Neil Gaiman made me laugh and gave me suspense feeling :yikes:
I really love his novels^^
Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn is a good one too!
I really liked it as well :blush:
so i hope you'll love them too^^
Printable View
Neil Gaiman made me laugh and gave me suspense feeling :yikes:
I really love his novels^^
Mark Twain's Huckelberry Finn is a good one too!
I really liked it as well :blush:
so i hope you'll love them too^^
Anything written by Danny Wallace generally has me laughing my head off. :nod:
Confederacy of Dunces
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Catch-22
Don Quixote
and just because it was surprisingly so... Lolita
and check out some of Larkin's poetry like this:
This Be The Verse-
They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself
I must say, at risk of being slated for it, I have always found Terry Pratchett very amusing. To the point of laughing and people staring at me. Mostly due to his sarcastic take on things, and a rather darker humour as his books progressed, along with his alziemers.
However the book to make me laugh the most, was actually not even fiction. Eats, Shoots and Leaves - wonderful. I'm always looking for new funny books, old or new, for children or not and this thread has definately given me some new ideas in some places I didn't even assume to find humour.
Terry Pratchett, especially in English - his ironic jokes aren't an easy thing to translate.
Marki Twain's Huckelberry Finn is one of my very first books and I guess is the reason why this genre became my favorite and why I love Dickens
Totally agree. A confederacy of Dunces is my top pick. I don't remember anything else funnier.Quote:
Originally Posted by rufustfirefly
I remember reading aloud funny parts of "catcher in the rye" to my sister and making her laugh too.
John Irving's "prayer for Owen Meany" and Booth Tarkington's Alice Adams made me laugh too. Both novels are poignant, pitiful but at times skockingly humorous.
agree:shocked:Quote:
Originally Posted by D.S. Poorman
Yeah, Caspian, when I was reading Lolita, within a dozen pages I was just shaking my head at the hilarity of that dry sardonic self-deprecation and parenthetic boorish snobbery of Humbert Humbert as humor was the last thing I expected to discover. I found myself often thinking that I aught not read the book at the local coffee house because someone might think "That guy's being awfully obnoxious laughing every 30 seconds!" And then they'd get nosy and work in a glimpse at the cover and think "Oh, he thinks that book about the 40 year old man screwing the 12 year old girl is funny? What a black hearted cretin!" Anyhow, certainly a brilliant book from so many facets of scrutiny. The language perhaps being penultimate in the estimation after the entire inspiration for the plot itself.
You sound so fresh about it. Have you read it recently? It had been long time since I've read it. I can't even recall in what language I've read it; russian or english? I agree with you. I had a lot of laughing too and was astonished when I caught myself being on the side of humberto humbert at most times and not hate him. That's only book I've read from Nabakov. I wonder if his other works are any closer to 'lolita"'s language.Quote:
Originally Posted by D.S. Poorman
So are you located on the Caspian Sea? Neither here nor there but just wondering about your user name and your avatar looks like the tideland of some large body of water...
I guess it's been a couple of years since I read Lolita so I would consider that recent relatively speaking. No doubt I read it in English as I wouldn't have made it very far in Russian, haha! However the book made quite an impression on me so certain aspects won't be slipping into the undertow of time gone by. I think Nabokov did us a favor (certainly intensional regarding the structure of the book itself) by introducing poor old H.H. when he is already locked up and then flashing back to the story of his downfall. That way, knowing he and his sickness are contained from respectable society, we are free and guiltless to feel however we might care to feel about him and his compulsion for "nymphets". Thus, if you find you sympathize with any particular cognition H.H. has (other than pedophilia of course) it is a harmless endorsement because he's rotting in his jail cell (or was it a mental hospital, well, nonetheless...) I've meant to pick up some other Nabokov but have failed to do so as yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JhKreisler
Pinter's The Caretaker is on my immediate reading list. Right now I'm on Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King where there are a lot of funny scenes and descriptions!
Sue Townsend's books make me laugh.
I agree with Terry Pratchett. his Discworld series of books are very entertaining.
I think it was jail and he dies there(if I remember correctly)Quote:
Originally Posted by D.S. Poorman
You're right. and I think if it wasn't for its amusing language it would be impossible to read Lolita. Though it didn't make it any less disturbing, Some of those disturbing scenes are just carved in my memory, I just can't forget. Lolita is one of those books I will never read again.
You guessed my location correctly. My avatar is doing great. :nod: I probably stuck with it just for one reason -to avoid to be related to Prince Narnia. :biggrin5:
Evelyn Waugh for me, closely followed by P G Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde. Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall is the funniest novel in the English languge.
Here's a challenge- name me a funny German writer!
Erich Kaestner who wrote 'Emil and the Detectives' among others.Quote:
Originally Posted by WICKES
Thomas Mann is also very funny in 'Felix Krull'
Incidentally, Wodehouse is just as funny in German as in English.
There are a lot of great writers mentioned in here - great writers have a way of being humorous without trying, it's just natural.
I picked up "how i became a famous novelist" by steve hely - because, you know, i'm awesome. i sat down at barnes and noble (they didnt have the book at the library) and started reading - there was a quote a few pages in (spoiler, stop reading now if you're not interested) ---- (this is not a direct quote btw, im going from drunken memory)
"the professors, instead of liking perfectly good books like moby dick, where the ****ing whale eats everybody, pretended to like pretentious bull**** like boring middlemarch and jerk off ulysses"
i decided to buy it right then, im a huuge moby dick fan
anyway, the book itself, while it has a ton of "characters" - id say it lacks character, in the end, you're left feeling a bit empty - but ****, it's a god damned funny book.
if funny is enough for you, pick it up - great travel book
"Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis. Brilliant laugh-out-loud stuff. Few morsels:
[upon waking up hungover] "His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum."
