# Reading > General Literature >  Funniest Book Ever Read

## mono

Seeing that we have 'Books that made you change the way you view the world' (http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=4372) and 'Books that made you cry' (http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=2565), out of curiosity, I thought to begin this thread.
What books have you read that made you laugh?

A few of mine that come to mind:
_The Liar_ by Stephen Fry,
_All's Well That Ends Well_, _Comedy Of Errors_, _Much Ado About Nothing_, and _Twelfth Night_ by William Shakespeare,
_The Broken Jug_ by Heinrich von Kleist,
Many various short stories and poetry by O. Henry, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allan Poe, and Guy de Maupassant,
_The Canterbury Tales_ by Geoffrey Chaucer,
_The Decameron_ by Giovanni Boccaccio.

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## Loki

Great idea, Mono!  :Smile: 

Strange to say, one of the only books to actually make me laugh out loud - though there have been a few - was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I laughed so loudly at the gypsy part that the leaves almost started falling off the roof!  :Wink:

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## Basil

_Jane Eyre_ made me laugh multiple times; here's one of my favorite lines from early on: "Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide'; read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'an account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G____, a naughty girl addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"

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## papayahed

America: The book. There are more but I can't think of them at this moment.

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## Wendigo_49

Catch-22 can always make me laugh.

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## Rachy

A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It's so cleverly written. Takingthe mick out of everything. One of the only books to make me laugh out loud!

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## Miranda

Blott on The Landscape and also The Throwback both by Tom Sharpe. The Throwback is really rude but hilarious - well I think so anyway.

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## Jack_Aubrey

Slaughterhouse Five.

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## subterranean

> Catch-22 can always make me laugh.



Second that.........

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## lavendar1

While his books may not be considered 'literary,' anything by David Sedaris sets me to howling:

_Me Talk Pretty One Day_ 

_Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim_ 

to name a few...

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## caspian

There's Jewish writer- Sholom Aleykhem- I can be wrong with English spelling . I laughed a lot and loudly at the end of his short story "My first love story". The story is very funny in general, but most funny part is end. 
mono, I agree with you about William Shakespeare, Mark Twain and O. Henry. But I don't remember any funny story of Guy de Maupassant. I found them miserable, heart-braking.

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## Razeus

Catcher In The Rye

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## faith

I love books that make me laugh! here comes a few:

Nick Hornby: How to be good, About a boy (etc)
Tony Parsons: Man and Boy, Man and Wife
JK Rowling: Harry Potter
Eoin Colfer: Artemis Fowl

oh, and most of all: Frank McCourt: Angela's ashes

and ofcourse Cather in the rye, like Razeus says

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## Erna

'The importance of being Ernest' by Oscar Wilde.

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## dahlia

Frank Abagnel

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## mono

> But I don't remember any funny story of Guy de Maupassant. I found them miserable, heart-braking.


I entirely agree with you, as many of Guy de Maupassant's short stories end with a surprise conclusion, but often not for the best. One story in particular, however, made me laugh with its dark, almost cruel humor: _The Necklace_.
Thinking of short stories, another humorous one that I absolutely loved: _Gimpel The Fool_ by Isaac Bashevis.

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## Helga

Almost anything by Oscar Wilde is so funny and Midsummer night's dream and other comics by Shakespeare. And many others I have to think about.........

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## EAP

_Lolita_ by Vladimir Nabokov. 

among others.

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## kimpossible

yos, yos, Catch 22 is da dopemaster shiznite, it is funkadellic fresh funny and yossarian is the ish dog, much props to my man Heller, represent

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## byquist

Woody Allen's "Horse Feathers" I think it's called
and agree with another, Catcher in the Rye

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## amuse

bridget jones diary and its sequel, the edge of reason. time and again: hysterical.

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## faintingink

of course oscar wilde. 

i also find waiting for godot to be seemingly funny for reasons i really can't explain. 

miriam toews a complciated kindness has some very funny bits in it. 

but the king of all literary absurd ironic comedy
is
do de do de
John Irving. 

i find him so incredibly funny. a pray for owen meany...ohmigod...everytime he has meany talk it's so freakin funny! 

let me know whatcha think?  :Banana:

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## Rechka

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - funny, funny, funny.

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## Rachy

The Secret Diary of Adrien Mole, by Sue Townsend, I haven't read it for years, but I ermember it being funny!

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## nothingman87

"Bartleby the Scrivener" by Melville

_White Noise_ by Don DeLillo

_Augie March_, _Henderson the Rain King_, and _Humboldt's Gift_ by Saul Bellow

"The Conversion of the Jews" by Philip Roth

_Down and Out in Paris and London_ by George Orwell

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## EAP

Down and Out is funny?!

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## blp

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 
and
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 
by Hunter Thompson

Old Times by Harold Pinter (especially the bit where the man says 'My name is Orson Welles you know') 

Jane Eyre too. 

Evelyn Waugh - almost anything except Sword of Honour or Brideshead Revisited

Blood and Guts in Highschool 
and 
Great Expectations
by Kathy Acker

Oh yes and

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

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## Rachy

Jane Eyre? Why's that then?

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## strategos

I'm normally disinclined to read humorous fiction, but I've always found Dicken's 'Great Expectations' to be pleasantly amusing.

Connie Willis' 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' is a more modern satire that I've found enjoyable, as is Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', though in a slapstick sort of fashion.

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## PennKen2009

I thought that The Three Musketeers was funny in many parts. Athos how he is always so calm in the face of danger is an example. 

This is one of my favorite/funny parts, the chapter entitled Porthos:

http://www.public-domain-content.com...teers/25.shtml

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## subterranean

> oh, and most of all: Frank McCourt: Angela's ashes



Do you mean laugh in ironic sense? Cause I hardly remember giving a laugh (coz of funny things) when reading that book.

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## Eliza

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. I loved the thread concerning the family's cleaning solution and the reappearing blood stain which evenutally reappears in emerald green. 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Serious subject matter but Scout's pranks and innocent observations of the adults around her were hilarious. 

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. I laugh hard when I see grammatically incorrect or mispelled signs, so this book was an awesome find. Her comments on those who never learned how to correctly punctuate are witty and sharp but really, really funny. (Disclaimer: this member makes no promises on her own punctuation or grammar abilities. Just liked the book.)

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## Monica

Jerome Jerome's "Three Man in a Boat". I was laughing all the way through but the best scene was when they were trying to hang up the painting  :Biggrin:

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## rodanho

i think i laugh most while reading three men in a boat. it is such an interesting book, with so many funny anecdotes and witty descriptions. i just followed the experiences of the characters with bursting laughter and excited cries. i think this bood stands for the very essence of the english humour literature.

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## rukhshanda

infact i want to read that books.may be that books make me happy.may be i would be able to smile again.maybe

infact i want to read  :Goof:  that books.may be that books make me happy  :Banana:  .may be i would be able to  :Wink:  smile again.maybe  :Confused:

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## mono

Wow, I forgot about this thread. Fairly recently, I read a book that made me laugh so hard, I probably looked ridiculous in my favorite coffeehouse (and it seems, from previous posts, that others agree):
_The Importance of Being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde.

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## Sally Brown

Books that made you laugh... Mumble, mumble...
The answer is... 42!
But you should have read Douglas Adams's books to know why.
They're really amusing.

Bye,
Sally

P.S.: 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. But the ultimate question is still unknown...

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## Jack_Aubrey

Slaughter House Five

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## scruffy_danny

A Touch of Daniel - Peter Tinniswood

This book is halirious. I honestly havn't laughed harder while reading any other book. It starts off slow but when you begin to understand the characters it's unputdownable, almost addictive. It also protrays the stereotypical north english person and seeming as I live in that area I really related to it. Sure comical genuis...

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## sir_alex

The first Atremis Fowl book was really hilarous, and the whole collection is a great laugh in itself.

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## PistisSophia

Anything by Loretta LaRoche

Introduction to Quantam---cute cartoons!!!

Bill Mahr - New Rules!!!

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## Scatterbrain

Anything by Wilde

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## Mark F.

Anything by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett will always get a laugh out of me. Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest and Gide's Les Faux Monayeurs.

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## baddad

> Slaughter House Five



.....yup, funny stuff...........

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## mono

> Anything by Loretta LaRoche


I saw a speech of hers once, and could not have laughed harder, as she has such a contagious optimism and good spirit that brings smiles to anyone's face. Oddly, I had no idea she wrote books, but only thought her, perhaps, a motivational speaker through humor.  :Biggrin:

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## B-Mental

I thought that Don Quixote Book I my Cervantes was hilarious, soda shootin' out the nostrils funny.

Forgive me its by Cervantes, not my Cervantes. I will practice more diligence in future posts.

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## Themis

I thought "The Importance of being earnest" was really funny. My favourites, though, are by Idilko von Kürthy. Alas, I think there aren't any translation of her books, yet.

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## Pendragon

If you want to laugh so hard you loose your breath...

Dave Barry

Pat McManus

Douglas Adams (especially his _Dictionary_ *Deeper Meaning of Liff* written with John Lloyd

Ambrose Bierce's *The Devil's Dictionary*

Lewis Grizzard (Some get a little too earthy for my taste, but the man's killingly funny)

Robert Fulghum (He's a modern philosopher with a wicked wit and an hilarious outlook on life.)  :Wink:   :Wink:   :Wink:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:

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## A Hard Rain

Don quixote ,
Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut.
Slaughter house 5
breakfast of champions

ham on rye and post office by bukowski

the things they carried

huckleberry finn

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## mickeymack

Anything by P G Wodehouse makes me laugh, especially the Jeeves and Wooster books. In fact I am reading Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves at the moment and it's wonderful,Light as a soufflé but witty and entertaining. If you haven't read him I strongly recommend him to you. If everyone read Wodehouse there would be no depression in the world!

