves" and believe me, it's a keeper.

The fantasy of Tim Powers, particularly "The Stress of Her Regard" and "The Anubis Gates". He does stuff about time travel and the supernatural, usually set in Victorian England, but always with a comic twist. He's truly strange...in a good way!

As other people have already mentioned, the Flashman novels. They're a hoot!

[Fango]

I find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene and unfunny. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good parody (as you can see by my previous link), but this is jejune IMO and plays on sexual humour. No offense, just not my cup of tea.

I'm still looking at Confederacy of Dunces (which I heard a lot about for the past two years, actually) and Jeeves (which I also heard about before). The other titles don't grab my attention from some reason...

Discworld certainly has a quality, but I'm not sure if it's funny enough for me (after reading the beginning of The Wee Free Men). But I'll sure read further and other books in the series before I make up my mind.

[PeterL]

I find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene and unfunny. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good parody (as you can see by my previous link), but this is jejune IMO and plays on sexual humour. No offense, just not my cup of tea.

I am amazed that anyone would find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene. While there are mentions of sexual and/or sexually deviant activities, those items are satirical in themselves, rather than making any effort to pander to prurient interests. And the "sexual humor" in "Bored of the Rings" is a minor item. Most of the humor is parody of "Lord of the Rings". "Bored of the Rings" makes no sense at all to anyone who is not familiar with LOTR.

[Fango]

Alright, maybe "obscene" wasn't the right word, but I stick to everything else I said. And I understand the "sexual stuff" suppose to be satirical/parodic, it just doesn't tickle my funny bone.

I read the original twice at least.

[PeterL]

Alright, maybe "obscene" wasn't the right word, but I stick to everything else I said. And I understand the "sexual stuff" suppose to be satirical/parodic, it just doesn't tickle my funny bone.

I read the original twice at least.

The Ancient Greeks wrote a Satyr play for many of their tragic trilogies. BOTR plays that part with respect to LOTR. Regarded in that light, BOTR is truly great; but, if you don't appreciate an appeal to ancient literature, it is lost on you.

It is possible that some parts of BOTR are obsolete. There are references that would be lost on someone who didn't have some familiarity with the time period in which it was written. For example, Tim Benzedrine is absolutely to anyone who knows of the drug scene in the late 1960's, but I expect that it wouldn't be as meaningful or funny to someone who wasn't familiar with that setting.

[Fango]

Okay, whatever makes you feel better.

[Idril]

Discworld certainly has a quality, but I'm not sure if it's funny enough for me (after reading the beginning of The Wee Free Men). But I'll sure read further and other books in the series before I make up my mind.

I've never read Wee Free Men but wasn't that geared more for younger readers? If you do decide to try Pratchett, start with Mort, the first two read like Pratchett is trying way too hard to sound like Adams, the third one is just simply awful but Mort is good and if it's strictly humour you're looking for, I would suggest you stick with the Discworld books that feature the Wizards, they are always good for a laugh.

[vili]

I would go with Idril in that if you come to Pratchett from an Adams background, Mort seems like the best place to start. I find it really good, while I think that much of the rest of Pratchett is quite boring, actually. But then again, I didn't like Bored of the Rings, either, so I may just not be calibrated for some types of humour.

Fango: as you have Guybrush as your avatar, you might want to try the Discworld adventure games. (Not quite "fiction", but perhaps "interactive fiction"? ;)) They play pretty similarly to Monkey Island, and at least the first two are really quite funny.

Also, I know you were originally looking for novels, but for "wild humour and creative writing style" you could do worse than peeking into Tom Stoppard's plays. They are good reads, or at least the 60s and 70s plays are that I am mostly familiar with.

This, of course, comes with certain qualifications: if you don't like absurdist humour (say, Monty Python) and absurdist theatre (Beckett, to some extent Pinter), stay away from Stoppard. ;)

[SnámhDáÉan]

I always loved Catch-22 for comedy. . . or alot of oscar wilde and beckett

or At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

[mono]

Though always a great idea for a thread, this thread (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4435) may help your search, too. ;)

[kimpossible]

J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man is funny, and sophisticated in a..... spraying fecal matter kind of way

[Pendragon]

Douglas Adams' The Deeper Meaning of Liff, a tongue-in-cheek dictionary, much like the also hilarious Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce makes a good read. The irrepressible Dave Barry has an entire series of books that could make a cow laugh with his misadventures in Japan, Cyberspace, Turning Forty, etc. If you can get into small town backwoods humor dealing with the outdoor life and kids growing up, Pat McManus' books are great. The sardonic wit of Lewis Grizzard is also pretty funny. :D

[Idril]

Douglas Adams' The Deeper Meaning of Liff, a tongue-in-cheek dictionary...

