Gosh, I'm ready for some light reading. The books stacked up on the baby bed (why not? The baby doesn't sleep there. The baby doesn't sleep at all!) are all great, but they are not exactly a laugh riot. I finished Kristin Lavransdatter, and then Love in the Ruins, and am still muscling my way through The Brothers Karamazov (and I'll be darned if Ivan hasn't grown on me tremendously since last time!). Okay, Love in the Ruins was breathtakingly funny, but in a way that makes you want to go live in a cave in Tennessee. Oh, I also read some dumb thing I picked up at the library. Everybody died, the women were all tragically misunderstood and abused, and all the men realized what brutes they had been, or else they were such brutes, they didn't even realize it, the end. Sheesh.
I was thinking back over books that I read with sheer delight from start to finish -- specifically, books that made me actually laugh out loud (or try to stifle giggles while my husband was trying to sleep). Here's are my recommendations if you just want to enjoy yourself and have a good laugh while you read:
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis' first novel. I haven't read it for several years, but I do recall the way my head almost fell off, I was laughing so hard. There is this scene where the poor guy has been roped into some recreational madrigal singing at a party with his drippy and pretentious woman he's accidentally started dating, and he realizes in horror that he has a solo for a few bars -- which reveals to the whole crowd that he doesn't actually know how to read music, and has just been sort of energetically flapping his lips in what he hopes is a convincingly musical way. Comeuppances are suffered, there is lots of dry British humor, plus a killer scene where he has to give a speech about something he doesn't know anything about, and realizes too late that he's incredibly drunk, and can't stop doing insulting impressions of people who can and will ruin his life. I don't recall that the themes of the book were especially edifying, but it sure was entertaining.
Scoop. Looka here -- an Evelyn Waugh novel with a happy ending! More or less. It's a satire of modern journalism -- written in 1938, come fully true in 2012. The journalists make up news about war to keep their editors happy, the parties in question read the newspapers, and fighting obligingly breaks out, as described. A young, naive nature writer is accidentally sent to cover the civil war in the fictional country of Ishmaelia, where he accidentally does very well for himself, for a time. This is where Tina Brown, by the way, got the name The Daily Beast. It's a newspaper headed by Lord Copper, a figure so terrifying that no one can bring himself to contradict him. If he says something true, they say, "Definitely, Lord Copper!" If he says something ridiculously false, they respond, "Up to a point, Lord Copper" This is the same tactic we use with our three-year-old daughter.
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. One of my favorite memoirs. A lovestruck newlywed follows her husband to the largely unspoiled wilderness of Washington State, where they carve out a homestead and raise chickens, with backbreaking labor from dawn till dusk and beyond. You end up wanting to clobber her husband, but the story is completely engrossing. I guess I have a soft spot for someone who spends so much time just complaining about things -- but oh man, what great stories, what crazy characters. (NB: She portrays native Americans in a way that many readers today will not be able to tolerate.)
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. This may be the weirdest book I've ever read. I think it's a satire of literary styles that hardly anyone reads anymore, but that just adds to its bizarre charm. The movie was okay, but didn't come close to capturing the heroic levels of insanity that the author so drily describes. I feel like I've met all the characters before: the smoldering, rakish Seth, his tortured, brooding mother Judith, the waifish Elfine who has to learn to stop darting around the woodlands reading second-rate poetry, and the infuriating Mr. Mybug, a prototype for today's pseudo-intellectual hipster. And there are these cows called Aimless, Feckless, and Graceless, who occasionally lose a horn or a foot. Things aren't going well at Cold Comfort Farm, until practical Flora comes and straightens out everybody's lives -- even that of Aunt Ada Doom, who saw something nasty in the woodshed. Pure entertainment.
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy, illustrated by William Steig. This book is so good, I was sure it would be out of print, but no! Will Cuppy tells history the way most of us remember it: full of weirdos and facts that don't add up. Apparently his research was actually painfully intense, but he distills history (from Cleopatra to Attila the Hun to Henry VIII) into perfect little gems of comedy, with his characteristic undertone of baffled melancholy. The illustrations are a riot.