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## underground

maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.

the latest book that i remember laughing at more than ten times is nick hornby's _a long way down_.  :Biggrin:

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## subterranean

Some people I know mentioned this book as a very funny one also..However, haven't got the chance to read it...




> I thought "The Importance of being earnest" was really funny.

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## samercury

> maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.


That's pretty much the same for me too  :Biggrin: ... Right now I'm reading this book called _The Year My Life Went Down the Loo_- by Katie Maxwell. It's hilarious  :FRlol:

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## subterranean

Maybe you are, because I can not imagine someone's laughing when s/he read books like Crime and Punishment..

Perhaps.. ironic laughs?!




> maybe i'm just way too happy in general, but i don't think i've ever read a book that didn't make me laugh, although some made me laugh more than the others.

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## Sarah's_Chanson

I don't know whether this entirely counts as it isn't really fiction but a book that I can't stop laughing at is 'The World according to Jeremy Clarkson.' obviously by Jeremy Clarkson.

I love his TV show 'Top Gear' despite not knowing anything about cars, because it is really funny and the book is just as good.

It's filled with loads of small chapters with his opinion on everything from health and safety laws to the European Union and is a great read!

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## Schokokeks

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving: very deftly written, Owen and his best friend are very comical yet heart-breaking characters. Very good read!

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## sdevans

I stumbled across the title to this thread while tracking a URL that had entered my web site so I registered today to respond and offer a challenge to those who care about this timeless question. 

I am the author of the golf book - 'Who Were the Red Ball People?'. 

According to Golf Today Magazine:
Who were the Red Ball People? rivals the famed 'Golf in the Kingdom' but with much more panache and hilarity. 

. . . This may be the funniest book I have read in my adult life. The specific vocabulary created by the author and the terms WILL find their way into the golf lexicon, I am almost certain!

{snip}

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## Behemoth

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov was v.funny, in a clever way
Hard Times by Charles Dickens was v. funny in certain places, particularly when "facts" are mentioned e/g: "In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir: nothing but Facts" and "ready to have imperial gallons of Facts poured into them.." Reminds me of an awful French teacher I used to have lol  :Wink:

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## Idril

Most of the books I would mention have already been listed, _A Confederacy of Dunces_, _Master and Margarita_ and I would add Bulgakov's short story, _Heart of a Dog_, if simply for the dog's 'human' name, Polygraph Polygraphovich and the greatest thing is when someone gets his name wrong and calls him Telegraph Telegraphovich.  :FRlol:   :FRlol:  People have already mentioned Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and I would like to add a shout out to Adams' _The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul_, the scene with a naked Thor with floorboard glued to his back is absolutely priceless and to add to the Pratchett thing, _Good Omens_, the book he wrote with Neil Gaiman is the funniest story about the apocalypse ever written.  :Wink:  _Everything is Illuminated_ had some truly hilarious moments and _Infinite Jest_ also had moments of comic genius.

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## TEND

Hmm, I think I'm the first to post this but I find many passages of Hemingway quite funny and I laugh out loud quite frequently throughout many of his novels. Particularly in 'A Farewell to Arms' mostly during the first bit of the book some of the conversations just made me laugh out loud.

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## Bysshe

Anything by P.G Wodehouse is always uplifting, and I think most of the Jeeves stories have made me laugh. Then there are a few Evelyn Waugh novels (Vile Bodies, mainly - and certain parts of Brideshead Revisited). Oscar Wilde, of course...

And then there's Bridget Jones's Diary.  :Smile:

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## ClaesGefvenberg

The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.... 

/Claes

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## Boris239

J.C. Jerom "Three men in a boat" is probably my favorite.
Short stories by O'Henry, Zoschenko(Russian author), Max Beerbohm 
Hasek's "Good soldier Svejk" is bloody hilarious. The Russian equivalent is Voynovich's "Adventures of Chonkin"

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## literaturerocks

the jungle books by rudyard kipling made me laugh last night  :Biggrin:

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## Underman

Both Don Quixote and A Confederacy of Dunces are hilarious.

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## Union Jack

Faust, Goethe.

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## subterranean

Last one that gave me big smiles: Lady Windermere's Fan by Wilde. Hillarious  :Biggrin:

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## Schokokeks

I laughed a lot when reading _To kill a mockingbird_ by Harper Lee recently. The children's perspective is just too hilarious  :Biggrin:  A great book.

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## smoothherb

puddinhead wilson by mark twain

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## Kameo

> Bulgakov's short story, Heart of a Dog, if simply for the dog's 'human' name, Polygraph Polygraphovich and the greatest thing is when someone gets his name wrong and calls him Telegraph Telegraphovich.


Im glad that Heart of a Dog makes you laugh  :Smile:  but imho it serious story enough. Try Ilf & Petrovs "The Golden calf". Guess you`ll be pleased.  :Wink:  

Mark Twain and Ilf & Petrov are favourite

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## Idril

> Im glad that Heart of a Dog makes you laugh  but imho it serious story enough.


I realize it's a serious book and he's making some very serious points but there are humorous moments...such as the mix-up with the name. That's one of the things I enjoy about Bulgakov, in the midst of these very serious and philosophical novels and stories there are these moments, a phrase or a conversation or a scene that just kills you because they are so profoundly funny. He can go back and forth between farce and profound so seemlessly.

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## stlukesguild

_Midsummer's Night Dream_- Shakespeare
_Tristam Shandy_- Laurence Sterne
_Don Quixote_- Cervantes
_Myra Breckenridge_- Gore Vidal
_Miss Lonelyhearts_- Nathaniel West
_Tin Drum_- Gunter Grass
_Lolita_- Nabokov
_The Confederacy of Dunces_- Toole
_The Physicists_- Friederick Durrenmatt
_As I Lay Dying_- Faulkner
various short stories- Flannery O'Conner
_Master and Margarita_- Bulgakov
_The Fetishist_- Michel Tournier
various tales from the _Decammeron_- Boccaccio
_Tartuffe_- Moliere
_Confessions_- Rousseau
_A Modest Proposal_- Swift
various short stories- Franz Kafka
_Mason and Dixon_- Thomas Pynchon
_Everything is Illuminated_- Jonathan Safron Foer
various short stories- Tomasso Landolfi (especially _Gogol's Wife_)

I don't doubt there are many more... and there are many books that can inspire laughter followed by sadness or seriousness like the graveyard scene in _Hamlet_ or any number of the books in this list. I might also note that many of the books on my list are undoubtedly of a rather dark humor (_As I Lay Dying_) or more of a dead-pan irony (Kafka) than an easy guffaw.

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## superunknown

Heller - Catch 22 (funniest book I've ever read)
Safran Foer - Everything Is Illuminated as well (although it seems that ultimately the book is funny as an attempt to hide the fact that it's tragic)
Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (mostly serious, but the one part that made me laugh was Madame Khohklakov's typical ramblings of an old woman; we've all heard old women going on and on and on exactly like her)
Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Federico Andahazi - The Anatomist
Bulgakov - The Heart of a Dog
Gogol - Diary of a Madman, The Nose
Nabokov - Lolita
Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest (the beast with two backs is hilarious)
Voltaire - Candide

I can't say I found Miss Lonelyhearts or As I Lay Dying particularly funny books, though. Not sure where you found the humor, both of them seemed to be racked with utter hopelessness.




> i also find waiting for godot to be seemingly funny for reasons i really can't explain.


What's hard to explain? There's some great quotes.

VLADIMIR. You should have been a poet.
ESTRAGON. I was _(Gesture at his rags.)_ Isn't that obvious?

Or how about Vladimir saying, after a full minute or two of silence, "That passed the time."

How about Vladimir rushing offstage to urinate? Or Lucky's "thinking"? Or the hat-switching routine? There's lots of humor in Waiting for Godot, although you have to see it rather than just read it to really appreciate the humor in it.

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## Woland

Most of these have been mentioned but Ill second them

Master and Margarita
Heart of a Dog 
Good Omens (Monty Python meets the apocolypse)
The Importance of Being Earnest
Twelfth Night (Malvolio and Feste)
Comedy of Errors
Quixote 
Tartuffe is brilliant

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## Ella

_And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game_ by David Forrest. I think this book may be out of print but grab this book  if you can find it. It's slim like a novella but every page is hilarious, and the title just brings a smile to my face. The story begins with, you've guessed it, Albert and a tiny island off of England. The island becomes world news when the Brits, Americans and Russians all begin to buy a piece of the island.

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## ElizabethBennet

A few of the funniest books I have ever read:
Three Men in a boat~Jerome Jerome - just hilarious from start to finish
The Importance of Being Earnest~Oscar Wilde - definitely one of his funniest works
The Undomesticated Goddess~Sophie Kinsella - I laughed till the tears came
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelth Night~William Shakespeare
She stoops to Conquer~Oliver Goldsmith - The confusing mix-ups are so funny.

That's all I can think of right now.

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## Theshizznigg

There was one part earlier on in Lolita that made me chuckle. Humbert wanted to don his army boots, take a few paces back and run at a charge to boot his cheating wife in the bum.
I find the works of P.G. Wodehouse, always make me laugh or smile. 
As strange as it is, I actually can relate to some of the character archtypes. 
Aside from that, I usually derrive good humour from most books. Though I can't say a book has ever had me splitting sides.

"Reason against logic. Sometimes reasonability is not logical, nor is being logical entirely reasonable."

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## Whifflingpin

Damon Runyon - how come no-one's mentioned him yet? He can be rolling-on-the-floor funny.

Kipling's short story "The Village that voted the Earth was flat" made me cry with laughter the first time I read it.

Richard Powell's "Tickets to the Devil" and "Don Qixote USA" 

Saul Bellow's "Henderson the Rain King"

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## subterranean

> Anything by Wilde



Hear hear!

But I suppose _Salome_ must be excluded

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## Fango

Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!

I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.


Anyone?

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## PeterL

> Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!
> 
> I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.