I've never heard of that and being the big Adams fan I am, I think I need to find it. Thank you, Pen, for bringing it to my attention. ;) :D

[Dark Lady]

Depending on how sophisticated you want the novel to be you could give Ben Elton or Stephen Fry a go.
I agree that Pratchett is hilarious and 'Catch 22' is amazingly funny in a completely horrific way.

[Shalot]

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King was not a funny book, as far as subject matter and overall plot, but there was one line in the book that made me laugh out loud. It was about a clipboard: "The clipboard he'd been carrying went sliding like a toboggan for leprechauns." This character Henry has been through hell, he's being held against his will, and it looks like the situation is only going to get worse. Someone has dropped a clipboard on the snow, and to Henry it looks like a toboggan for leprechauns. That, to me, was funny.

[inDeniaL]

the canterbury tales-chaucer:lol:

[bazarov]

Don Quixote
Master and Margarita

[Nightwalk]

Celine's and Bukowski's works have been riots. Don Quixote has been the exemplar of wholesome humor that has yet to be surpassed.

[sunsetsweetie12]

The Artemis Fowl series, I saw someone mentioned it. It's very clever and funny. I can't think of anymore at the moment.

[Maida]

A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams made me laugh

and Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov made me giggle

[Googly]

The Georgia Nicolson series, the first book is entitled "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging". Kinda says it all.......

[bouquin]

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Tartarin de Tarascon by Alphonse Daudet

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Bridget Jones (1 & 2) by Helen Fielding

[alhara]

lets start with the old ones
candide voltaire(almost everything he wrote even on the napkiens in french cafes would make me laugh)
canterbury duh
gulivars travels
sherlock holmes(not necissarly comedy but cleverness always makes me giggle)
The Imitatable Jeeves(I have read this the most recentley.. LOVED IT)
Hitchickers Guide to the Galaxcy
DIRK GENTLEY (I like these better than HG2G)
Most books I have read make me laugh but these especially.

[bouquin]

Oh yes, Candide made me laugh too!

[Virgil]

Lucky Jim ~ Kingsly Amis

Nice Work ~ David Lodge

Try them, you won't be dissappointed. Let me know if you are.

[Scheherazade]

The Diary of a Nobody George and Weedon Grossmith (http://www.amazon.com/Diary-Nobody-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0192833278)

[Pen&Ink]

-Eoin Colfer's books(Artemis Fowl series, Supernaturalist, Half moon, Wish List)
-Dianna Wynne Jones. (Howl's Moving Castle, and all the Chrestomanci books, except the newest because i havn't had a chance to read it yet...)
-A Series of Unfortunate Events really made me laugh. It's so random:lol:
-I am reading Sense and Sensability and its made me laugh a few times.
- I am positive there are more, these are just the ones that come to mind.

[Laindessiel]

Ladybird books always take the wits out of me. Now that I'm much older, more mature (okaaaayyy...), I finally appreciate them for what they're worth. When I was a kid, a toddler - 2 to 3 yrs. old - I'd see reading as a chore and didn't like books that much, even if they were covered in attractive colorful pictures and bright colors but now I've came back and read them again and the books were just hilarious! I can't figure out why I disliked reading them in the past and now it's come to haunt me (we still keep those books, after 15 years) but I now appreciate them. (I can see those puppies and dogs and cats staring at me...) They make me roll on the floor laughing and it generally makes me feel good.

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/s2s/latest/backyard1/images/ladybug-top.jpg

Thanks, Buggy!

[aeroport]

Well, Right Ho, Jeeves was hilarious.
Also, James's The American was actually quite funny in many places until it neared the end.

[toni]

Any Oscar Wilde play can make anyone laugh! especially the Importance of Being Earnest.. Don't get me started on the "Bunburying!!"

[dramasnot6]

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy! I have never laughed so much for one book

[Jean-Baptiste]

Mark Twain has written some incredibly funny essays, if that counts. "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" I had to read in installments, so as to avoid asphyxiating myself with laughter. The same goes for "How to Make History Dates Stick."

Ulysses is actually quite funny, and not just here and there funny. There are jokes everywhere in that book, very funny jokes--if one cares to read each passage fifteen times.

[Guzmán]

Im only going to list some of those I found funny in a laugh out loud sort of way:

- "Three men in a boat" - Jerome K. Jerome
- "The importance of being Ernest" - Oscar Wilde
- Any from the Blandings series by P.G. Wodehouse

What do you think? Any more to add to the list?

