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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??
"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.
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.
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
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.
George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody was utterly hilarious.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and sequels by Douglas Adams
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol
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?
Unbelievably, I'd forgotten the Para Handy stories. Thanks for reminding me!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ennison
Many of the stories in the Decameron are quite funny.
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...
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Actually, I find Quixote's adventures crazy and funny but it's kinda sad towards the end, when he regained his senses and died.Quote:
Originally Posted by bibliophile190
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?
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakiryu
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
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/y15...y/35381701.jpg
Most anything by Evelyn Waugh
Most anything by Ian Banks (crow road, wasp factory specifically)
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.
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.
Yes, I'm glad someone else finds the opening sequence funny. That was what drew me into the book.Quote:
Originally Posted by blackbird_9
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:
seems a bit of a culturally bankruptcy to me, - like they actually stocked it on the shelves, meaning thought it should be taken seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stargazer86
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!"
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.
Catch 22 and God Knows by Joseph Heller
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
The Sterile Cuckoo by John Nickols
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.
I laughed out loud when reading Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain. The scene in the barbershop was hilarious.
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.
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.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw. Even the name “Chocolate-cream soldier” made me laugh.
tropic of cancer was funny especially the part about the bidet in the whorehouse.
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....
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
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.
Have you seen the book of Zombie Haiku?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
http://www.zombiehaiku.com/
http://www.zombiehaiku.com/pdfs/Zomb...amplePages.pdf
I'm amused, though I wouldn't buy it.
An essay, rather, not a novel; George Eliot’s Silly Novels by Lady Novelists 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…
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