Funniest Book Ever Read

[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/Zomb...amplePages.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 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