[papayahed]

Confederacy of Dunces
The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett

[manolia]

Definetely "Dirk Gently" by Douglas Adams
and "Men at arms", "Fifth Elephant", "The Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett

[Guzmán]

Confederacy of Dunces

It had its moments for me, but i didnt find it hilarious. Its funny in a satirical sort of way. Still I enjoyed it a lot.

[Black roses]

Hogfather, Thud, Jingo, and Interesting Times by Terry Prachett

[papayahed]

It had its moments for me, but i didnt find it hilarious. Its funny in a satirical sort of way. Still I enjoyed it a lot.


That's true, I still laugh out loud when I think of the spoiled milk , alert the dairy. haha

[subterranean]

Beside Wilde's Importance....., I should add Green's For Whom The Bell Chimes.

[botkin]

"Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett comes to mind.

[bazarov]

Master and Margarita was very funny, and especially Don Quijote, that knight was hilarious.

[bouquin]

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bridget Jones's Diary (1 & 2)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

[Niamh]

Utterly Monkey- Nick Laird

[masterlibrarian]

Any work of Raymond Queneau
I personally suggest "Zazie in the Metro", "The Blue Flowers" and "We always treat the women too well"
He's the most funny author that i had ever read

[ennison]

Neil Munro - The Para Handy stories.
Stephen Leacock - anything
Vladimir voinovich - The Adventures of Private Chonkin

[Thatch]

O Henry, a personal favorite for a laugh. :nod:

[Nick Rubashov]

the funniest books I've ever read would have to be Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. They get funnier every time I read them.

[Granny5]

When I was very young, my brother gave me a book that he thought was very funny. And it was. It's the funniest, silliest book I've ever read. The writing was not good and the humor was pretty juvenile, but I laughed all the way through the book. It was The Horse is Dead by Robert Klane.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

What was the funniest book you ever read?

[BibliophileTRJ]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Insanely funny; but you have to be in the right frame of mind to read it (or have a twisted sense of humor)..... I've recommended it to a number of people who just couldn't get through it, and thought me crazy for loving it.

[Niamh]

The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy
Blart(kids book that had me in stitches on a train once. Lots of people staring.)

[PrinceMyshkin]

Catch 22 comes to mind, and in dryer, more subtle vein, anything by Wilfred Sheed, and the two books of short stories and the first novel by J.F. Powers.

[Virgil]

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Nice Work by David Lodge
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley

Of course i'm reading Don Quixote right now and it is hilarious. Just check out the Don Quixote Reading Group thread here on Lit Net.

There ought to be more but I can't think of any of the top of my head.
edit:
Oh of course. I just read this a few months ago:
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

And Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

[Silvia]

Barney's version by Mordecai Richler....I truely loved it....it is not that it makes you laugh out loud, but it surely makes you smile:D :D

[Poetess]

Complete Nonsense for Edward Lear was funny to me.. and a complete nonsense indeed

[satyrane]

Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome).

[BlueSkyGB]

Small Gods...Terry Pratchett.....:lol: :D :)

[barbara0207]

To my mind, Douglas Adams is the funniest writer ever. Too bad he is dead.

Once I heard him read from his works in Heidelberg. That was even funnier because he could do the voices of Marvin and the stupid killing machine brilliantly. He also read from 'Last Chance To See', adding witty comments. I know there is a recording of that lecture (CD), but I can't lay my hands on it. Can anyone help?

[Granny5]

To my mind, Douglas Adams is the funniest writer ever. Too bad he is dead.

Once I heard him read from his works in Heidelberg. That was even funnier because he could do the voices of Marvin and the stupid killing machine brilliantly. He also read from 'Last Chance To See', adding witty comments. I know there is a recording of that lecture (CD), but I can't lay my hands on it. Can anyone help?


Barbara0207, if you go to Amazon.co.uk and search for Douglas Adams click on shop and then click on The Hitckhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a price for the audio book will come up. Don't know if it's the lecture you were talking about.
Hope this helps.;)

[bibliophile190]

I also laughed my way through Don Quixote. It's just so funny, albeit a bit dry.

[amanda_isabel]

funnies book i think was sex slave: how to find one, how to be one.

not a lot of thought into it. but amusing enough.

[formality hater]

I really enjoyed reading Misery Guts by Morris Gleitzman.A little childish but very funny!:)

[Pensive]

Okay, I have a strange sense of homour. So for me they would be:

Pride and Prejudice - Mr. Bennet's wit and satire! Black humour I like.
Mort - Ironic, I found it a kind of funny

And perhaps some books from Harry Potter series. I also found many funny bits in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings but I wouldn't call all these books basically funny. They are dark too.

And yes, George Bernard Shaw's plays. My favourite kind of humour!