The funniest novel that I have read was "The Aluminum Man" by G. C. Edmondson. Of course, "Bored of the Rings" is one of the funniest things in the history of humanity, but it is a parody, so it doesn't have especially sophisticated humor.

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## Idril

> Hi there, gang, been a while since I posted here!
> 
> I'm looking for comic novels-- something as sophisticated and/or funny as the "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", at least. I really dig wild humour and creative writing style.
> 
> 
> Anyone?



If you like _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, you should check out Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series, he also wrote a book called _Good Omens_ with Neil Gaiman that is a riot!

Have you ever read any of Adams' other books? He wrote two 'Dirk Gentley' novels, Dirk Gentley is a holistic detective with very interesting methods and bizarre cases. _The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul_ is my favorite of those two and I would highly recommend them to anyone.

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## mtpspur

I'm not so sure of the 'comic' aspect but I enjoy Keith Laumer's Retief series as satire -- making jabs at diplomatic relations between planets. Laumer was in the Air Force himself about 10 years before I began my career (19 good years--2 bad ones) but he has great insight in what I have come to believe (least as far as PEACETIME Air Force--Appearance is EVERYTHING, substance is a bonus.

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## aeroport

It isn't a novel, but Washington Irving's _History of New York_ is rather funny - in what certainly could be called a "sophisticated-ish" sort of way.

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## PeterL

> I'm not so sure of the 'comic' aspect but I enjoy Keith Laumer's Retief series as satire -- making jabs at diplomatic relations between planets. Laumer was in the Air Force himself about 10 years before I began my career (19 good years--2 bad ones) but he has great insight in what I have come to believe (least as far as PEACETIME Air Force--Appearance is EVERYTHING, substance is a bonus.


Almost everything by Keith Laumer could be regarded as satire.

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## Fango

Thanks, gang, I appreciate the replies... 

I haven't read Adams' other books, mainly because I'm keen to diverge before I indulge into one author.  :Smile:  

Hey, I'll see about Terry Pratchett (and Good Omens). I certainly heard about him. 

Not a lot of female comic writers around, eh?

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## Virgil

A really funny novel is Kingsley Amis's _Lucky Jim_. You can read a little blurb here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Jim

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## Fango

Hmm, well, I took some time to review the suggestions, and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy Bored of the Rings. It reminds me of -- http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfa...et/fantasy.htm

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## vili

My favourite Douglas Adams would actually be "Last Chance to See", which is totally brilliant. I can also join Idril in recommending Gaiman & Pratchett's "Good Omens", which really is rather much like Adams (and perhaps not surprisingly, Gaiman having written an Adams biography).

Adams himself talked a lot about the old master of humour, P.G. Wodehouse. I have only read very little of his stuff, but he is pretty funny.

Wodehouse (the writer of the Jeeves series) also now reminds me of Hugh Laurie (who acted in the TV series, and is now Dr House in "House M.D."), whose first book "The Gun Seller", is apparently a riot, or so I have heard. Someone told me it is very "Dirk Gentley like", which I think is the highest recommendation there is when it comes to books that you read for laughter.

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## Whifflingpin

Try Jasper fforde - start with "The Eyre Affair"

Check out Tom Holt, who has written some very funny books, as well as some serious ones.

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## Danika_Valin

Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.

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## Charles Darnay

> Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.


I don't know if I would reccomend this book for it comic nature (although I do agree with you that it had a certain wit to it), but I would still encourage anyone to read it becasue it was fantastically written and inspiring.

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## PeterL

> Hmm, well, I took some time to review the suggestions, and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy Bored of the Rings. It reminds me of -- http://members.ozemail.com.au/~imcfa...et/fantasy.htm


Bored of the Rings is better.

Another really funy author is Tom Holt. "Who's Afraid of Beowulf" and "Flying Dutch" should be considered two of the classics of humorous fiction. 

Goergoe MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels are also very funny in an understated way. The interplay with Sherlock Holmes in the last book is one of the funniest scenes in literature, and it satirizes Holmes.

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## Idril

> Try A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's funny in a sarcastic, witty sort of way.





> I don't know if I would reccomend this book for it comic nature (although I do agree with you that it had a certain wit to it), but I would still encourage anyone to read it becasue it was fantastically written and inspiring.


As long as you warn them that that along with it being quite funny in places, it can also be a little sad and depressing I think it would be ok and that it's actually a biography and not a novel. It was recommended to me because of it's humour and I was surprised at the serious nature of the subject matter but I still appreciated the recommendation.

I thought of another brilliant comic novel, _A Confederacy of Dunces_ by John Kennedy Toole. It's an insanely funny book.

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## Mary Sue

Anything by P.G. Wodehouse, who makes fun of the British aristocracy in his madcap comedies of the 20's and 30's. I would especially recommend "Right ho, Jeeves", "Thank You, Jeeves", "The Code of the Woosters", "Laughing Gas", and/or "Uncle Fred in the Springtime." 

And then there's Peter Cannon, who wrote hilarious crossover stories in which Wodehouse characters, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, confront the monsters of H. P. Lovecraft. The book is called "Scream For Jeeves" and believe me, it's a keeper. 

The fantasy of Tim Powers, particularly "The Stress of Her Regard" and "The Anubis Gates". He does stuff about time travel and the supernatural, usually set in Victorian England, but always with a comic twist. He's truly strange...in a good way!

As other people have already mentioned, the Flashman novels. They're a hoot!

----------


## Fango

I find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene and unfunny. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good parody (as you can see by my previous link), but this is jejune IMO and plays on sexual humour. No offense, just not my cup of tea.

I'm still looking at Confederacy of Dunces (which I heard a lot about for the past two years, actually) and Jeeves (which I also heard about before). The other titles don't grab my attention from some reason...

Discworld certainly has a quality, but I'm not sure if it's funny enough for me (after reading the beginning of The Wee Free Men). But I'll sure read further and other books in the series before I make up my mind.

----------


## PeterL

> I find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene and unfunny. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good parody (as you can see by my previous link), but this is jejune IMO and plays on sexual humour. No offense, just not my cup of tea.


I am amazed that anyone would find "Bored of the Rings" to be obscene. While there are mentions of sexual and/or sexually deviant activities, those items are satirical in themselves, rather than making any effort to pander to prurient interests. And the "sexual humor" in "Bored of the Rings" is a minor item. Most of the humor is parody of "Lord of the Rings". "Bored of the Rings" makes no sense at all to anyone who is not familiar with LOTR.

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## Fango

Alright, maybe "obscene" wasn't the right word, but I stick to everything else I said. And I understand the "sexual stuff" suppose to be satirical/parodic, it just doesn't tickle my funny bone.

I read the original twice at least.

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## PeterL

> Alright, maybe "obscene" wasn't the right word, but I stick to everything else I said. And I understand the "sexual stuff" suppose to be satirical/parodic, it just doesn't tickle my funny bone.
> 
> I read the original twice at least.


The Ancient Greeks wrote a Satyr play for many of their tragic trilogies. BOTR plays that part with respect to LOTR. Regarded in that light, BOTR is truly great; but, if you don't appreciate an appeal to ancient literature, it is lost on you. 

It is possible that some parts of BOTR are obsolete. There are references that would be lost on someone who didn't have some familiarity with the time period in which it was written. For example, Tim Benzedrine is absolutely to anyone who knows of the drug scene in the late 1960's, but I expect that it wouldn't be as meaningful or funny to someone who wasn't familiar with that setting.

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## Fango

Okay, whatever makes you feel better.

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## Idril

> Discworld certainly has a quality, but I'm not sure if it's funny enough for me (after reading the beginning of The Wee Free Men). But I'll sure read further and other books in the series before I make up my mind.


I've never read _Wee Free Men_ but wasn't that geared more for younger readers? If you do decide to try Pratchett, start with _Mort_, the first two read like Pratchett is trying *way* too hard to sound like Adams, the third one is just simply awful but _Mort_ is good and if it's strictly humour you're looking for, I would suggest you stick with the Discworld books that feature the Wizards, they are always good for a laugh.

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## vili

I would go with Idril in that if you come to Pratchett from an Adams background, _Mort_ seems like the best place to start. I find it really good, while I think that much of the rest of Pratchett is quite boring, actually. But then again, I didn't like _Bored of the Rings_, either, so I may just not be calibrated for some types of humour.

Fango: as you have Guybrush as your avatar, you might want to try the Discworld adventure games. (Not quite "fiction", but perhaps "interactive fiction"?  :Wink: ) They play pretty similarly to Monkey Island, and at least the first two are really quite funny.

Also, I know you were originally looking for novels, but for "wild humour and creative writing style" you could do worse than peeking into Tom Stoppard's plays. They are good reads, or at least the 60s and 70s plays are that I am mostly familiar with.

This, of course, comes with certain qualifications: if you don't like absurdist humour (say, Monty Python) and absurdist theatre (Beckett, to some extent Pinter), stay away from Stoppard.  :Wink:

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## SnámhDáÉan

I always loved Catch-22 for comedy. . . or alot of oscar wilde and beckett

or At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

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## mono

Though always a great idea for a thread, this thread may help your search, too.  :Wink:

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## kimpossible

J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man is funny, and sophisticated in a..... spraying fecal matter kind of way

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## Pendragon

Douglas Adams' _The Deeper Meaning of Liff_, a tongue-in-cheek dictionary, much like the also hilarious _Devil's Dictionary_ by Ambrose Bierce makes a good read. The irrepressible Dave Barry has an entire series of books that could make a cow laugh with his misadventures in Japan, Cyberspace, Turning Forty, etc. If you can get into small town backwoods humor dealing with the outdoor life and kids growing up, Pat McManus' books are great. The sardonic wit of Lewis Grizzard is also pretty funny.  :Biggrin:

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## Idril

> Douglas Adams' _The Deeper Meaning of Liff_, a tongue-in-cheek dictionary...


