Looking for funny books

[KalibakCruel]

So I'm looking for a book that's funny. Doesn't have to necessarily be a comedy book, but something light with humour would be great. I mainly want to read it here and there, as a break from the bleaker and heavier books I'll be reading. Google searches are useless here unfortunately.

Any recommendations?

[David Selig]

Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem. Funniest sci-fi there is.

[Jo498]

Pratchett: Disc world books, but you probably know them already

PG Wodehouse, especially "Jeeves and Wooster" and the earlier "Blandings/Lord Emsworth" books. But they are very "old world", mostly written between the '20s and '60s, but often "Edwardian" in spirit; the author was born in the 1880s. The setting is a timeless idealized Britain, usually without any reference to the war. No shell-shocked veterans. They also recycle very similar themes (something the author admitted freely), but the best ones are absolutely hilarious, although some readers may find them very old-fashioned. They are short novels and short story collections.

For black humour with SF elements: Kurt Vonnegut, especially Cat's cradle and Slaughterhouse Five

[Kikajon]

Any book by Roddy Doyle or Frank McCourt (both irish).

On the line of the above mentioned Wodehouse, if you like english style (as I do), Jerome K. Jerome (Three men in a boat etc) might be old fashioned but their humor is immortal.

Mark Twain in general and in particular "Huckleberrry Finn".

[Larry of the Lawn]

Pg wodehouse's Jeeves novels are fast and hilarious reads.

[matt b]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams seems so obvious it almost goes without saying (but I said it anyway).

[Iskaral Pust]

I agree with The Hitchhiker's Guide and Jeeves and Pratchett's Discworld series.

Colin Bateman's Mystery Man series of three detective novels is very funny (the first-person POV is a hilariously exaggerated example of the autism-spectrum private detective). His Dan Starkey series is also funny but much less so (bitter, snarkey put downs and rejoinders).

Grant & Naylor's Red Dwarf series was even funnier as books than on TV. Rob Grant also wrote a couple of pretty funny books: Fat and Incompetence.

[KalibakCruel]

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll be checking them out. Google searches anyways led to me to books that were in no way what I was looking for lol.

[maarsen]

So I'm looking for a book that's funny. Doesn't have to necessarily be a comedy book, but something light with humour would be great. I mainly want to read it here and there, as a break from the bleaker and heavier books I'll be reading. Google searches are useless here unfortunately.

Any recommendations?

Try The Flashman Papers. These are a series of novels written by George MacDonald Fraser.

[Disputatious]

John Barth, "The Sot Weed Factor":

http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/barth/fiction/sot-weed-factor/

"Sot-weed" is very old fashioned slang for "tobacco", and a "factor" would be a dealer therein.

[peterbound]

The road

Night

Blood Meridian

[Larry of the Lawn]

The road

Night

Blood Meridian

Dude you gotta at least let him discover the real knee-slappers on his own...

[Darth Richard II]

The road

Night

Blood Meridian

Ha, dammit, you beat me to it.

[Tears of Lys]

Pratchett: Disc world books, but you probably know them already

PG Wodehouse, especially "Jeeves and Wooster" and the earlier "Blandings/Lord Emsworth" books. But they are very "old world", mostly written between the '20s and '60s, but often "Edwardian" in spirit; the author was born in the 1880s. The setting is a timeless idealized Britain, usually without any reference to the war. No shell-shocked veterans. They also recycle very similar themes (something the author admitted freely), but the best ones are absolutely hilarious, although some readers may find them very old-fashioned. They are short novels and short story collections.

For black humour with SF elements: Kurt Vonnegut, especially Cat's cradle and Slaughterhouse Five

Pg wodehouse's Jeeves novels are fast and hilarious reads.

Maybe he should try the British show based on the books to get an idea of what it's like. I personally find them hilarious, but maybe others find them dated and quaint.

The road

Night

Blood Meridian

You forgot Bakker's "Second Apocalypse"! I think there were as many as two pages that had me rolling in the aisles.

[Jo498]

The show with Fry (Jeeves) and Laurie (Wooster) is extremely well done. The books add another layer though, because they are all told by Bertie Wooster in a very special language, full of silly '20ties slang, half remembered allusions to other literature, poems, the bible (I probably miss still quite a bit). This factor makes the Jeeves/Wooster books IMO considerably stronger than some other Wodehouse, although there are entire series of his I have not read, like the ones about Golf and the ones with the guy at the bar who is sharing yarns and tales with people always characterized by the drink they are having.