[AuntShecky]

Wow. This opens up really good possibilities for many posts.
For general humor (non-fiction): Don't forget Thurber, Benchley, Frank Sullivan and contemporary humorists
Woody Allen,Russell Baker (also editor of humor anthologies), George Carlin (yes he writes books!), and
David Sedaris. Ironically, earlier this year David was in hot water because the exaggeration necessary for humor writing caused some spoilsports to say it was "fiction."

And in that fiction category -- the master of course is Mark Twain.
More modern comic authors? Thomas Pynchon. Peter DeVries. Elliott Baker. (Remember that last one cause
I spent precious minutes on an Internet search. I was trying to get the title of his book that takes place on a US Navy ship in WWII. Maybe somebody can help me out here. Anybody know?)
I left off the authors whose books make you laugh except that they are unintentionally funny. Otherwise I'd be posting all day! But Twain really did a number on his contemporary, James Fennimore Cooper.

http://journals.aol.com/auntshecky711/aunt-sheckys-news-without-clues/

[barbara0207]

Barbara0207, if you go to Amazon.co.uk and search for Douglas Adams click on shop and then click on The Hitckhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a price for the audio book will come up. Don't know if it's the lecture you were talking about.
Hope this helps.;)

I've got some audiobooks of the series, but Amazon hasn't got the lecture. But thanks all the same for answering, granny. :) (BTW, just call me Barbara. :D )

[NickAdams]

Molloy= Samuel Beckett.
I described to my wife as Woody Allen meets William Faulkner.
I don't know the accuracy of that, but you use what you know.

[Bakiryu]

Neil Gaiman: most of his books crack me up. Specially Good Omens and Anansi Boys (The chapter with the lime was priceless.) Most Prattchet books are quite funny too!

[applepie]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Insanely funny; but you have to be in the right frame of mind to read it (or have a twisted sense of humor)..... I've recommended it to a number of people who just couldn't get through it, and thought me crazy for loving it.

I have to agree with you Biblio. This was the funniest book I've ever read. I'm actually getting ready to read it again to put some laughter back into my days. I've been feeling far to serious lately. My husband doesn't get my love of the book since he was one who couldn't make it through it. He tends to think it is nonsense, and I'm laughing at so much of the book while reading him funny passages. He just ignores me now when I have it out.

[SleepyWitch]

Small Gods...Terry Pratchett.....:lol: :D :)

all Discworld novels! especially the older ones. the new ones are cool too and I like them better on the whole, but the older ones are full of puns and thinly-veiled irony about English/ British culture

[SirJazzHands]

For me it would probably be Don DeLillo's White Noise (even if I hated a lot of the book, the funny parts were hysterical), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and.. I have to admit The Adventures of Tom Sawyer made me laugh out loud a few times as well.

[StayGolden]

Definitely Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Dark Muse]

"Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett comes to mind.

That is the first thing I thought of, but in addition I would also say

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea

Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins

The Legend of Nightfall by Mickey Zucker Reichert

[grace86]

Lysistrata - the women try to stop the war by not sleeping with their husbands.
Don Quixote - as mentioned previously. This book is great.

[Dark Muse]

I found Shakespeare's Love Labors Lost a delightfully funny play

[capek]

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Probably the funniest book I've ever read.

[Niamh]

Hitchhikers!:thumbs_up

[higley]

Yes Hitchhiker's was really funny.

Has anyone else read or seen "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged" by the Reduced Shakespeare Company? Not literature particularly, but it really made me laugh a lot.

[rmd]

Morte D'Urban by American writer J. F. Powers is very funny. It isn't a novel, however, that many people have heard of apparently. It received the National Book Award way back in 1962

The novel is about a Catholic priest, Father Urban, and his dealings with other priests in the Order of St. Clement. Father Urban is ambitious, which isn't perhaps the best attribute for a priest to have. He gets banished, so to speak, to a small parish in rural Minnesota. Power's sense of humor is dry, but he tells a very good story.

Though not a prolific writer, Powers also wrote short stories and one other novel.

[Maida]

Youth in Revolt. C.D. Payne

[FenellaLovell]

Hello everyone!

93

Name 4 pieces of writing that made you laugh. :)

The Rape of the Lock (Alexander Pope)
Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
The Adventure of the Kind Mr. Smith (W. J. Locke)
He Went Out to Buy a Rhine (Robert Graves)

93 93/93
FenellaLovell

[Oomoo]

The Possessed

[Nossa]

I totally second The Rape of the Lock.
There's another poem that I read in one of the poetry books I have, and it goes like this...

There's the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that's unafraid,
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love of a Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another....:D

[Annamariah]

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Le Petit Nicolas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé)

I'm sure there are some more, but those are the two that first comes to my mind.

[Virgil]

Don Quixote!! What a blast.