I've never heard of that and being the big Adams fan I am, I think I need to find it. Thank you, Pen, for bringing it to my attention.  :Wink:   :Biggrin:

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## Dark Lady

Depending on how sophisticated you want the novel to be you could give Ben Elton or Stephen Fry a go.
I agree that Pratchett is hilarious and 'Catch 22' is amazingly funny in a completely horrific way.

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## Shalot

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King was not a funny book, as far as subject matter and overall plot, but there was one line in the book that made me laugh out loud. It was about a clipboard: "The clipboard he'd been carrying went sliding like a toboggan for leprechauns." This character Henry has been through hell, he's being held against his will, and it looks like the situation is only going to get worse. Someone has dropped a clipboard on the snow, and to Henry it looks like a toboggan for leprechauns. That, to me, was funny.

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## inDeniaL

the canterbury tales-chaucer :FRlol:

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## bazarov

Don Quixote 
Master and Margarita

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## Nightwalk

Celine's and Bukowski's works have been riots. _Don Quixote_ has been the exemplar of wholesome humor that has yet to be surpassed.

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## sunsetsweetie12

The Artemis Fowl series, I saw someone mentioned it. It's very clever and funny. I can't think of anymore at the moment.

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## Maida

_A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams made me laugh

and _Pale Fire_ by Vladimir Nabokov made me giggle

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## Googly

The Georgia Nicolson series, the first book is entitled "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging". Kinda says it all.......

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## bouquin

*Three Men in a Boat* by Jerome K. Jerome

*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* by Mark Twain

*Tartarin de Tarascon* by Alphonse Daudet

*Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim* by David Sedaris

*Moby Dick* by Herman Melville

*Bridget Jones*  (1 & 2) by Helen Fielding

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## alhara

lets start with the old ones 
candide voltaire(almost everything he wrote even on the napkiens in french cafes would make me laugh)
canterbury duh
gulivars travels
sherlock holmes(not necissarly comedy but cleverness always makes me giggle)
The Imitatable Jeeves(I have read this the most recentley.. LOVED IT)
Hitchickers Guide to the Galaxcy
DIRK GENTLEY (I like these better than HG2G) 
Most books I have read make me laugh but these especially.

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## bouquin

Oh yes, *Candide* made me laugh too!

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## Virgil

*Lucky Jim* ~ Kingsly Amis

*Nice Work* ~ David Lodge

Try them, you won't be dissappointed. Let me know if you are.

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## Scheherazade

*The Diary of a Nobody George and Weedon Grossmith*

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## Pen&Ink

-Eoin Colfer's books(Artemis Fowl series, Supernaturalist, Half moon, Wish List)
-Dianna Wynne Jones. (Howl's Moving Castle, and all the Chrestomanci books, except the newest because i havn't had a chance to read it yet...)
-A Series of Unfortunate Events really made me laugh. It's so random :FRlol:  
-I am reading Sense and Sensability and its made me laugh a few times.
- I am positive there are more, these are just the ones that come to mind.

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## Laindessiel

Ladybird books always take the wits out of me. Now that I'm much older, more mature (okaaaayyy...), I finally appreciate them for what they're worth. When I was a kid, a toddler - 2 to 3 yrs. old - I'd see reading as a chore and didn't like books that much, even if they were covered in attractive colorful pictures and bright colors but now I've came back and read them again and the books were just hilarious! I can't figure out why I disliked reading them in the past and now it's come to haunt me (we still keep those books, after 15 years) but I now appreciate them. (I can see those puppies and dogs and cats staring at me...) They make me roll on the floor laughing and it generally makes me feel good. 



Thanks, Buggy!

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## aeroport

Well, _Right Ho, Jeeves_ was hilarious.
Also, James's _The American_ was actually quite funny in many places until it neared the end.

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## toni

Any Oscar Wilde play can make anyone laugh! especially the Importance of Being Earnest.. Don't get me started on the "Bunburying!!"

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## dramasnot6

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy! I have never laughed so much for one book

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## Jean-Baptiste

Mark Twain has written some incredibly funny essays, if that counts. "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" I had to read in installments, so as to avoid asphyxiating myself with laughter. The same goes for "How to Make History Dates Stick." 

Ulysses is actually quite funny, and not just here and there funny. There are jokes everywhere in that book, very funny jokes--if one cares to read each passage fifteen times.

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## Guzmán

Im only going to list some of those I found funny in a laugh out loud sort of way:

- "Three men in a boat" - Jerome K. Jerome
- "The importance of being Ernest" - Oscar Wilde
- Any from the Blandings series by P.G. Wodehouse

What do you think? Any more to add to the list?

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## papayahed

Confederacy of Dunces
The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett

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## manolia

Definetely "Dirk Gently" by Douglas Adams
and "Men at arms", "Fifth Elephant", "The Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett

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## Guzmán

> Confederacy of Dunces


It had its moments for me, but i didnt find it hilarious. Its funny in a satirical sort of way. Still I enjoyed it a lot.

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## Black roses

Hogfather, Thud, Jingo, and Interesting Times by Terry Prachett

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## papayahed

> It had its moments for me, but i didnt find it hilarious. Its funny in a satirical sort of way. Still I enjoyed it a lot.



That's true, I still laugh out loud when I think of the spoiled milk , alert the dairy. haha

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## subterranean

Beside Wilde's _ Importance....._, I should add Green's _For Whom The Bell Chimes_.

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## botkin

"Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett comes to mind.

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## bazarov

Master and Margarita was very funny, and especially Don Quijote, that knight was hilarious.

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## bouquin

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bridget Jones's Diary (1 & 2)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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## Niamh

Utterly Monkey- Nick Laird

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## masterlibrarian

Any work of Raymond Queneau
I personally suggest "Zazie in the Metro", "The Blue Flowers" and "We always treat the women too well"
He's the most funny author that i had ever read

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## ennison

Neil Munro - The Para Handy stories.
Stephen Leacock - anything
Vladimir voinovich - The Adventures of Private Chonkin

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## Thatch

O Henry, a personal favorite for a laugh.  :Nod:

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## Nick Rubashov

the funniest books I've ever read would have to be Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. They get funnier every time I read them.

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## Granny5

When I was very young, my brother gave me a book that he thought was very funny. And it was. It's the funniest, silliest book I've ever read. The writing was not good and the humor was pretty juvenile, but I laughed all the way through the book. It was The Horse is Dead by Robert Klane.

 :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:   :FRlol:  

What was the funniest book you ever read?

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## BibliophileTRJ

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Insanely funny; but you have to be in the right frame of mind to read it (or have a twisted sense of humor)..... I've recommended it to a number of people who just couldn't get through it, and thought me crazy for loving it.

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## Niamh

The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy
Blart(kids book that had me in stitches on a train once. Lots of people staring.)

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## PrinceMyshkin

_Catch 22_ comes to mind, and in dryer, more subtle vein, anything by Wilfred Sheed, and the two books of short stories and the first novel by J.F. Powers.

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## Virgil

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Nice Work by David Lodge
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley

Of course i'm reading Don Quixote right now and it is hilarious. Just check out the Don Quixote Reading Group thread here on Lit Net.

There ought to be more but I can't think of any of the top of my head.
edit:
Oh of course. I just read this a few months ago:
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

And Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

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## Silvia

Barney's version by Mordecai Richler....I truely loved it....it is not that it makes you laugh out loud, but it surely makes you smile :Biggrin:   :Biggrin:

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## Poetess

Complete Nonsense for Edward Lear was funny to me.. and a complete nonsense indeed

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## satyrane

Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome).

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## BlueSkyGB

Small Gods...Terry Pratchett..... :FRlol:   :Biggrin:   :Smile:

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## barbara0207

To my mind, Douglas Adams is the funniest writer ever. Too bad he is dead.

Once I heard him read from his works in Heidelberg. That was even funnier because he could do the voices of Marvin and the stupid killing machine brilliantly. He also read from 'Last Chance To See', adding witty comments. I know there is a recording of that lecture (CD), but I can't lay my hands on it. Can anyone help?

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## Granny5

> To my mind, Douglas Adams is the funniest writer ever. Too bad he is dead.
> 
> Once I heard him read from his works in Heidelberg. That was even funnier because he could do the voices of Marvin and the stupid killing machine brilliantly. He also read from 'Last Chance To See', adding witty comments. I know there is a recording of that lecture (CD), but I can't lay my hands on it. Can anyone help?



Barbara0207, if you go to Amazon.co.uk and search for Douglas Adams click on shop and then click on The Hitckhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a price for the audio book will come up. Don't know if it's the lecture you were talking about.
Hope this helps. :Wink:

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## bibliophile190

I also laughed my way through Don Quixote. It's just so funny, albeit a bit dry.

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## amanda_isabel

funnies book i think was sex slave: how to find one, how to be one.

not a lot of thought into it. but amusing enough.

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## formality hater

I really enjoyed reading Misery Guts by Morris Gleitzman.A little childish but very funny! :Smile:

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## Pensive

Okay, I have a strange sense of homour. So for me they would be:

_Pride and Prejudice_ - Mr. Bennet's wit and satire! Black humour I like.
_Mort_ - Ironic, I found it a kind of funny

And perhaps some books from Harry Potter series. I also found many funny bits in _The Hobbit_ and _Lord of the Rings_ but I wouldn't call all these books basically funny. They are dark too. 

And yes, George Bernard Shaw's plays. My favourite kind of humour!

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## AuntShecky

Wow. This opens up really good possibilities for many posts.
For general humor (non-fiction): Don't forget Thurber, Benchley, Frank Sullivan and contemporary humorists
Woody Allen,Russell Baker (also editor of humor anthologies), George Carlin (yes he writes books!), and
David Sedaris. Ironically, earlier this year David was in hot water because the exaggeration necessary for humor writing caused some spoilsports to say it was "fiction."