"Each of you belongs to the two great classes of mankind, people I like and people I don't."
[inner thoughts of protagonist] "What would I do afterwards? Teach in a school? On dear no. Go to London and get a job in an office. What job? Whose office? Shut up."
"The piece was recognizable to Dixon as some skein of untiring facetiousness by filthy Mozart."
My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell.
Warning - This book is Laugh Out Loud funny: do not read it on Public Transport - you will get funny looks from your fellow passengers and maybe will fall off your seat. (She speaks from personal experience.)
I am so glad several others included Confederacy of Dunces by John Toole Kennedy. It's my favorite book of all time. I fell in love with the characters and it is very funny.
(for a truly funny book, it's ironic...the story of how it got published is an actual book in itself. Terribly sad story...the author committed suicide years before his mother finally got the book published).
While these are not novels but personal essays, I would say that David Sedaris books are laugh out loud funny as well.
I am off to locate some of the other recommendations to pile onto my summer reading pile! Thanks.
As previously stated, anything by Vonnegut is always going to be filled with some fairly absurd and hilarious moments; Bluebeard is often overlooked but I greatly enjoyed that one.
A satirist that doesn't get nearly enough recognition would be Ambrose Bierce. Do yourself a favor and try and find The Devil's Dictionary at a library. He redefined almost every word in your standard dictionary and put a very cynical and often times very hilarious spin on its definition. Some examples being;
Admirability-My kind of ability, as opposed to your kind of ability
and
Ocean-A large body of water taking up two thirds of a world made for man, who has no gills.
on the road by kerouac and cat's cradle by vonnegut had me laughing most of the time
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Lucky Jim By Kingsley Amis always has me in stitches.
Douglas Adams, of course. And Wodehouse. And Leacock. I'm also fond of Dave Barry.
And "1066 And All That". I forget who wrote it. Is it still in print? It was a hilarious spoof history of England.
Thank You, Jeeves by Wodehouse was the most recent. I laughed so much at one point my parents got annoyed!
Far From the Madding Crowd just made me laugh a very little too, which is odd because Hardy usually produces the opposite effect. I'm sure it was a one off though.
Other authors have been Shakespeare, Kesey and I can't think of anymore.
I thought On the Road was pretty hilarious
Tim Dorsey's Serge Storm books, while not literature are books that are so outrageous I can't help but laugh out loud.
My first post on this board. I'll try to make it reasonably interesting.
I think the most I've laughed recently was during a second reading of Stella Gibbons' 'Cold Comfort Farm'. I was almost in tears at some of Gibbons' one liners and intentionally purple prose.
I always remember Evelyn Waugh making me chortle as well. I haven't read much by him recently, mind.
The book of Acts.
In chapter 19, verses 13 thru 16 we get a little exorcist story which always makes me laugh:
Some who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Yahshua over those who were demon-possessed.
They would say, 'In the name of Yahshua whom Saul preaches, I command you to come out.'
Seven sons of [a certain priest] were doing this.
The evil spirit answered them, 'Yahshua I know, and Saul I know about, but who are you?'
Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all.
He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
Hamlet telling Polonius that his beard is too long always gets me as well. I can't remember exactly which act or scene that is in.
I think it's when the players are performing something from classical antiquity shortly after their arrival and Polonius complains about its length. Hamlet basically tells him he should go to the barbers instead of whining.
Kafka's Castle made me cry with laughter. As did Lucian's Assembly of the Gods which I was researching regarding Kafka's book.
Austen makes me roar every time. I don't know what it is with the woman. She just does.
I'll have to second Far from the Madding Crowd as well... Some of the parts are hilarious, certainly when the gentle folk is talking in the malt house... Or when Joseph (?) has to take the coffin back and they get drinking in the inn 'because she's got the time anyway' or something like that and then Gabriel turns up and asks what the hell is going on and Joseph replies that he's always got this weird thing happening to him when he is in an inn after a while... That he sees double... :lol:. Can anyone be more idiotic?
But indeed, that is Hardy's only one I believe which is still remotely funny...
I absolutely agree with you about Svejk!Quote:
Originally Posted by Boris239
I would like to add Gogol, Ilf and Petrow and of course Anton Checkov!!!
"Diplomatic Baggage" by Bridgit Keenan
About a diplomat wife adventure with her spouse.
I enjoyed that book very much and laughed alot.
Acts 20:9 is pretty funny too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth
And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.
Apparently, Paul wasn't the most exciting preacher.
This is going to stir up a hornet's nest, but the Book of Mormon. The Tudor syntax and misuse of words drove me crackers, the nicking of bits from Proverbs and Kings were so wildly inappropriate and the way it turned the Bible on its head yet claimed to believe it were hilarious - and I'm a big Spike Milligan fan! And please not let's get into an argument, it's only my humble opinion. Free information and worth every penny you paid for it.
OMG that really is funny, isn't it? :smilewinkgrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Madame X
Sometimes the saddest books can be the most funny. The first third of Brideshead Revisited (Waugh) is probably the most hilarious thing I've ever read. And Lost In The Cosmos by Percy is a ridiculously funny (but despite, or maybe because it is very serious at the same time).
The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.
very dry English humour.
Looking at my bookshelf this morning I realised how I am lacking in the comedy department.
So lets hear what novels made you laugh the hardest and why.
The funniest novel that I have read is The Aluminum Man by G. C. Edmondson. Some of the Flashman series are very funny.
When it comes to funniness in writing there is a lot of room for disagreement.