Books that make you laugh

[ripley]

Definitely Beckett's "More Pricks than Kicks" - especially Dante and the Lobster.

I hooted at the opening sentence of "Notes from Underground" by Dostoevsky, though I suspect that would depend on the translation. The same with "Master and Margarita" actually. And I think Gogol and especially Daniil Kharms are really really funny, but I don't laugh out loud, somehow. Is it too populist to say that the Danny Kaye film of "The Inspector General" is one of the funniest movies I've seen?

And, Moby Dick. Seriously there is some funny funny shit in that book. just don't expect it to be about a whale.

 

[Tweak Head]

Most of Hunter S Thompson but especially Fear and Loathing.

PJ O'Rourke - Republican Party Reptile, especially the one about driving. His other books are OK (except the CEO of the sofa which is shite) but this was his peak IMHO. The title of the driving story is "How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wangs Sqeezed and Not Spill Your Drink". This gives you a flavour of what it's like. I remember a few years ago PJ was interviewed by Clive James on UK television and in his introduction James referred to the story as "How to Drive Fast and Not Spill Your Drink", which kind of missed the point ...

Most stuff by Flann O'Brien especially The Third Policeman.

Also that first Bill Bryson book, Notes from a Small Island. I know I will be reviled for this.

Father Ted - the scripts.

Catch 22, as someone mentioned above. This is one of those books that uses humour to catch you unawares then hits you with the message.

 

[michael]

Melchior loaned me Paul Beatty's 'The White Boy Shuffle' and 'Tuffy', both of which cracked me up on multiple occasions. The latter's probably the better book, but the former's the funnier. IMO.

 

[h-crimm]

Definitely Beckett's "More Pricks than Kicks" - especially Dante and the Lobster.
I hooted at the opening sentence of "Notes from Underground" by Dostoevsky, though I suspect that would depend on the translation.

we have a similar sense of humour... everyone was totally incredulous when i was going after the jokes in the 'slagging off beckett' thread.

when i read that dostoevsky i must have read the first page ten times before i could get any furthur. its a total billious ejaculation in the face. i had this edwardian (maybe?) everyman edition and the translation was very florid, which i think added to the ridiculous effect.
i once fished it out in a bookstore cos i was in need of a quick hit of comedy but the 'penguin classic' version left me cold.

 

[D84]

I find George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series hilarious and entertaining. They're about the continuing adventures of Harry Flashman, the cowardly bully of Tom Brown's Schooldays fame. Not only are they funny but also educational as he gets to meet all the leading men and women of the 19th C as well as tries to escape from every shocking battle and filthy dungeon of same. Some of them are eye-openers esp. when you connect them with present day stuff, such as Afghanistan, slavery, colonialism etc (if you're as ignorant as me, that is).

No-one's mentioned JG Ballard. I found "Crash" pretty funny on 2nd reading once I got over the gore and semen and realised that like most of his novels it's a domestic comedy riff about an estranged couple who are trying to reignite their romance through erm ingenious methods. And his short stories are often full of his dry black humour ("Sound Sweep", "The Enormous Space", "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" etc).

I'm currently reading "Tristram Shandy" which isn't hilarious but I'm enjoying the easy going flow of it and the endless digressions etc.

I have to put in a "me too" for Spalding Grey - a couple of the set-pieces in "Impossible Holiday" had me in stitches..

 

[ripley]

when i read that dostoevsky i must have read the first page ten times before i could get any furthur. its a total billious ejaculation in the face. i had this edwardian (maybe?) everyman edition and the translation was very florid, which i think added to the ridiculous effect.

"I am a sick man, I am an angry man, I am an unattractive man. I think there is something wrong with my liver."

best opening line, ever. bilious indeed.

I'm also down with the futurist manifestos(whee!), and more Russian absurdists - Daniil Kharms, especally "Pushkin and Gogol"

 

[swears]

I hooted at the opening sentence of "Notes from Underground" by Dostoevsky, though I suspect that would depend on the translation.

Yes, a very funny book, a suprisingly modern voice, too. The beef he has going on with his servant (who probably doesn't even realise it) always raises a smile. The Double, also very witty, although I do wonder what I'm missing out on in the translation.

 

[Immryr]

Dostoevsky can be hilarious at times. Notes From Underground is definitely a very funny book.

 

[IdleRich]

Agree with all Wodehouse, Saki, Waugh, Gogol etc but I don't think that anyone has mentioned Jerome K Jerome (Three Men in a Boat is the book I have read more than any other). On the other hand can't say I was that impressed with A Confederacy of Dunces - I mean it was ok and everything but I wasn't laughing out loud. The last book to make me do that was The Crying of Lot 49, the bit where they watch the play had me crying with laughter.