And in that fiction category -- the master of course is Mark Twain.
More modern comic authors? Thomas Pynchon. Peter DeVries. Elliott Baker. (Remember that last one cause
I spent precious minutes on an Internet search. I was trying to get the title of his book that takes place on a US Navy ship in WWII. Maybe somebody can help me out here. Anybody know?)
I left off the authors whose books make you laugh except that they are unintentionally funny. Otherwise I'd be posting all day! But Twain really did a number on his contemporary, James Fennimore Cooper.

http://journals.aol.com/auntshecky71...without-clues/

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## barbara0207

> Barbara0207, if you go to Amazon.co.uk and search for Douglas Adams click on shop and then click on The Hitckhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a price for the audio book will come up. Don't know if it's the lecture you were talking about.
> Hope this helps.


I've got some audiobooks of the series, but Amazon hasn't got the lecture. But thanks all the same for answering, granny.  :Smile:  (BTW, just call me Barbara.  :Biggrin:  )

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## NickAdams

Molloy= Samuel Beckett.
I described to my wife as Woody Allen meets William Faulkner.
I don't know the accuracy of that, but you use what you know.

----------


## Bakiryu

Neil Gaiman: most of his books crack me up. Specially Good Omens and Anansi Boys (The chapter with the lime was priceless.) Most Prattchet books are quite funny too!

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## applepie

> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
> 
> Insanely funny; but you have to be in the right frame of mind to read it (or have a twisted sense of humor)..... I've recommended it to a number of people who just couldn't get through it, and thought me crazy for loving it.


I have to agree with you Biblio. This was the funniest book I've ever read. I'm actually getting ready to read it again to put some laughter back into my days. I've been feeling far to serious lately. My husband doesn't get my love of the book since he was one who couldn't make it through it. He tends to think it is nonsense, and I'm laughing at so much of the book while reading him funny passages. He just ignores me now when I have it out.

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## SleepyWitch

> Small Gods...Terry Pratchett.....


all Discworld novels! especially the older ones. the new ones are cool too and I like them better on the whole, but the older ones are full of puns and thinly-veiled irony about English/ British culture

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## SirJazzHands

For me it would probably be Don DeLillo's White Noise (even if I hated a lot of the book, the funny parts were _hysterical_), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and.. I have to admit The Adventures of Tom Sawyer made me laugh out loud a few times as well.

----------


## StayGolden

Definitely Hitchhiker's Guide.

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## Dark Muse

> "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett comes to mind.


That is the first thing I thought of, but in addition I would also say

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea 

Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins 

The Legend of Nightfall by Mickey Zucker Reichert

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## grace86

Lysistrata - the women try to stop the war by not sleeping with their husbands.
Don Quixote - as mentioned previously. This book is great.

----------


## Dark Muse

I found Shakespeare's Love Labors Lost a delightfully funny play

----------


## capek

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Probably the funniest book I've ever read.

----------


## Niamh

Hitchhikers! :Thumbs Up:

----------


## higley

Yes Hitchhiker's was really funny.

Has anyone else read or seen "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged" by the Reduced Shakespeare Company? Not literature particularly, but it really made me laugh a lot.

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## rmd

_Morte D'Urban_ by American writer J. F. Powers is very funny. It isn't a novel, however, that many people have heard of apparently. It received the National Book Award way back in 1962

The novel is about a Catholic priest, Father Urban, and his dealings with other priests in the Order of St. Clement. Father Urban is ambitious, which isn't perhaps the best attribute for a priest to have. He gets banished, so to speak, to a small parish in rural Minnesota. Power's sense of humor is dry, but he tells a very good story.

Though not a prolific writer, Powers also wrote short stories and one other novel.

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## Maida

Youth in Revolt. C.D. Payne

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## FenellaLovell

Hello everyone!

93

Name 4 pieces of writing that made you laugh.  :Smile:  

The Rape of the Lock (Alexander Pope)
Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
The Adventure of the Kind Mr. Smith (W. J. Locke)
He Went Out to Buy a Rhine (Robert Graves)

93 93/93
FenellaLovell

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## Oomoo

The Possessed

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## Nossa

I totally second The Rape of the Lock.
There's another poem that I read in one of the poetry books I have, and it goes like this...

There's the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that's unafraid,
All have existed since time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the love of a Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for another.... :Biggrin:

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## Annamariah

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
Le Petit Nicolas (René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé)

I'm sure there are some more, but those are the two that first comes to my mind.

----------


## Virgil

Don Quixote!! What a blast.

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## NickAdams

Molloy - Samuel Beckett
The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway

I've been having trouble with a fourth. I'll second Don Quixote!

----------


## PeterL

Bored of the Rings. It is advised that one not eat or drink while reading it, because of the risk of choking.

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## nathank

Here's six:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -Adams
Sotweed Factor - Barth
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Mason and Dixon - Pynchon
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov

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## livelaughlove

Don Quijote definitely.

----------


## loggats

Vile Bodies makes me laugh out loud and so has some Pratchett. 

I didn't really find Carroll's Alice stuff funny.

----------


## AuntShecky

Nick mentioned Molloy. He is right, that opening novel of Beckett's trilogy is very funny (in the way Waiting for Godot is funny.) But at the very same time, his work as a whole is melancholy, "nihilisitic." To be able to pull this off without depressing the entire world is a rare gift, indeed.

I see the same thing in Mark Twain, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kurt Vonnegut.

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## karo

Matt Beaumont: e. - a novel of liars, lunch and lost knickers
Matt Beaumont (again): Staying Alive 
Tom Robbins: Fierce invalids home from hot climates
Maria Dahvanah Headley: The year of yes

----------


## kratsayra

Stuff by Nick Hornby usually makes me laugh out loud. Some of his books annoy me, but even then I usually laugh.

----------


## chasestalling

sogladatay

----------


## ThePianoMan

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Cat's Crade by Kurt Vonnegut

----------


## papayahed

Confederacy of dunces

----------


## Virgil

Lucky Jim by Kingsly Amis is hilarious. 

Hey wait a minute, we've had the subject of this thread before. I remember bringing Lucky Jim up. While I'm at it, books by David Lodge are extremely funny too.

----------


## motherhubbard

I got a real kick out of the Canterbury Tails

----------


## trippy star

I found The God Delusion hilarious.

----------


## Dark Muse

Top of the list would be Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman

in addtion, just about everything I have read by Tom Robbins, though I would have to say I think Still Life With Woodpecker, and Skinny Legs and all thus far were my favorites. 

And I thought that the Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea was pretty funny. 

The Legend of Nightfall, my all time favorite fantasy book by Mickey Zucker Reichert also had a touch of comedy to it.

----------


## Orpheus

Candide
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Cat's Cradle

Wow! I just realized that most of the stuff I read is not all that humorous. That's going to change.

----------


## Sir Bartholomew

Catch-22 (Heller)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
most of Jane Austen's are fun
Pale Fire (Nabokov) made me laugh when I realized in the end it was all hoax

----------


## PabloQ

> Anything by P G Wodehouse makes me laugh, especially the Jeeves and Wooster books. In fact I am reading Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves at the moment and it's wonderful,Light as a soufflé but witty and entertaining. If you haven't read him I strongly recommend him to you. If everyone read Wodehouse there would be no depression in the world!


Good call. As I was reading this string and was assembling my list I overlooked Wodehouse. Jeeves is a hoot.

----------


## Savarucci

> Mark Twain has written some incredibly funny essays, if that counts. "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences" I had to read in installments, so as to avoid asphyxiating myself with laughter. The same goes for "How to Make History Dates Stick."


I'll have to look those up, thank you! Read this one if you haven't already. http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/twain.html
He wrote instructions on how to rescue a lady from a burning building.  :FRlol:  It's absolutely hysterical.

Let's see, books...
_Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,_ which everybody and their grandmother has mentioned already. XD
_The Scarlet Pimpernel_ by Baroness Orczy. Sir Percy in his fop-mode is priceless, as is Marguerite's encounter with this one disgusting innkeeper and the snuff/black pepper incident. (Never snort pepper, folks.)
_Catcher in the Rye_ by J.D. Salinger. I didn't care for Holden as a person, so for me this book was mostly a good source of schadenfreude. I'm a horrible person.  :Thumbs Up:  
_A Patchwork Planet,_ Anne Tyler. A former derelict tries to get his life back in order. 
_To Kill a Mockingbird,_ Harper Lee. Scout is just too funny. XD
_Hamlet,_ Shakespeare. Hamlet's one-liners are pretty good.

----------


## bonnie banks

Three men in a boat, jerome k jerome
Catch 22, Heller
Gridlock and another set in Australia [can`t remember title] Ben Elton
Gormenghast 1&2, Mervyn Peake

----------


## ben.!

_The Importance of being Earnest_ by Oscar Wilde.

Or any of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, he's just so funny.

----------


## hollywoodkid

Ah, my first post - how very exciting!

The Diary Of A Nobody - actually made me hoot with laughter 
Twelfth Night - Malvolio stuff is brilliant
Brideshead Revisted - Anthony Blanche is so funny. Every word he says makes me giggle naughtily.

However, Catch 22 just wound me up. By the end of the book i thought i was going mad - i used to hurl it across the room in sheer frustration!

----------


## PabloQ

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
James Fennimore Cooper's Literary Offenses -- Mark Twain
Sick Puppy -- Carl Hiasson
Cat's Cradle -- Kurt Vonnegut
Second the vote for P. G. Wodehouse
A Confederacy of Dunces too.
Gulliver's Travels -- Swift

----------


## sixsmith

What are some of the funniest books people have read?

"Portnoy's Complaint" (Philip Roth). Immature, misogynistic but undeniably hilarious and Roth's breakout book.

"Catch 22" (Jospeh Heller) - Satire at its best. A work of comic genius.

"The Information" (Martin Amis) - Delicious skewering of the literary life and the envy and pettiness it can engender.


Thoughts??

----------


## kevinthediltz

"A modest proposal" made me crack up. But only because alot of people in the class I read it in didnt realize that is was satire.