Sad to say, I don't have copies of any of these books today. What can you recommend to make me laugh?
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Thanks for the reading recommendations…your comments are so funny about the baby!
Lists of humorous writing are never complete without a mention of P. G. Wodehouse, but I expect you are already very familiar with him!
Have you read Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin?
Also, if you don’t know her yet, you should explore Alice Thomas Ellis - a sharp British wit, and Catholic to boot.
I strongly recommend Bellweather, by Connie Wills. It’s a modern satire, but it has a happy ending. Funny and charming.
If you have a bent for the outdoors, and from your previous posts I’m thinking you don’t (lack of pants and a yurt), consider finding any book by Patrick McManus.
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He was required reading my house when I was growing up. Patrick’s exaggerated stories of camping, hunting, and the general life outdoors for those who love the outdoors will make you laugh until you cry. I come a family which hunted and camped regularly but now I am happily married to a man who does neither!
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He tells stories of a different era when kids (and adults) were let loose to discover the world, get into trouble and come home to tell the tale. Some of his best: “They Shoot Canoes Don’t They?” and “Don’t Look a Gift Fish in the Mouth”.
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You can get some of them on audio book which is even better!
The movie version of “Cold Comfort Farm” is a pale shadow of the ineffable book, but try to get the DVD of the Masterpiece Theater version which includes everything, absolutely everything!
Have you read “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole? It’s very funny and full of odd characters.
While it doesn’t qualify as funny, you may want to see if you can find a copy of “The Plague and I” by Betty MacDonald. It’s about her stay in a tuberculosis sanitarium and filled with the same kind of great stories and interesting characters as “The Egg and I.”
“The Great Big Doorstep” by E. P. O’Donnell, a Depression-era New Orleans newspaperman. Out of print but not hard to find. Like Confederacy of Dunces (highest recommendation) full of screwball riparian Louisiana Catholics, but more tender and touching, about the yearnings of a desperately poor family who love one another in spite of their quarrels and fecklessness and dysfunction, and the paschal nature of their redemption. It will definitely make you LOL, but also make you think. A lost comic classic awaiting rediscovery. Mel Gibson should film it if he wants another hit.
Now you have to read “The Plague and I” by Betty McD. It’s about her time in a TB sanitarium. It’s great, in the same vein as The Egg.
I love her, I’ve bought all her books over the years, picking them out of library book sales and garage sales.
I’ll give a third recommendation to a Confederacy of Dunces. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard reading a book.
“Lucky Jim” is my go-to laugh-till-I-fall-off-the-chair book, and much more of Kingsley Amis is very worth reading; I’m particularly fond of “Stanley and the Women”. Wodehouse is essential, of course. Another I just ran into, and kept drawing stares on the train because I was laughing out loud, is Florence King’s “Southern Ladies and Gentlemen”. Bill Bryson is worth looking into; try “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” or “Notes from a Small Island”. And I’ll second the recommendation of Mark Helprin’s “Freddy and Fredericka”.
The four book Hitchhiker’s trilogy by Douglas Adams.
Light reading, with a dry wit.
4th rec for Confederacy of Dunces. I am so sorry O’Toole is dead, though. WHY do these incredibly gifted, funny people kill themselves…makes me worry for every person I know IRL who makes me laugh.
Now, to get The Plague and I.
I also loved The Egg, and laughed myself sick reading it. And then, laughed even harder at the letters to the author which her daughters included in a more recent edition.