[broken one]

Little Big Man by Thomas Berger. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Man_(novel)

I thought the movie was funny but after reading the book my chest and abdominal muscles hurt for days.

[Liffguard]

Good Omens is an absolute must read.

[SkynJay]

Have not had a chance to throw out Martin Millar's name for a while. He has re-released his old Thraxas books which are a fantasy detective comedy series with real short books. And his more recent stuff is not pure comedy but still hilarious at times- The Good Fairies of New York would be a great place to start.

[KalibakCruel]

The road

Night

Blood Meridian

This got a genuine chuckle out of me. I've already read two out of the three. no BM yet.

[Wilbur]

One of the great online tools for finding new authors is: http://www.literature-map.com/

Type in the name of an author you enjoyed, and discover a galaxy of other writers of similar style and tone. Using it I am reminded of the following recommendations for you.

For an older, gentler fashion of fun, try Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) (1889) as Kikajon mentioned above.

Another culture-clashing, gently funny set of mystery novels set in colonial Egypt is from Michael Pearce, focusing on the Mamur Zapt, head of the British Secret Police in Cairo.

• The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet 1988
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog 1989
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous 1990
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind 1991
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Girl in the Nile 1992
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt 1992
  
• The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction 1993
  

The Michael Pearce books are more mannered comedies, with the many cultures of the pre-war Cairo clashing for comedic effect.

Evelyn Waugh also wrote one of the most politically incorrect books ever printed, Black Mischief, in 1932, which was proceeded in 1930 by the only slightly less scandalous 1930 work Vile Bodies. Not for the easily offended

Graham Greene, of all people, wrote two skewed black comedies that you might like.

• Travels with My Aunt (1969)
  
• Doctor Fischer of Geneva (1980)
  

As Maarsen mentioned above, George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books are very funny. He also wrote the hilarious McAuslan novels and also The Pyrates.

• The General Danced at Dawn (1970)
  
• McAuslan in the Rough (1974)
  
• The Sheikh and the Dustbin (1988)
  

You might also try Tom Sharpe, who wrote Blott, the funniest book of all time to be read in audio format by David Suchet.

• Wilt (1976)
  
• The Wilt Alternative (1979)
  
• Wilt On High (1984)
  
• Wilt in Nowhere (2004)
  
• The Wilt Inheritance (2010)
  
• Riotous Assembly (1971) This is a fantastic send-up of Apartheid-era South Africa.
  
• Indecent Exposure (1973) This is the follow-up to Riotous Assembly that got Sharpe expelled from South Africa.
  
• Blott on the Landscape (1975) Find the David Suchet audio book; it is priceless.
  
• The Great Pursuit (1977)
  
• The Throwback (1978)
  

Tom Sharpe is basically a twisted P.G. Wodehouse with a painful hangover. In the Wodehouse books, I like the Blandings Castle books, those set at the Drones Club, and Mr. Mulliner.

A more modern and far, far more profane set of mysteries from Christopher Brookmyre includes Quite Ugly One Morning, 1996, which very notably starts off with a jobby on the mantelpiece. My Scots neighbor lent me this and also explained several of the, uh, more earthy colloquialisms.

Hugh Laurie of House fame wrote a funny book called The Gun Seller, 1996, about a solider of fortune and a slightly incompetent global conspiracy.

Keith Robertson wrote about post-war America, and if you enjoy a slapstick trip across the continent with Henry Reed, try Henry Reed's Journey, 1963. These simple, funny books soothe the savaged soul.

Tom Holt has written a whole stretch of humorous fantasy novels, some of which I think are pretty funny, including the following.

• Expecting Someone Taller (1987), based on the mythology of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
  
• Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988), based on Norse mythology and history.
  
• Flying Dutch (1991), based on the story of the Flying Dutchman.
  

A. Lee Martinez is another humorous fantasist.

• Gil's All Fright Diner (2005)
  
• In the Company of Ogres (2006)
  

L. Sprague de Camp wrote The Fallible Fiend, a fantasy from the point of view of a demon.

The ultimate in fantasy humor, the ur-source, if you will, is Jack Vance's Dying Earth, particularly the two books about Cugel.

• The Eyes of the Overworld (1966)
  
• Cugel's Saga (1983)
  

I hope that someone comes up with something to suit your fancy.