----------


## Lokasenna

It might not be a great work of high literature, but _Good Omens_ by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is probably the funniest thing ever written.

For something a bit more intellectual, then I'd go for Evelyn Waugh any day: something like _Scoop_ or _Decline and Fall_.

----------


## Mariamosis

I have not read all of the posts so I may be repeating here. 

I found myself laughing many times in many of Kurt Vonnegut's books. (with such characters as Kilgore Trout)

Also, the way Vladimir Nabokov addressed the reader in Lolita (ex: assuming I was a bald man) ... very humorous

----------


## higley

Lately I've been digging around for Bill Bryson, who wrote "Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself." The humor is so tongue-in-cheek, with that touch of self-deprecation, and perfect phrasing.

----------


## mollie

George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody was utterly hilarious.

----------


## Tsuyoiko

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ and sequels by Douglas Adams

_Don Quixote_ by Miguel Cervantes

_The Overcoat_ by Nikolai Gogol

----------


## Wilde woman

_Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ - the Rape of the Sabine scene with Alfred.  :FRlol: 

And, as many have mentioned, Hitchhiker's Guide.

Anyone read David Sedaris?

----------


## dafydd manton

> Neil Munro - The Para Handy stories.
> Stephen Leacock - anything
> Vladimir voinovich - The Adventures of Private Chonkin


Unbelievably, I'd forgotten the Para Handy stories. Thanks for reminding me!!

----------


## Qaphqa

Many of the stories in the Decameron are quite funny.

----------


## annatak

I've absolutely laughed out loud through most of Mil Millington's Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About. There's a taste on his website: http://milmillington.com/

Even smiling as I post this...

----------


## Stella Mica

LOVE the nonfiction writing of Mark Twain - it almost makes you ashamed of being so amused, he assaults you in a funny way. I don't have the title, but one of his pieces about a poem for dead children published in the newspaper is extremely funny. (Sounds awful, I know, but try to read it without laughing!)

More commonly, My Horizontal Life by Chelsea Handler

----------


## WICKES

*Decline and Fall*  by Evelyn Waugh is easily the funniest book I have ever read

*Lucky Jim*  by Kingsley Amis is also very funny

Aldous Huxley is witty, but not laugh out loud. For me P G Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh are the masters of comedy.

----------


## Emil Miller

Decline and Fall is incredibly funny but its equal is another of Waugh's books i.e A Handful of Dust, although I sometimes wonder if one has to be English to fully appreciate the humour as nobody sends his countrymen up as funnily as Waugh. And the amazing thing is that the English really are like that.

----------


## ClaesGefvenberg

Im glad this thread got revived.  :Thumbs Up: 

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
James Herriot - Vet in a spin.
Jerome K Jerome - Three men in a boat.

/Claes

----------


## sublooney

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart is fantastic.

Any novel by Richard Russo, though Nobody's Fool stands out for me as the funniest book and movie.

Mark Twain short stories are unbelievably funny. Check out The Watch, and/or How I Edited An Agricultural Paper


Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You by Christopher Durang is hysterical, though not for everyone. I found all his plays very funny. 

non fiction--Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods has some very funny moments.

----------


## DisPater

*The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War* by _Jaroslav Haek_ --- probably the funniest book ever written. 

and

the writings of _Ilf and Petrov_ - *The Twelve Chairs* and *The Golden Calf*

----------


## crystalmoonshin

> I also laughed my way through Don Quixote. It's just so funny, albeit a bit dry.


Actually, I find Quixote's adventures crazy and funny but it's kinda sad towards the end, when he regained his senses and died.

I'm currently reading "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster. It's a book for young children but I got intrigued after a friend told me it's a good read. It's pretty funny, with all the puns and word plays.

But the one book that never fails to make me laugh would have to be "The Bunbury Book of Limericks" by The Reverend Septimus Bunbury. Anyone heard of this book?




> Neil Gaiman: most of his books crack me up. Specially Good Omens and Anansi Boys (The chapter with the lime was priceless.) Most Prattchet books are quite funny too!


The only book by Neil Gaiman that I have read is 'Anansi Boys" and i find it hilarious! I'm looking forward to reading more of his works. I like his smooth prose.

----------


## jeanjeni2003

Funniest book I ever read: Anything by Terry Pratchett, most especially Guards!Guards!
When you read his entire Discworld series, the satire so eclipses Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guides that I wonder why people even bother comparing them. Also, Twain's books are still hilarious and as pointed now as they were when originally written. (An unpublished story by Mark Twain will appear in The Strand Magazine this Spring for you die-hards out there.)

April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. -- Mark Twain

----------


## Stargazer86

I don't typically go for "funny" stuff, but David Sedaris and Frank McCourt definately make me laugh

Oh and when I was at the bookstore the other day, I saw this featured on one of the counters. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. O_o
Any thoughts on classics being turned into zombie stories?

----------


## meh!

Most anything by Evelyn Waugh
Most anything by Ian Banks (crow road, wasp factory specifically)

----------


## prendrelemick

I've laughed out loud in public twice when reading.

once on a bus, reading Hitler and my part in his downfall by Spike Milligan.

and once in a cafe, reading Unreliable memiors by Clive James.

----------


## blackbird_9

Is it just me or did anyone find the fist one or two chapters of Wuthering Heights hilarious? Lockwood's cheekyness at the start of the novel had my laughing out loud which caused the other starbucks goers to stare at me like I was nuts.

Oh, and A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Brilliant, intricate, and well crafted all while being friggin hilarious.

----------


## Wilde woman

> Is it just me or did anyone find the fist one or two chapters of Wuthering Heights hilarious? Lockwood's cheekyness at the start of the novel had my laughing out loud which caused the other starbucks goers to stare at me like I was nuts.


Yes, I'm glad someone else finds the opening sequence funny. That was what drew me into the book.

I also found Apuleius' _The Golden *ss_ quite funny. It's a Latin novel about a main character who is obsessed with magic; while performing a spell, he accidentally turns himself into a donkey.  :FRlol:

----------


## JBI

> I don't typically go for "funny" stuff, but David Sedaris and Frank McCourt definately make me laugh
> 
> Oh and when I was at the bookstore the other day, I saw this featured on one of the counters. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. O_o
> Any thoughts on classics being turned into zombie stories?


seems a bit of a culturally bankruptcy to me, - like they actually stocked it on the shelves, meaning thought it should be taken seriously.

----------


## 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

----------


## The Comedian

David James Duncan's The River Why made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

----------


## JhKreisler

I know literature is sometimes assumed to be dead serious, but there are a few works and authors that prove the opposite by writing a higly literary book with a very funny side. I'm reading the drama-works of Harold Pinter and it's really humoristicly written

Do you guys know any good books that also made you laugh?

----------


## dfloyd

Mark Twain
Moliere
Aristophnaes
Shakespeare
Max Beerbohm
Evelyn Waugh
P. G. Wodehouse and one could go on ad infinitum.

----------


## Barbarous

defintely go with _Gargantua and Pantagruel_ by Rabelais and _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman_ by Laurence Sterne, the funniest books I have ever read!

----------


## NickAdams

Molloy - Samuel Beckett

----------


## Dogbrick

The late, great Douglas Adams.....

----------


## Babak Movahed

> I know literature is sometimes assumed to be dead serious, but there are a few works and authors that prove the opposite by writing a higly literary book with a very funny side. I'm reading the drama-works of Harold Pinter and it's really humoristicly written
> 
> Do you guys know any good books that also made you laugh?




Holy crap that is the first Pinter comment I've seen on these forums, The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker are amazing and quite funny.

Also I thought Candide by Voltaire, The Doctor is Sick by Burgess, The Fur Hat by Voinovich and Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut were all pretty funny.

----------


## BienvenuJDC

L Frank Baum
The Oz Series

----------


## blp

Agree on Breakfast of Champions, Douglas Adams and Molloy. 

It's quite rare that I find a book really funny. But actually, War and Peace has been making me laugh quite a bit at times. American Psycho did too.

----------


## hellsapoppin

Practical Jokes With Artemus Ward by Mark Twain. Funninest book I ever read in my life!

----------


## BienvenuJDC

> Agree on Breakfast of Champions, Douglas Adams and Molloy. 
> 
> It's quite rare that I find a book really funny. But actually, War and Peace has been making me laugh quite a bit at times. American Psycho did too.


I'd forgotten about Douglas Adams, and Lewis Carroll also had some humorous/silly works...

----------


## Wilde woman

Anything by (guess who!) Oscar Wilde is hilarious, but I recommend "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Also, I quite enjoyed "The Rape of the Lock" by Pope and Catch-22 by Heller.

For some old-school (as in Classical and medieval) humor, I really like Catullus and Chaucer. Oh, and The Golden *** by Apuelius.

----------


## Helga

there are many authors who are funny in there seriousness like Wilde, and others that are funny in a more absurd sense like Douglas Adams... but the last book I read and laughed out loud every 3 minuets or so was Marley and me by the columnist John Grogan, as a dog owner who knows how 'difficult' dogs can be, it was a very amusing book!

----------


## keilj

Mark Twain definitely comes to mind. The Innocents Abroad, his autobiography, or Roughing It in particular are very funny. Whether he's describing hiding on a rooftop and dropping a watermelon on his younger brother's head, or describing a sea captain who can drink "astonishing amounts of whiskey while never showing any signs of feeling the effects", or describing an Indian mining friend who decided a good place to store dynamite was in the stove.


I also heard that George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman is very funny. I just bought it but have not gotten to read it yet

----------


## MarkBastable

Dickens, Southern, Amis, Vonnegut. And above all, Wodehouse.

----------


## JhKreisler

> Holy crap that is the first Pinter comment I've seen on these forums, The Dumb Waiter and The Caretaker are amazing and quite funny.
> 
> Also I thought Candide by Voltaire, The Doctor is Sick by Burgess, The Fur Hat by Voinovich and Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut were all pretty funny.