Amy, Mrs. O’Toole (the mother) was quite a character herself, so much that I can’t help wondering…
Bible Gospel of Saint John:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUEbw8U_ujs&feature=plcp
Prayer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7An9E9MlyfY&feature=context-chv
Virtually anything P. G. Wodehouse…I use his books as “anti-depressants.”:-) “The Crime Wave at Blandings” was one of the funniest stories I’ve ever read, though you have to read other parts of the Blandings “saga” to get some parts of it. But pretty much all of his books that I’ve read have been really funny.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is wonderful and funny. Also for just plain weird and funny try A Dirty Job and Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore.
Lucky Jim is possibly the funniest novel I’ve ever read. I too have been doing some heavy reading and I turned to Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. What a marvelous and fun read, though I’m not sure women will enjoy it as much as men.
“Salmon of Doubt” by Douglas Adams. Laughed out loud, or at least chortled loudly, on almost every page. There’s pathos too, but not too much. Definitely a mood lifter. :) I really thought it was funnier than the Hitchhiker books, which are best listened to via the old British radio treatment. I also love Cheaper by the Dozen and Life with Father. And The Boat that Wouldn’t Float by Farley Mowat. And, well, DICKENS, duh. :)
Any of the Flashman novels of George Frasier MacDonald—-outrageously funny and you learn some history too.
Ditto on Confederacy of Dunces - one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Also, P.G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Fred in the Springtime is laugh-out-loud funny.
Simcha,
I’m with you…life is too serious sometimes, some humor really helps lighten the day. I’ve actually read The Egg and I and it was really good as I remember. Found it at a yard sale. I haven’t read the others you suggested but I’ll put them on my summer reading list. I can suggest an author that’s funny, A.J. Jacobs. I’ve read The Know it All, and The Year of Living Biblically. His newest is Drop Dead Healthy which I just got from the library. Enjoy!
First few books in the Janet Evanovich Series—one for the money, two for the dough. I think she should have stopped around book 8 or 9. Gotta love the crazy Grandma.
My favorite book when I need a laugh is James Thurber’s Carnival (short stories and some bizarre cartoons)
by the way- if you ever need a good cry (with a happy ending), read William Steig’s Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
I can’t wait to read the Fall of Practically Everything- he is such a great illustrator!
...just bought it for a penny (plus $4 shipping…amazon is very dangerous)
No comment!
James Thurber’s “My Life and Hard Times” is not of uniform quality, but some chapters are hilarious. I also love Robertson Davies’s “Leaven of Malice” - not weighty, but a beautifully constructed light novel, hilarious and at the same time emotionally satisfying.
Yes to Wodehouse; that’s the majority, it turns out, of the humor on our shelves.
But also:
“Mama Makes Up Her Mind and other dangers of southern living” by Bailey White is a fun read. So is “Cranford” by Elizabeth Gaskell. The book is comedy from start to finish without all the tragedy the tv movie felt was necessary to make up. And “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” by Lynn Truss, while technically a grammar book, always makes me laugh.
I third the P.G. Wodehouse suggestions!!!
One that you won’t often hear about is Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds. All of his stories are completely off the wall but this one has the best endorsement that I could imagine. Dylan Thomas said of it, ““This is just the book to give your sister – if she’s a loud, dirty, boozy girl” Come one now, doesn’t that make you want to look it up on ABE.
Confederacy of Dunces has been mentioned so often, it’s reduncent to mention it again.
For good clean fun and many serious laughs, I recommend William Goldman’s edited and annotated “Good Parts” version of S. Morgenstern’s historical satire, “The Princess Bride,” which came before the internet but after beef stew. The film version is amusing as films go, but it doesn’t quite capture the wit of the novel, nor has it quite so many quotable lines.
Also, I rarely find myself laughing so loud or so hard as I do when reading Jane Austen. I doubt I need recommend her so much as remind you of the pleasures of her company.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome - and it is free for those with kindles or such.
Have you ever read “The Young Visiters” (sic)? It was written by a nine-year-old girl in 1919 in imitation of the popular novels of the day and published about 30 years later. Hilarious (and available on Project Gutenberg). “Three Men in a Boat” by Jerome K. Jerome is also good.