[NickAdams]

Molloy - Samuel Beckett
The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway

I've been having trouble with a fourth. I'll second Don Quixote!

[PeterL]

Bored of the Rings. It is advised that one not eat or drink while reading it, because of the risk of choking.

[nathank]

Here's six:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -Adams
Sotweed Factor - Barth
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Mason and Dixon - Pynchon
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov

[livelaughlove]

Don Quijote definitely.

[loggats]

Vile Bodies makes me laugh out loud and so has some Pratchett.

I didn't really find Carroll's Alice stuff funny.

[AuntShecky]

Nick mentioned Molloy. He is right, that opening novel of Beckett's trilogy is very funny (in the way Waiting for Godot is funny.) But at the very same time, his work as a whole is melancholy, "nihilisitic." To be able to pull this off without depressing the entire world is a rare gift, indeed.

I see the same thing in Mark Twain, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kurt Vonnegut.

[karo]

Matt Beaumont: e. - a novel of liars, lunch and lost knickers
Matt Beaumont (again): Staying Alive
Tom Robbins: Fierce invalids home from hot climates
Maria Dahvanah Headley: The year of yes

[kratsayra]

Stuff by Nick Hornby usually makes me laugh out loud. Some of his books annoy me, but even then I usually laugh.

[chasestalling]

sogladatay

[ThePianoMan]

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Cat's Crade by Kurt Vonnegut

[papayahed]

Confederacy of dunces

[Virgil]

Lucky Jim by Kingsly Amis is hilarious.

Hey wait a minute, we've had the subject of this thread before. I remember bringing Lucky Jim up. While I'm at it, books by David Lodge are extremely funny too.

[motherhubbard]

I got a real kick out of the Canterbury Tails

[trippy star]

I found The God Delusion hilarious.

[Dark Muse]

Top of the list would be Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman

in addtion, just about everything I have read by Tom Robbins, though I would have to say I think Still Life With Woodpecker, and Skinny Legs and all thus far were my favorites.

And I thought that the Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea was pretty funny.

The Legend of Nightfall, my all time favorite fantasy book by Mickey Zucker Reichert also had a touch of comedy to it.

[Orpheus]

Candide
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Cat's Cradle

Wow! I just realized that most of the stuff I read is not all that humorous. That's going to change.

[Sir Bartholomew]

Catch-22 (Heller)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
most of Jane Austen's are fun
Pale Fire (Nabokov) made me laugh when I realized in the end it was all hoax

[PabloQ]

Anything by P G Wodehouse makes me laugh, especially the Jeeves and Wooster books. In fact I am reading Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves at the moment and it's wonderful,Light as a soufflé but witty and entertaining. If you haven't read him I strongly recommend him to you. If everyone read Wodehouse there would be no depression in the world!

Good call. As I was reading this string and was assembling my list I overlooked Wodehouse. Jeeves is a hoot.

[Savarucci]

Mark Twain has written some incredibly funny essays, if that counts. "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" I had to read in installments, so as to avoid asphyxiating myself with laughter. The same goes for "How to Make History Dates Stick."

I'll have to look those up, thank you! Read this one if you haven't already. http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/twain.html
He wrote instructions on how to rescue a lady from a burning building. :lol: It's absolutely hysterical.

Let's see, books...
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which everybody and their grandmother has mentioned already. XD
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Sir Percy in his fop-mode is priceless, as is Marguerite's encounter with this one disgusting innkeeper and the snuff/black pepper incident. (Never snort pepper, folks.)
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I didn't care for Holden as a person, so for me this book was mostly a good source of schadenfreude. I'm a horrible person. :thumbs_up
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler. A former derelict tries to get his life back in order.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Scout is just too funny. XD
Hamlet, Shakespeare. Hamlet's one-liners are pretty good.

[bonnie banks]

Three men in a boat, jerome k jerome
Catch 22, Heller
Gridlock and another set in Australia [can`t remember title] Ben Elton
Gormenghast 1&2, Mervyn Peake

[ben.!]

The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Or any of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, he's just so funny.

[hollywoodkid]

Ah, my first post - how very exciting!

The Diary Of A Nobody - actually made me hoot with laughter
Twelfth Night - Malvolio stuff is brilliant
Brideshead Revisted - Anthony Blanche is so funny. Every word he says makes me giggle naughtily.

However, Catch 22 just wound me up. By the end of the book i thought i was going mad - i used to hurl it across the room in sheer frustration!

[PabloQ]

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
James Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses -- Mark Twain
Sick Puppy -- Carl Hiasson
Cat's Cradle -- Kurt Vonnegut
Second the vote for P. G. Wodehouse
A Confederacy of Dunces too.
Gulliver's Travels -- Swift

[sixsmith]

What are some of the funniest books people have read?