Indeed! I too enjoyed the birthday party and the chambre.

----------


## Kevets

JP Donleavy has had me laughing harder than any other author. But it's been many years, and perhaps I've matured since then!

----------


## aliengirl

I agree that Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Frank Baum, Lewis Caroll and even Shakespeare are quite funny. And not to forget Stephen Leacock, the great humorist. Recently I read Roald Dahl's ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' and enjoyed it a lot.

----------


## janesmith

I'd have to suggest "Three Men in a Boat"- Jerome K. Jerome. I was really surprised at how hilarious it was in parts. Brilliant portrayal of middle-class snobbishness.

----------


## Modest Proposal

I tend to be someone who rarely laughs out-loud at anything particularly the written word. However, Adams, Spark, Waugh and Heller, I find terribly funny.

----------


## rufustfirefly

A Confederacy of Dunces - Kennedy

Catcher in the Rye -Salinger

The two funniest books that I can recall.

----------


## MarkBastable

> A Confederacy of Dunces - Kennedy


I had forgotten that one. It's the same sort of humour as _The Office_. You have to watch it from behind the sofa. But very funny.

----------


## Snowqueen

I have read two plays of George Bernard Shaw and thoroughly enjoyed them, especially _Arms and the Man_. It is not just funny but witty too.

----------


## Darcy88

Maybe its just me, but I burst into laughter at least once each chapter when reading Don Quixote. When he charges the flock of sheep and gets stoned by the shepherds, oh my, how I chuckled at that.

----------


## keilj

> Catcher in the Rye -Salinger
> 
> ...funniest books that I can recall.



huh??

----------


## Brad Coelho

Confederacy of Dunces, any Vonnegut novel & Catch 22 are good calls. I just finished White Noise (Delillo) which definitely had its moments; as did Notes from the Underground (while not known as a side splitter it certainly can get you rollin').

----------


## JuniperWoolf

Don Quixote really _is_ pretty damn funny. 

I also thought that Dorian Grey was hillarious, but that's just my sense of humour. I loved Dorian, I thought that he was a riot.

----------


## TheBearJew

Vonnegut and Douglas Adams have a flair for wit. But, I'd say that Catch 22 is the rare book that had me turning heads as a result of my seemingly random laughter.

----------


## Alexander III

Byron's Don Juan, had me laughing out loud every stanza

----------


## Binx

> Confederacy of Dunces, any Vonnegut novel & Catch 22 are good calls. I just finished White Noise (Delillo) which definitely had its moments; as did Notes from the Underground (while not known as a side splitter it certainly can get you rollin').


You know your right; I don''t think of Notes from the Underground at all as a comedy, but it was pretty funny actually.

----------


## MarkBastable

> huh??


Huh what? It is pretty funny - though drily so.

----------


## keilj

> Huh what? It is pretty funny - though drily so.


ha - all right. As long as you're not talking knee-slapping funny

----------


## Nax

I have a bit of a sadistic and dry sense of humor, so for me its Hunter S. Thompson.

His insightful and often drug fueled rants just crack me up.

----------


## Thespian1975

I've just finished Joy in the Morning by P G wodehouse. Every line in it makes you smile and quite a few make you laugh out loud or nudge the person next to you and read out quotes. 

A quote from Stephen Fry on the back reads

"You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in it's warmth and splendour"

----------


## Emil Miller

Having read vast tracts of Wodehouse's prolific output I have laughed out loud on many an occasion. It's fatal to read him on public transport at the risk of being thought mad by other passengers, but the funniest book for me must be Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop' which had me helpless with laughter from beginning to end. I'm laughing now just thinking about it.

----------


## giventofly

If you can handle some dark... verrrry dark and shocking humor, and are looking for something more contemporary, just about anything from Chuck Palahniuk is a winner. I would recommend Survivor or Choke (If you saw the movie, please don't let it disuade you. One of the worst adaptations ever of a phenomenal book). But beware: He is NOT for the faint of heart.

----------


## ForKnowledge

pioneer, go home by Richard Powell

----------


## annatak

Mil Millington (Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About), Christopher Moore and Sherman Alexie for me.

----------


## MagicalSoul

Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is my best 'laughing' book.
I don't like comical books nor those which meant to be "amusing", I prefer serious books.

----------


## waltereegho

Will Cuppy's 'The Decline and Fall of practically Everybody' is hilarious. I also enjoyed the oeuvre of German writer Walter Moers.

----------


## jet.thursday

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^^

----------


## Niamh

Anything written by Danny Wallace generally has me laughing my head off.  :Nod:

----------


## D.S. Poorman

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

----------


## Aravona

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.

----------


## Maryana

Terry Pratchett, especially in English - his ironic jokes aren't an easy thing to translate.

----------


## caspian

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




> A Confederacy of Dunces - Kennedy
> 
> Catcher in the Rye -Salinger
> 
> The two funniest books that I can recall.


Totally agree. A confederacy of Dunces is my top pick. I don't remember anything else funnier.
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. 




> and just because it was surprisingly so... Lolita


agree :Shocked:

----------


## 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.

----------


## caspian

> 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.

----------


## 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.

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## bouquin

> I know literature is sometimes assumed to be dead serious, but there are a few works and authors that prove the opposite by writing a higly literary book with a very funny side. I'm reading the drama-works of Harold Pinter and it's really humoristicly written
> 
> Do you guys know any good books that also made you laugh?




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!

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## Niamh

Sue Townsend's books make me laugh.

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## lyni

I agree with Terry Pratchett. his Discworld series of books are very entertaining.

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## caspian

> 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.


I think it was jail and he dies there(if I remember correctly)
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:

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## WICKES

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!

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## Emil Miller

> 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.

Thomas Mann is also very funny in 'Felix Krull'

Incidentally, Wodehouse is just as funny in German as in English.

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## ktr

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

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## DougSlug

"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."

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## kasie

_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.)

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## monaghme

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.

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## wokeem

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.

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## PrimordialBeast

on the road by kerouac and cat's cradle by vonnegut had me laughing most of the time

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## angel92

Lamb by Christopher Moore

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## Tallon

Lucky Jim By Kingsley Amis always has me in stitches.

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## minstrelbard

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.

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## Veho

_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.

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## PrimordialBeast

I thought On the Road was pretty hilarious

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## LMK

Tim Dorsey's Serge Storm books, while not literature are books that are so outrageous I can't help but laugh out loud.

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## YORK

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.

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## Sebas. Melmoth

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.

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## YORK

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.

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## kiki1982

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...  :FRlol: . Can anyone be more idiotic? 
But indeed, that is Hardy's only one I believe which is still remotely funny...

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## Olga4real

> J.C. Jerom "Three men in a boat" is probably my favorite.
> Short stories by O'Henry, Zoschenko(Russian author), Max Beerbohm 
> Hasek's "Good soldier Svejk" is bloody hilarious. The Russian equivalent is Voynovich's "Adventures of Chonkin"


I absolutely agree with you about Svejk!
I would like to add *Gogol*, *Ilf and Petrow* and of course *Anton Checkov*!!!

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## Persuasion

"Diplomatic Baggage" by Bridgit Keenan

About a diplomat wife adventure with her spouse.

I enjoyed that book very much and laughed alot.

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## OrphanPip

> 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.


Acts 20:9 is pretty funny too.

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.

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## dafydd manton

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.

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## LuggageFan

> 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


OMG that really is funny, isn't it?  :Smilewinkgrin:

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## life

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).

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## lyni

The Discworld books by Terry Pratchett.
very dry English humour.

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## Big Dante

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.

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## PeterL

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.

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## Austin Butler

Thomas McGuane's _The Bushwhacked Piano_

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## NiMROD

A Confederacy of Dunces and Catch-22 both made me laugh quite a bit. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy I find to be a love it or hate it type book.

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## WyattGwyon

A few that are purely or primarily comic: 
Gary Shteyngart, _The Russian Debutante's Handbook_ and _Absurdistan_
Jincy Willett, _Winner of the National Book Award_
William Gaddis, _JR_ and _A Frolic of His Own_
Thomas Pynchon, _Vineland_

Many of the funniest things I've read have been in novels with a serious element: 
David Foster Wallace, _Infinite Jest_
Gaddis, _The Recognitions_

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## Calidore

To counterbalance NiMROD, I love _Hitchhiker's Guide_ and its first sequel (the rest can be safely skipped), but thought _Confederacy of Dunces_ was godawful--the title better describes the Pulitzer committee that voted for it.

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## Seasider

"Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh

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## Emil Miller

> "Scoop" by Evelyn Waugh


Yes it literally had me helpless with laughter time and again. I like humorous writing and have read the usual comic authors such as Thurber, Buchwald, Leacock, Wodehouse etc. but, to my mind, Scoop is the funniest book in all English literature. If there were anything funnier, I would probably have hysterics. I should add though that its humour is very, very English and might not appeal to everybody. Definitely not to be read sitting among others on a train.

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## esferica

"The Good Soldier Shvejk" by Jaroslav Hashek

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## TheFifthElement

I found Catch 22 pretty funny. And what I've read of Don Quixote was pretty funny too. Comedy is so personal though.

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## dfloyd

Try Waugh's other African novel, Black Mischief. To equal or top both of Waugh's novels, try The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary. all of these were published by the Folio Society, and I have them for sale. Send me a personal message.

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## Calidore

I haven't read a lot of Tom Sharpe, but his first two _Wilt_ novels were pretty funny. Tom Holt's Norse mythology spoof _Expecting Someone Taller_ is also good.

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## Rores28

Wodehouse's stuff is pretty funny and light as well. You can pick up any of his books without having read the others, despite the fact that he employs the same basic cast of characters.

David Foster Wallace and Kurt Vonnegut are pretty funny as well, but its often more deadpan humor. And the overarching subject they are discussing will not be light and fluffy like wodehouse.

