Recommend a humorous book here

[madzone]

Da Vinci Code - I pissed myself all the way though.

I read Running With Scissors a couple of weeks ago and found it funny. Don't know if I was meant to

 

[billy_bob]

Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat - can be a bit smart-arse but often hilarious.

The funniest book I've ever read is Graham Chapman's autobiography. Parts of it had me choking with laughter. Selected quote: "And so I decided to become a homosexual. But no mincing - a butch one, with a pipe."

 

[Ranu]

The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W E Bowman.

 

[Brainaddict]

I've never heard of most of these so have plenty to investigate thanks

 

[christonabike]

The Damned United by David Peace had me laughing out load

 

[k_s]

Almost anything by Robert Rankin, but 'nostradamus ate my hamster' is his best by a stretch.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Puckoon by Spike Milligan

anything by Magnus Mills

most of James Thurber

All Points North by Simon Armitage

 

[Vintage Paw]

Oh yes, I'd definitely recommend Cold Comfort Farm, very funny.

I'd also like to suggest Don Quixote - we have just started reading it to each other (yes, we sit in bed and read to each other at night - got a problem with that? ) and it is trés funny. Okay, so it's a damn thick book, but I can see us zipping through it in no time. Word of warning, Cervantes has this thing about sentences that run on and on and on with nothing but commas, and there are lots of spanish names, so quite difficult to read out loud if you are of that persuasion

 

[billy_bob]

(yes, we sit in bed and read to each other at night - got a problem with that? )

House at Pooh Corner's great

 

[Madusa]

Fag Hag - Robert Rodi made me cry from laughter.

 

[D'wards]

He was mentioned in the OP, but Carl Hiassen is a teriffic writer - his stuff has excellent plots and characters, and are very funny as well.

 

[Calva dosser]

This will sound pretentious in the extreme-but Thorne Smith- 'The Night life of the Gods'

Pure jollity before we all became cynics.

 

[Julie]

Ooh good thread, I like funny books

Me too

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Anything by Harry Crews, but especially This Thing Don't Lead to Heaven, and Karate Is a Thing of the Spirit.

Another vote for Carl Hiassen, especially Tourist Season, Double Whammy, and Skin Tight.

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard is good, even though they made a movie out of it With Danny Devito and John Travolta: actually, the movie wasn't that bad either, come to think about it.

 

[Red Horse]

Second the Kurt Vonnegut vote, Breakfast of Chapions is fucking funny. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth is funny. Catch 22. Crying of Lot 49

 

[quimcunx]

anything by Bill Bryson.

 

[Dubversion]

see, i can't see how the hell people find Bryson funny. I honestly find him to be an unbearably smug twat.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I don'tmuch care for him either. I had to resort to reading his popular science book (which is otherwise good) aloud to BL to rid my brain of the sound of his voice or I couldn't have carried on reading it at all....

 

[Dubversion]

he's a reactionary old git as well...

 

[blinky_bill]

I generally don't like funny books, at least ones which try to be funny.
Catch 22 for example or Gravity's Rainbow or even Naked Lunch I think are ruined by their vain attempts at humour. I'll read just about anything but if I want to be amused I'll watch some slapstick on the tv. Books just can't be funny to me.
Having said that I've long been tempted to read Flashman but I suspect I'll be disappointed.

 

[magneze]

Early Colin Bateman, such as "Wee Sweetie Mice & Men" and "Cycle of Violence", is superb.

 

[madamv]

I read Running With Scissors a couple of weeks ago and found it funny. Don't know if I was meant to

I believe so... I love Augusten Burroughs books, read his others madzone, just as funny and moving. I have just finished 'Dry' and I miss him.

I love Frank Skinner and Stephen Fry autobiographies. Seconded David Niven's 'The Moon's a Balloon' and Spikes War memoirs.

My bookshelf is quite devoid of funny works....

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I generally don't like funny books, at least ones which try to be funny.
Catch 22 for example or Gravity's Rainbow or even Naked Lunch I think are ruined by their vain attempts at humour. I'll read just about anything but if I want to be amused I'll watch some slapstick on the tv. Books just can't be funny to me.
Having said that I've long been tempted to read Flashman but I suspect I'll be disappointed.

This isn't the thread for you then, is it?

 

[roney]

its not all funny but Kevin Myers (Irish journalist commentator especiallyo n all thing 'Norn Iron') new memoirs have some very funny bits. specially when he's shaggin some IRA man's wife and nearly gets caught..
note: lots of gruesome not so funny parts about all the carnage and violence he met with while living in Belfast.

also on a lighter note the 'Just William' boks are hillarious. i know they are slightly out of date but that sometimes makes 'em even funnier..
fella i knew as a nipper claimed he had to be brought to hospital and sedated after laughing so much whilst reading a 'Just William' book..now THAT's funny

 

[Fledgling]

Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat - can be a bit smart-arse but often hilarious.

Beat me to it, seconded without a doubt. This is an excellent story, I re-read a few passages a couple of weeks ago and had to stifle the laughter in the bookshop. However I've not read the sequel and am intrigued.

3 men in a boat follows, well, 3 men in, well, a boat in late Victorian England. The comedy hasn't dated at all, it's a short book and will take only a couple of days to read. My favourite passage is definitely the performance of the serious song by the German whose rendition is greeted somewhat surprisingly.

 

[chooch]

The Serial by Cyra McFadden. The best literary soap opera ever written about ex-hippies from the Bay Area in the mid-70s.

 

[onemonkey]

Anita Loos - Gentlemen prefer Blondes