 

[Mr. Tea]

The Wild Highway, Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (cheers again for lending me that, IR).
Harry Hill's Flight From Deathrow - highly surreal yet somehow avoids falling into the tired old cliche of being "'random', ergo 'funny'" as it mainly derives its humour from satirising celebrity culture - nearly all its characters are in fact real people (Deng Xiaoping, Alan Ticthmarsh...).
Most of Robert Rankin's stuff.
I might as well be the umpteenth person on here to mention Catch 22.
Rob Grant's Incompetence.
Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon has moments of comic genius, despite not being principally a humorous book.
And as a moderately nerdy virginal teenager I suppose I got through a fair number of Discworld books, which aren't exactly hip literature but were quite funny, and Good Omens (Pratchett and Neil Gaiman) was still very funny when I re-read it a few years ago.

 

[STN]

Asterix.

Bits of Lolita made me laugh, as do Saki and Wodehouse.

'Christie Malry's Own Double Entry' is good for a giggle, and not just for the title either.

Not a novel but 'The Meaning of Liff' by Douglas Adams cracks me up.

 

[mos dan]

Wodehouse will always win for me on this score. My ex had an English tutor at uni who maintained that Wodehouse was the greatest writer in the history of the English language after Shakespeare. I've rinsed all the J&W books to death, can anyone tell me if his other books are half as good?

The Meaning of Liff is a hoot deffo. Also all The Onion books.

My favourite PJ O'Rourke is 'Parliament of Whores'. I am apparently alone in not having recently gone off him - still think he's wonderfully educational, as well as funny and admirably contrarian.

What's the deal with the compilation of Futurist Manifestos? I thought there was only one? As an aside, I got a line from Marinetti in an NS headline recently: http://www.newstatesman.com/200705280020

 

[STN]

Wodehouse will always win for me on this score. My ex had an English tutor at uni who maintained that Wodehouse was the greatest writer in the history of the English language after Shakespeare. I've rinsed all the J&W books to death, can anyone tell me if his other books are half as good?


QUOTE]

I really like Piccadilly Jim, in which the protagonist has to pretend to be himself. It's top farce. I've heard the 'greatest writer since Shakespeare' thing before, as it happens. Maybe from someone who had the same tutor...

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Stephen Potter - Gamesmanship, Lifesmanship, Supermanship etc - the philosophy to base your life on.

At school, the literary craze was Piers Anthony and his Xanth series (puntastic US sci-fi).

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is the least amusing thing I have ever read (or seen).

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh, should have added The Hippopotamus and The Liar by Stephen Fry.
Awesomely funny.

 

[jenks]

It'll sound desperately twee but I've just finished readin Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire which had both of the junior jenks and me in hysterics.

 

[petergunn]

i already repped him in another book thread, but Mordecai Richler makes me laugh outloud consistantly...

barney's version
duddy kravitz
joshua then and now

are funny as hell...

 

[Noah Baby Food]

Anything by Guy N Smith, and Richard Allen is pretty hilarious too...as are a lot of the 1970s NEL paperbacks.

choice Guy Smith quotes:

Gordon would you … take me away from here? Take me with you, where there aren’t such things as wolves, Black Dogs and people cutting their heads off with saws. – from Werewolf by Moonlight

She needed a man. A real man. Not the boyish Chris Latimer. Someone who would dominate her. Take her as a woman should be taken. – From The Sucking Pit

Why shouldn't a child's corpse turn into a pike? No reason at all...Maybe he was a fish and hadn't realised it up until now. – From The Undead

Also, some of you fellows may enjoy the writings on my new blog:

http://www.notmyrealdad.blogspot.com/

 

[gek-opel]

"Atomised" by Michel Houellebecq cracked me up.

And yeah- seconding "The Atrocity Exhibition" era Ballard, just very funny raw absurd sick juxtapositions...

 

[benjybars]

Wodehouse will always win for me on this score. My ex had an English tutor at uni who maintained that Wodehouse was the greatest writer in the history of the English language after Shakespeare. I've rinsed all the J&W books to death, can anyone tell me if his other books are half as good?

practically EVERY wodehouse is jokes... his consistency is amazing. I remember being particularly impressed with the Psmith books.. 'Psmith in the city' etc.

i'm reading anna karenina at the moment and i've laughed out loud twice, which is not something i expected when i picked it up!