"Portnoy's Complaint" (Philip Roth). Immature, misogynistic but undeniably hilarious and Roth's breakout book.

"Catch 22" (Jospeh Heller) - Satire at its best. A work of comic genius.

"The Information" (Martin Amis) - Delicious skewering of the literary life and the envy and pettiness it can engender.


Thoughts??

[kevinthediltz]

"A modest proposal" made me crack up. But only because alot of people in the class I read it in didnt realize that is was satire.

[Lokasenna]

It might not be a great work of high literature, but Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is probably the funniest thing ever written.

For something a bit more intellectual, then I'd go for Evelyn Waugh any day: something like Scoop or Decline and Fall.

[Mariamosis]

I have not read all of the posts so I may be repeating here.

I found myself laughing many times in many of Kurt Vonnegut's books. (with such characters as Kilgore Trout)

Also, the way Vladimir Nabokov addressed the reader in Lolita (ex: assuming I was a bald man) ... very humorous

[higley]

Lately I've been digging around for Bill Bryson, who wrote "Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself." The humor is so tongue-in-cheek, with that touch of self-deprecation, and perfect phrasing.

[mollie]

George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody was utterly hilarious.

[Tsuyoiko]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and sequels by Douglas Adams

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

[Wilde woman]

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - the Rape of the Sabine scene with Alfred. :lol:

And, as many have mentioned, Hitchhiker's Guide.

Anyone read David Sedaris?

[dafydd manton]

Neil Munro - The Para Handy stories.
Stephen Leacock - anything
Vladimir voinovich - The Adventures of Private Chonkin

Unbelievably, I'd forgotten the Para Handy stories. Thanks for reminding me!!

[Qaphqa]

Many of the stories in the Decameron are quite funny.

[annatak]

I've absolutely laughed out loud through most of Mil Millington's Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About. There's a taste on his website: http://milmillington.com/

Even smiling as I post this...

[Stella Mica]

LOVE the nonfiction writing of Mark Twain - it almost makes you ashamed of being so amused, he assaults you in a funny way. I don't have the title, but one of his pieces about a poem for dead children published in the newspaper is extremely funny. (Sounds awful, I know, but try to read it without laughing!)

More commonly, My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

[WICKES]

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh is easily the funniest book I have ever read

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is also very funny

Aldous Huxley is witty, but not laugh out loud. For me P G Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh are the masters of comedy.

[Emil Miller]

Decline and Fall is incredibly funny but its equal is another of Waugh's books i.e A Handful of Dust, although I sometimes wonder if one has to be English to fully appreciate the humour as nobody sends his countrymen up as funnily as Waugh. And the amazing thing is that the English really are like that.

[ClaesGefvenberg]

Im glad this thread got revived. :thumbs_up

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
James Herriot - Vet in a spin.
Jerome K Jerome - Three men in a boat.

/Claes

[sublooney]

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart is fantastic.

Any novel by Richard Russo, though Nobody's Fool stands out for me as the funniest book and movie.

Mark Twain short stories are unbelievably funny. Check out The Watch, and/or How I Edited An Agricultural Paper


Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You by Christopher Durang is hysterical, though not for everyone. I found all his plays very funny.

non fiction--Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods has some very funny moments.

[DisPater]

The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hašek --- probably the funniest book ever written.

and

the writings of Ilf and Petrov - The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf

[crystalmoonshin]

I also laughed my way through Don Quixote. It's just so funny, albeit a bit dry.

Actually, I find Quixote's adventures crazy and funny but it's kinda sad towards the end, when he regained his senses and died.

I'm currently reading "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. It's a book for young children but I got intrigued after a friend told me it's a good read. It's pretty funny, with all the puns and word plays.

But the one book that never fails to make me laugh would have to be "The Bunbury Book of Limericks" by The Reverend Septimus Bunbury. Anyone heard of this book?


Neil Gaiman: most of his books crack me up. Specially Good Omens and Anansi Boys (The chapter with the lime was priceless.) Most Prattchet books are quite funny too!

The only book by Neil Gaiman that I have read is 'Anansi Boys" and i find it hilarious! I'm looking forward to reading more of his works. I like his smooth prose.

[jeanjeni2003]

Funniest book I ever read: Anything by Terry Pratchett, most especially Guards!Guards!
When you read his entire Discworld series, the satire so eclipses Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guides that I wonder why people even bother comparing them. Also, Twain's books are still hilarious and as pointed now as they were when originally written. (An unpublished story by Mark Twain will appear in The Strand Magazine this Spring for you die-hards out there.)