Actually (for correctness’ sake) The Young Visiters was published in 1919 and written earlier. As it happens, the author, Daisy Ashford, was a Catholic: “Bernard always had a few prayers in the hall and some whiskey afterwards as he was rarther pious but Mr Salteena was not very adicted to prayers so he marched up to bed. Ethel stayed as she thourght it would be a good thing. The butler came in as he was a very holy man and Bernard piously said the Our Father and a very good hymm called I will keep my anger down and a Decad of the Rosary. Ethel chimed in quiutly and Francis Minnit was most devout and Ethel thourght what a good holy family she was stopping with…”
My grandma who suffered from deep depression throughout her life once told me that “The Egg and I” was her favorite book to read. I bought my copy at a ‘second-hand’ store when I was in college—several years after my grandma had died—and it really is my favorite ‘funny’ book of all time. Favorite chapter title of all time: “I learn to hate even baby chicks” lol
“Onions in the Stew” is another good Macdonald story—I only have the Readers’ Digest condensed version.
Also—by another author “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and/or “Father of the Bride”—funnier than even the b&w film adaptations.
Anything by Terry Pratchett. He satirizes everything. Funnier than Douglas Adams and also makes you think. Thud, Weird Sisters and Going Postal are some of my favorites. And Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther is a forgotten classic of gentle humor and some very beautiful insights into motherhood. Forget the 1940’s movie. It has little to do with the book.
Terry Pratchett also wrote a trilogy of young adult books, starting with The Wee Free Men, hilarious.
William Goldman’s The Princess Bride is really funny. It has significant detail that isn’t in the equally excellent—but necessarily different—movie.
Robertson Davies, *The Salterton Trilogy* in particular. I think the first book won the Stephen Leacock award for humor in Canada when it was published. *Straight Man* by Richard Russo. I don’t know if this book would be so funny to anyone who is not in academia, but if you have the least familiarity with university politics, this one is a riot. Flannery O’Connor short stories. You have to learn to appreciate that she IS being humorous—maybe some people get this right away; I didn’t—but she did indeed intend a lot of what she wrote to be funny (but true, nonetheless). Somebody else mentioned Mark Helprin: I recommend all of his books. He has a great sense of humor, surrealistic sometimes, but even though they’re not humor books, per se, you won’t be depressed when you’re done reading them. Read his recently republished “children’s” trilogy, published under one title as *A Kingdom Far and Clear.* Just beautiful. Edmund Crispin’s mysteries. Somewhat humorous and also delightful because his detective, Gervase Fen, is an Oxford don, and real people and places (like C.S. Lewis and the Bird and Baby) crop up in the stories in unexpected places.
I can’t even think of when i ever read a funny sort of book, other than the Pickwick Papers, the Olde Curiosity Shoppe or Mad magazine. You want light reading, try Oscar Wildes book of fairy tales. Hard to find but there’s something in them for young and old. Refreshing.
Just a hyper-quick lol for the brainless: Google “sweet brown no time for Bronchitis” watch the original before the remix. Don’t wake your husband if he’s sleeping!!
I’ll try to come up with a good book next time.
I also like Christopher Moore for contemporary wit and light comedy. At the opposite end of the spectrum is “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. Very dark, but also very funny, and worth re-reading because of his stunningly apt language.
Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall” is funny, as is Richard Russo’s “Straight Man”. Nobody beats Wodehouse for lighthearted fun. “Strychnine in the Soup” is one of the funniest short stories I’ve ever read.
(Thanks Simcha and everyone—I’ve written down 15 suggested books or authors to look into!) I’ve given it away already so I can’t check on the title, but Chesterton’s Father Brown Stories made me guffaw at one point which scared a squirrel who’d until then thought I was an interesting finial on the deck—Chesterton would’ve enjoyed my scolding. Also, Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” had me LOL-ing. For a sweet and maybe even profound read which is often humourous, Penelope Lively’s “The Photograph” is without equal (so far!).