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## Emil Miller

> Try Waugh's other African novel, Black Mischief. To equal or top both of Waugh's novels, try The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary. all of these were published by the Folio Society, and I have them for sale. Send me a personal message.


_Black Mischief_ is also hilarious but it ends grimly with death and cannibalism and the protagonist back in London at a loose end. The same goes for _A Handful of Dust_, which brilliantly sends up the silliness of the upper classes but ends in tragedy. _Decline and Fall_ has some extremely funny characters, especially Captain Grimes and the confidence trickster Soloman Philbrick. Anyone who has only read Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_, will be very surprised at just how funny he can be after such a serious novel.
_Decline and Fall_ is described thus by one critic: " Concocted of cruelty,bigotry, pederasty, white slavery, violence, madness and murder, _Decline and Fall_ is fundamentally playful and side -splittingly funny"

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## avid

"the gang that couldn't shoot straight" by Jimmy Breslin was a very funny novel. It takes the gangster genre and makes it just plain silly fun.

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## Darcy88

Can't say I've read that much comedy in my time. Don Quixote though had me frequently laughing aloud. Sancho's gullibillity, Don Quixote's earnestness, and the brilliantly ridiculous action sequences which proceed from both will crack you up big time. Don Quixote imagines an uncouth bar-wench to be a noble lady of impeccable class and breeding.... Sancho believes that he'll be rewarded for his service by being granted title to his own island.

Another classic - Gulliver's Travels - has some parts that are truly hilarious as well. The cleverness of the irony, the fantastical nature of the plot, the setting and the action, as well as the sheer comedy of certain scenes, such as when a six inch tall dagger-wielding Gulliver engages in mortal combat with a pair of pig-sized rats .... oh my... I found it all priceless. 

And though I've only read bits and pieces, Boccacio's Decameron was rather potently humorous at times.

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## Seasider

_Changing Places_ by David Lodge. About his year as an Exchange Prof in America. I did the same thing but though my year had funny moments it wasn't as funny as his.

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## kasie

_Diary of a Nobody_ - G & W Grossmith: the episode of painting the bath makes me smile just remembering it; you can see it coming a mile off but that just makes it even more ridiculous when the inevitable happens.

_Three Men in a Boat_ - J K Jerome: again, you're just waiting for the daft things to happen.

_The Pursuit of Love_ - Nancy Mitford: wistful and bound to end in tears but the Uncle is so monstrous, he's hilarious.

Someone has already mentioned Tom Sharpe - I'll just say _Porterhouse Blue_ is my favourite and for once the tv version did it more than justice.

_Hitchhiker's Guide_ - heard the original radio version with great delight rather more years ago than I care to remember.....never could understand why some people did not find it funny.....

Jasper fforde - any of them, but start with _The Eyre Affair_ for the Thursday Next series or you'll be flummoxed by the conceit out of which the stories are airily spun.

And no one has mentioned him because he's not Proper Literature, but Terry Pratchett never fails to raise a smile for me: try _Weird Sisters_ - I defy anyone not to guffaw at the opening paragraphs; that Hwil the Playwright could go far...

Oh, and it's not a novel, but Gerald Durrell's _My Family and other Animals_ is wickedly subversive: I have never been able to take Lawrence Durrell seriously after reading it.

I second the David Lodge choice and would add that his _Nice Work_ struck a horribly familiar chord when I read it as I exchanged an academic life for a job in industry.

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## Rores28

> _Black Mischief_ is also hilarious but it ends grimly with death and cannibalism and the protagonist back in London at a loose end. The same goes for _A Handful of Dust_, which brilliantly sends up the silliness of the upper classes but ends in tragedy. _Decline and Fall_ has some extremely funny characters, especially Captain Grimes and the confidence trickster Soloman Philbrick. Anyone who has only read Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_, will be very surprised at just how funny he can be after such a serious novel.
> _Decline and Fall_ is described thus by one critic: " Concocted of cruelty,bigotry, pederasty, white slavery, violence, madness and murder, _Decline and Fall_ is fundamentally playful and side -splittingly funny"


I know we're not all Twilight fans feverishly speculating about the ending of New Moon or anything, but *spoiler alerts* are still a good rule of thumb.

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## Helga

I have never read that many funny books, I did find the guide to the galaxy funny and Don Quixote but I also found the simple book Marley and me very funny at times maybe because I saw Spock in Marley a lot.

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## JazzJazz

I don't usually tend to read comedy although I found _Bridget Jones' Diary_ quite funny  :Biggrin5:

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## annatak

Christopher Moore for ironic and sarcastic humor! Lamb and the Dirtiest Job are some good ones.

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## Chris 73

Hitchhiker's Guide, also Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

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## Melysnl

Fear and Loathing in Law Vegas is absolutely the funniest book I've ever read. I read it in college and it brought me out of a bad mood. The Acid House by Irvine Welsh and anything by Jennifer Belle are seconds. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis too. 

Most of these books aren't novels though, which is why I have to crown Jennifer Belle as the funniest novelest, if I had to. Maybe I'm sick but but all of her books are funny, honest, and helped me to regain my composure when I needed to. I get the dark humor; surreal and hilarious at the same time.

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## stlukesguild

Gore Vidal- _Myra Breckenridge_
Philip Roth- _Portnoy's Complaint_
William Faulkner- _As I Lay Dying_
Flannery O'Conner- short stories
Jonathan Swift- _A Modest Proposal_
Donald Barthleme- _The Dead Father_ (Obviously I have a black sense of humor)
John Kennedy Toole- A Confederacy of Dunces

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## wordeater

Comic writers are often underrated. Here are some classics:

Roald Dahl, _My Uncle Oswald_
P. G. Wodehouse, _The Inimitable Jeeves_
Jerome K. Jerome, _Three Men in a Boat_

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## hillwalker

'*Billy Liar*' by Keith Waterhouse if you enjoy sardonic, British humour. However, be prepared to embarrass yourself if reading in public.

H

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## NiMROD

Ooh I'm glad someone mentioned Lamb by Christopher Moore. That made me laugh a lot.

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## Bastable

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, i just finished my second read through this year, one of the funniest, in a subtle way, books i've ever read.

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## PoeticPassions

This has made me realize I almost never read funny stuff... oh no... I can't think of any novel that really made me laugh. I am sure there has to be something.

Oscar Wilde's plays tend to be funny. I always laugh with Shakespeare... Cymbeline, for example.

Though not a funny book, it definitely made me laugh out loud a few times: _Notes from Underground_

I may have to pick up a few books all of you have mentioned... I need some comedy in my life.

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## Brett Cottrell

Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff (Christopher Moore)
Jitterbug Perfume (Tom Robbins)
Skinny Legs and All (Tom Robbins)
Red Dwarf (Grant and Naylor)
Good Omens (Pratchett and Gaiman)
Kraken (China Mieville)

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## Seasider

_The Education of Hyman Kaplan_  by Leo Rosten and the sequel _The Return of Hyman Kaplan_ are very funny, especially if you have ever tried to teach English to a group of non- English speakers. Hilarious.

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## Des Essientes

"The Heart of a Dog" and "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

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## Isla

"The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols = Rib-aching tears of joy.

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## Brett Cottrell

> "The Heart of a Dog" and "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.


Haven't read The Heart of a Dog, but The Master and Margarita is great. Love the cat.

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## Silas Thorne

'Catch 22' by Joseph Heller.
'The Liar' by Stephen Fry. Oh, and DO NOT read the wikipaedia entry or a review on this before reading the book. It will just spoil the fun. 
I've also found some novels by Kurt Vonnegut rather funny, though the chuckles are bitter.

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## Seasider

_The Dud Avocado_ by Elaine Dundy. Very funny account of an American ingenue's experiences in Paris after WW2.

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## hellsapoppin

While technically not a novel, Mark Twain's *Practical Jokes With Artemus Ward* was by far the funniest book I ever read. So sad it is out of print.

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## ashthehunk

Hi friends
Just finished reading Three men in Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Its Good but you wont be able to enjoy it fully unless you are a Londoner or have taken a ride through Thames as per book.

I think of all the genres in literature , humor is toughest to master.
So who are the authors you think are masters of this art.
And which is the funniest book you have ever read.

Ciao

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## kev67

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh is very funny, as is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.
David Lodge's Small World was very funny.
I used to like Spike Milligan's war diaries: Hitler, My Part in his Downfall, and the others. I am not sure I'd find them so funny now.
James Herriot's vet books were hilarious.
George MacDonald Fraser's Private McAuslen books were hilarious also. Some of his Flashman books were pretty funny too.
Larry McMurtry gave some of his characters great lines in the Lonesome Dove series.

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## kev67

> Hi friends
> Just finished reading Three men in Boat by Jerome K Jerome
> Its Good but you wont be able to enjoy it fully unless you are a Londoner or have taken a ride through Thames as per book.
> 
> I think of all the genres in literature , humor is toughest to master.
> So who are the authors you think are masters of this art.
> And which is the funniest book you have ever read.
> 
> Ciao


I've been on several boat trips on the Thames. I've even swam down a few miles of it. However I did not think Three Men in a Boat was very funny and could not see what the fuss was about. It's quite a pleasant book; it's not very funny.

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## Anton Hermes

> _The Dud Avocado_ by Elaine Dundy. Very funny account of an American ingenue's experiences in Paris after WW2.


That's one of my all-time favorites right there.

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## Hawkman

Tom Sharpe's Riotous Assembly had me in stitches and rolling on the floor the first 6 times I read it.

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## phoenixtears

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K Jerome was quite amusing and so are some of the short stories of O Henry.

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## fajfall

Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. It has a hilarious fat joke that goes for several pages that adds nothing to plot. "That mountain of Mad Flesh!"

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## mona amon

Catch 22
Lolita
Pale Fire
Wodehouse's Jeeves and Blandings books
Anything by Dickens and Jane Austen
Ulysses
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Bernard Shaw's plays

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