April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. -- Mark Twain

[Stargazer86]

I don't typically go for "funny" stuff, but David Sedaris and Frank McCourt definately make me laugh

Oh and when I was at the bookstore the other day, I saw this featured on one of the counters. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. O_o
Any thoughts on classics being turned into zombie stories?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y157/CelticFeary/35381701.jpg

[meh!]

Most anything by Evelyn Waugh
Most anything by Ian Banks (crow road, wasp factory specifically)

[prendrelemick]

I've laughed out loud in public twice when reading.

once on a bus, reading Hitler and my part in his downfall by Spike Milligan.

and once in a cafe, reading Unreliable memiors by Clive James.

[blackbird_9]

Is it just me or did anyone find the fist one or two chapters of Wuthering Heights hilarious? Lockwood's cheekyness at the start of the novel had my laughing out loud which caused the other starbucks goers to stare at me like I was nuts.

Oh, and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Brilliant, intricate, and well crafted all while being friggin hilarious.

[Wilde woman]

Is it just me or did anyone find the fist one or two chapters of Wuthering Heights hilarious? Lockwood's cheekyness at the start of the novel had my laughing out loud which caused the other starbucks goers to stare at me like I was nuts.

Yes, I'm glad someone else finds the opening sequence funny. That was what drew me into the book.

I also found Apuleius' The Golden *ss quite funny. It's a Latin novel about a main character who is obsessed with magic; while performing a spell, he accidentally turns himself into a donkey. :lol:

[JBI]

I don't typically go for "funny" stuff, but David Sedaris and Frank McCourt definately make me laugh

Oh and when I was at the bookstore the other day, I saw this featured on one of the counters. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. O_o
Any thoughts on classics being turned into zombie stories?

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y157/CelticFeary/35381701.jpg

seems a bit of a culturally bankruptcy to me, - like they actually stocked it on the shelves, meaning thought it should be taken seriously.

[the dude]

One of the funniest books I have ever read was Oscar Wilde's play, The Importance of Being Earnest.

Also, PJ O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Kind of falters toward the end though in terms of hilarity.

I'm currently reading The Master and Margarita which has been funnier than I'd expected. I actually laughed out loud in the coffee shop after reading an encounter in which Ivan barges in on a nude woman bathing and, out of embarrassment and surprise, shouts, "Ah! Wanton creature!"

[DanielBenoit]

Along with many of the ones mentioned above, I must say that A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius made me lol many times over. Its cruel irony can make you both feel like crying and laughing at the same time. A truly bipolar book.

[Eryk]

Catch 22 and God Knows by Joseph Heller

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

The Sterile Cuckoo by John Nickols

[Idril]

A couple more to add would be The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and it's sequel, Pretender to the Throne: The Further Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich. The second contains one of my favorite lines, "Soviet Power and arrested for no reason, absurd!" These books contain some of the greatest black humour I've read, many of those Soviet authors had wonderfully dark senses of humour.

[Lynne50]

I laughed out loud when reading Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. The scene in the barbershop was hilarious.

[dfloyd]

Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews by Fielding, Scoop and Black Mischief by Waugh, novels of P. G. Wodehouse, Huckleberry Finn and others by Twain, and many others.

[mona amon]

Yes, Mark Twain and P.G. Wodehouse. And Austen. The Brontes' books are not exactly 'funny' but they have some very funny passages.

Ulysses was hilarious.

Edit: How could I forget Dickens? Flora's and Mrs Nickleby's speeches are among the funniest things I've ever read.

[Snowqueen]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw. Even the name “Chocolate-cream soldier” made me laugh.

[ForKnowledge]

tropic of cancer was funny especially the part about the bidet in the whorehouse.

[Farah786]

Catcher in the Rye.....is an excellent read, however, it certainly didn't make me laugh.....it made me feel sad, very sad.....its centred around the young man coming to terms with his growing pains of life, and mostly his grieving over the loss of his younger brother.......which seems to go on and on forever....

[Rogers_68]

Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Parts of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

[George_Berkeley]

The Misanthrope by Moliere
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Look Me in the Eye by Christopher Robison
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
Candide by Voltaire

That's more than a few, but you get the idea.

[Paulclem]

seems a bit of a culturally bankruptcy to me, - like they actually stocked it on the shelves, meaning thought it should be taken seriously.

Have you seen the book of Zombie Haiku?

http://www.zombiehaiku.com/

http://www.zombiehaiku.com/pdfs/ZombieHaikuSamplePages.pdf

I'm amused, though I wouldn't buy it.

[Madame X]

An essay, rather, not a novel; George Eliot’s Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (http://webscript.princeton.edu/~mnoble/eliot-texts/eliot-sillynovels.html) cracks me up every time.