David Sedaris. Almost anything he has published will make you laugh. Eg. “‘Holidays on Ice”, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. Satire of Edwardian England.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Charming collection of real letters between her and a London bookseller. There is also a sequel, the Duchess of Bloomsbury.
How about Neil Gaiman’s “Good Omens”?
Glad to see others mentioning James Thurber, also. He didn’t only write humor, and the cocktail-soaked end of his life definitely was not humorous, but he wrote some of the funniest prose of the 20th century, hands down. For neophytes, I’d strongly suggest:
“My Life and Hard Times” is a fantastic collection of vignettes, characters, and eccentric relatives from his early life. It is included in its entirety in the much-easier-to-come-by “The Thurber Carnival,” which was the best single-volume collection of his work (up until Library of America released its 1000-page “Writings and Drawings” collection several years back).
His 1937 book “Let Your Mind Alone!” is an uproarious (and devastating) critique of popular self-help books of the 1930s (which bear a remarkable resemblance to the self-help pablum of the 21st Century). This book has also helped to buy me more space during my subway commute, as there’s nothing like intermittent guffaws to buy you unrequested, extra space from fellow travelers. Old, used copies are available online and it is also included in the “Writings and Drawings” collection. And, if you have a few extra megs of hard drive space, I believe a full PDF scan is available at archive.org for free.
Other essays among my favorites are “Wild Bird Hickock and His Friends” (recollections of French penny dreadfuls he enjoyed in his youth), and “Lavender with A Difference” (a heartfelt tribute to his mother, from whom he got his sense of humor).
I’m looking forward to chasing down some of the other folks’ suggestions here. Thanks, Simcha, for such a comment-provoking post.
Another enjoyable Jerome K. Jerome is the sequel, Three Men on the Bummel - and it is worth adding that you can have this and lots of Wodehouse and other humorous (and, for that matter, serious) out-of-copyright books read to you out loud (and often, very well-read indeed) at LibriVox.org
The Year of Living Biblically is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.
My husband recently read Where Are the Customers’ Yachts by Fred Schwed and was howling laughing at its dry humor. That’s going to be one of my next reads.
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Great topic - thanks for bringing it up!
Is you want to read another funny book you should try one of the Patrick Dennis books ( that’s plural - he wrote more than one ) about his Auntie Mame. He also wrote ” How Firm a Foundation ” about the goings on at a millionaire’s family charitable trust. It’s a real hoot and a half.
“The Chili Queen” by Sandra Dallas. The first half is amusing set-up (main characters: a hooker and a mail-order bride), and the second half is positively Wodehousian, as in Blandings at its best.
And I second the recommendation of “Belwether” by Connie WIllis.
Speaking of Connie Willis-try “To say nothing of the Dog ” If you haven’t read Jane Austen’s books since your were a teen,try them again they aren’t just romances.
I second any of Patrick McManus’ books. My husband would get one for Christmas every year. He and I would read them outloud to each other and laugh until our sides hurt.
Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen is another excellent book. I read them to my boys when they were 10 or 12 years old (so your older kids might enjoy it as well.) A wonderful read even for an adult. Very funny!
Gosh, all these wonderful book recommendations. I didn’t realize how humor deprived I’d been.
I suddenly can’t think of a whole lot of funny books, even though I know I’ve read them. I second James Thurber, Jane Austen and Dickens (though he’s really tragic too). My go to authors for humor are Bill Bryson, Erma Bombeck and Dave Barry. Bryson’s The Mother Tongue is a hoot plus you learn a lot about the history of the English language. One very funny book I have not noticed mentioned here is My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. Also the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s book is hysterical (but very bawdy).
Some of the funniest books I’ve ever read were introduced to me by my kids: The Wayside School series by Louis Sachar. I could barely read them for laughing so hard.
The book that always leaves me laughing until I practically cry is “I should have seen it coming when the rabbit died” by Theresa Bloomingdale.
Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” made me laugh out loud and is a perfect read for someone who is going to enjoy the “outdoor life” this summer. His pal with the Snickers bars is too funny.
I agree with “Mrs. H.” A Walk in the Woods” was hilarious. I found myself laughing so hard, especially the first half of the book.
My husband and I enjoyed reading this book together a few years ago.
http://www.amazon.com/Ella-Minnow-Pea-Progressively-Lipogrammatic/dp/0967370167/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
I would second “I Should Have Seen It Coming When the Rabbit Died” - hilarious tales from a Catholic mother of ten. My favorite section has Mom and a selection of the kids reading Genesis, and coming to Cain and Abel. When one younger kid asks what Cain’s punishment was, her brother chimes in solemnly, “He suffered a fate worse than death. He had to marry his sister !”
Parts of the James Herriot books make me LOL. My favorite chapter is in the first one, and involves the mischief-making brother of Herriot’s senior partner, prank phone calls, and a cow.
I (a woman) LOVE Treasure Island and find it very funny and always gripping. I’m not sure, actually, where the humor comes in. Maybe it’s left over from happy childhood memories in general.
Also, some great southern writers: Fanny Flagg and Bailey White. The ones I’ve enjoyed the most are: Momma Makes Up Her Mind, Quite a Year for Plums, and, of course, Fried Green Tomatoes…
Other George MacDonald Frasers that make me laugh till I cry are the short stories about army life “The General Danced at Dawn” and “McAuslan in the Rough”. I understand these stories are mostly true.
I’ve got so many good ideas for summer reading!
I JUST read Cold Comfort Farm and loved it too, so I went out and got the collection of short stories called “Christmas at Cold Comfort,” which only has one story about the farm and a bunch of others about relationships. I really liked Stella Gibbons’ take on “modern” relationships. She was pretty wise.
I’m from Betty McDonald’s neck of the woods (she also wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series) and I know her story but I’ve never read her memoir. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks!
Practically anything by Terry Pratchett, especially the Discworld series. If you haven’t read any, start with “Guards! Guards!”, “Equal Rites”, or “Moving Pictures”, before you go back to read the earlier ones. I also second “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett—a farcical comedy about the Apocalypse. Finally, here’s a science fiction short story that is one of my all-time favorites: “They’re Made Out of Meat” by Terry Bisson - http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
“The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be” a memoir by Farley Mowat. Just the first chapter about how the mom out maneuvers the dad in getting a dog- he’s got his heart set on an expensive pure-bred hunting dog (despite the fact he knows nothing about hunting. Yet) will have you hooked.
“My parents had been married long enough to achieve that delicate balance of power which alone enables a married couple to endure each other. They were both adept in evasive tactics of martial politics- but Mother was a little more adept.
“She realized that a dog was inevitable and when chance brought the duck boy - as we afterward referred to him- to our door on that dusty August day, Mother showed her mettle by by snatching the initiative right out of my father’s hands.”
Anyway, this dog, Mutt, is one of those rare animals that seems to have a human soul, and he lives in with the conviction that he is not, in fact, a dog. Adding to the story is Farley himself, who adopts numerous wild animals, including 2 great horned owls who like to follow him to school, and Farley’s wild-dreaming father and very patient, saintly mother.
Nonsense Novels, Stephen Leacock
Parodies of popular fiction a century ago, e.g., from “Hannah of the Highlands”: “Shamus McShamus, an embittered Calvinist, half crazed perhaps with liquor, had maintained that damnation could be achieved only by faith. Whimper McWhinus had held that damnation could be achieved also by good works. McShamus had struck McWhinus across the temple with an oatcake and killed him.”
The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
The very respectable Mr. Pooter pursues respectability but is constantly undercut by his family and friends until the very happy ending of this Victorian masterwork.
I second Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals. I remember laughing so hard when I read it in high school that I very nearly lost all muscular control and rolled off my bed.
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