Extrait du texte:

“The most pitiable of all silly novels by lady novelists are what we may call the oracular species–novels intended to expound the writer's religious, philosophical, or moral theories. There seems to be a notion abroad among women, rather akin to the superstition that the speech and actions of idiots are inspired, and that the human being most entirely exhausted of common sense is the fittest vehicle of revelation. To judge from their writings, there are certain ladies who think that an amazing ignorance, both of science and of life, is the best possible qualification for forming an opinion on the knottiest moral and speculative questions. Apparently, their recipe for solving all such difficulties is something like this:–Take a woman's head, stuff it with a smattering of philosophy and literature chopped small, and with false notions of society baked hard, let it hang over a desk a few hours every day, and serve up hot in feeble English, when not required. You will rarely meet with a lady novelist of the oracular class who is diffident of her ability to decide on theological questions,–who has any suspicion that she is not capable of discriminating with the nicest accuracy between the good and evil in all church parties,–who does not see precisely how it is that men have gone wrong hitherto,–and pity philosophers in general that they have not had the opportunity of consulting her.”

Ahhh, sweet pedantry…

[Babbalanja]

Herman Melville's sense of humor is never more evident than in this passage from his extravagant satire Mardi: And A Voyage Thither, where the protagonist tries to pass himself off as the demigod Taji to the not-as-credulous-as-he'd-imagined natives of Mardi. Think Kevin Kline's Otto from Fish Called Wanda in the South Seas:

But plucking up heart of grace, I crossed my cutlass on my chest, and
reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their High Mightinesses thus.
"Men of Mardi, I come from the sun. When this morning it rose and
touched the wave, I pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and
hither sailed before its level rays. I am Taji."

More would have been added, but I paused for the effect of my
exordium.

Stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed.

Emboldened, I returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress
them with just such impressions of me and mine, as I deemed
desirable. The gentle Yillah was a seraph from the sun; Samoa I had
picked off a reef in my route from that orb; and as for the Skyeman,
why, as his name imported, he came from above. In a word, we were all
strolling divinities.

Advancing toward the Chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now
addressed me as follows:--"Is this indeed Taji? he, who according to
a tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? But that
period is yet unexpired. What bring'st thou hither then, Taji, before
thy time? Thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when
thou dwelt among our sires. But wherefore comest thou, Taji? Truly,
thou wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have
plenty of gods besides thee. But comest thou to fight?--We have
plenty of spears, and desire not thine. Comest thou to dwell?--Small
are the houses of Mardi. Or comest thou to fish in the sea? Tell us,
Taji."

Now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing
a curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi-
gods when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the
familiar manner in which these kings address the immortals. Much I
mourned that I had not previously studied better my part, and learned
the precise nature of my previous existence in the land.

But nothing like carrying it bravely.

"Attend. Taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. And
Taji will depart when it suits him. Ask the shades of your sires
whether Taji thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into
his presence in the land of spirits. No. Taji spread the banquet. He
removed their mantles. He kindled a fire to drive away the damp. He
said not, 'Come you to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell?
or come you to fish in the sea?' Go to, then, kings of Mardi!"

Regards,

Istvan

[The Comedian]

David James Duncan's The River Why made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

[JhKreisler]

I know literature is sometimes assumed to be dead serious, but there are a few works and authors that prove the opposite by writing a higly literary book with a very funny side. I'm reading the drama-works of Harold Pinter and it's really humoristicly written

Do you guys know any good books that also made you laugh?

[dfloyd]

Mark Twain
Moliere
Aristophnaes
Shakespeare
Max Beerbohm
Evelyn Waugh
P. G. Wodehouse and one could go on ad infinitum.

[Barbarous]

defintely go with Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, the funniest books I have ever read!

[NickAdams]

Molloy - Samuel Beckett

[Dogbrick]

The late, great Douglas Adams.....

[Babak Movahed]

I know literature is sometimes assumed to be dead serious, but there are a few works and authors that prove the opposite by writing a higly literary book with a very funny side. I'm reading the drama-works of Harold Pinter and it's really humoristicly written

Do you guys know any good books that also made you laugh?



Holy crap that is the first Pinter comment I've seen on these forums, The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker are amazing and quite funny.

Also I thought Candide by Voltaire, The Doctor is Sick by Burgess, The Fur Hat by Voinovich and Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut were all pretty funny.

[BienvenuJDC]

L Frank Baum
The Oz Series

[blp]

Agree on Breakfast of Champions, Douglas Adams and Molloy.

It's quite rare that I find a book really funny. But actually, War and Peace has been making me laugh quite a bit at times. American Psycho did too.

[hellsapoppin]

Practical Jokes With Artemus Ward by Mark Twain. Funninest book I ever read in my life!