Recommend a truly funny book (again)

Cafe Society
1

Millions,

A while back, I posted a similar (okay, identical) request and ended up with a veritable library of hilarity. Handling Sin (by Michael Malone) remains, to this day, my favorite novel and it was gifted to me in that thread. Straight Man, Evolution Man, and PG Wodehouse also entered my library thanks to that discussion.

A few of my own recommendations:

  • The Thirteen and 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear: A fantasy for adults with exquisite illustrations. A great gift book too.

-Handling Sin. I obviously can’t talk this up enough. Malone, in general, is fantastic (and underappreciated out of the South, it seems) and I stand behind everything he’s done that I’ve read, with Foolscap being his silver medal, I think. I always come back to Handling Sin though. Just writing about it makes me want to reread it. Again.

-Lastly, I’d like to thoroughly pimp James Morrow’s “Corpus Dei” trilogy (which contains Towing Jehovah, Blameless in Abbadon, and The Eternal Footman). I adored and devoured them all. Basically, God dies, falls to earth, and hilarity ensues. And, beyond the humor, there’s some meaty theodicy in these books. Not to sound like a blurbist, but…“If you liked Good Omens, you’ll LOVE Towing Jehovah!”

So, let’s do this again. I’ve got some looooong drives coming up and would love some gems to get me through.

2

Anything by Tim Dorsey. Start with Florida Roadkill, then move on to Hammerhead Ranch Motel and the rest. Never in literary history have the adventures of a serial killer been more entertaining and hysterical.

3

Legal Daisy Spacing: The Build-A-Planet Manual of Official World Improvements is out of print, but available used. I bought several copies of this when it was first published, and gave them to friends and relatives. It’s hard to describe this book, since I’ve never encountered anything quite like it. Suffice it to say that I think most Dopers would love it.

4

Any of Tom Sharpes books.

Start with Blott on the Landscape and carry on from there

5

Another tour, eh? Coming to NY at all?

Stuck on Blackberry but I bet in the last thread I recommended The Last Hurrah by O’Conner (great look at politics in America) and Catch-22, which is up there with Confederacy for 20th Century funny.

Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row are more charming than funny but with some laugh out loud moments - but they’re so damn good you’ll love 'em anyway…

6

There are some excellent recommendations here. Gee, I love this kind of thread. Some of the best books I’ve ever read were recommended by Dopers.

7

“Pride of the Bimbos” by John Sayles. About the Brooklyn Bimbos, who compete in women’s softball league that plays the carnival circuit. What’s special about the Bimbos? They’re all men in drag!

“The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual Of Survival & Manners” by J.P. Donleavy" Easily the funniest non-fiction book I’ve ever read in my life.

8

You can’t beat the masters.

Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens’ comic masterpiece and quite possibly the funniest novel ever written.

9

pinkfreud: I totally agree about Dopers having fine, fine taste in literature. I’ve got my Dad, my ex-boss, and the Dope and that’s all I’ve ever needed as far as that goes. Thanks also for the similar/identical thread.

And I’m loving these already. Tom Dorsey I’d heard of but forgotten (thankfully this time memorialized on the interwebs) but the rest are new to me (except Catch 22, obviously. Loved that, at least the second time I read it. Tried as a high school freshman and was oh so confused).

And Wordman: Yes indeedy. We’ll be opening up for this British band at the Bowery on November 1st. It’s been quite a while since we’ve tread over on the Right Coast—I’m ecstatic.

10

I have also heard of this “Dickens” character you speak of.

11

Towing Jehovah, like everything else I’ve ready by Morrow, seemed overly didactic and dry to me. Not to my taste.

The book I’m currently recommending is in part because it’s freakin hilarious. The Lies of Locke Lamora is sort of what you get if the cast from Ocean’s Eleven got dumped in Thieve’s World and saddled with the luck of Dortmunder with dialogue and action scenes written by Quentin Tarantino. There were several times where I laughed aloud while reading it–something I rarely do–and several times where the cons going on made me gasp in admiration. Excellent read. The humor comes almost entirely from the title character’s dialogue.

Daniel

12

Anything by the fabulous David Sedaris.

Ladies will most likely enjoy Laurie Notaro.

13

A walk in the Woods.

14

That’s what I came in here to mention! That book was part of my inspiration to hike the trail (much to the dismay of trail grumps, I’m sure.) I was all set to go in the spring of '07 and just weeks before my departure date my hiking partner dropped out and financial hell broke out in my life. It sucks because it was probably the last chance I had to thru-hike it for several decades, so now I plan on section-hiking it over the course of several years. Enough of my babbling, the book is hilarious.

15

Since I was the one who recommended Handling Sin, I’ll try throwing out a few more titles I’ve enjoyed. Some of these, it’s been a few years since I read them, which may be a good thing (that they’ve stayed in my memory that long) or a bad thing (as in, if I read them today, would I wonder what I saw in them?). Following the OP’s example, I’ll stick with humorous novels (as opposed to non-fiction).

Jasper Fforde: His Thursday Next books are amazing, stuffed full of more clever ideas and literary in-jokes than anyone else’s I know. They’re a mix of genres, including classic literature, suspense, chick lit, several different sub-genres of sci-fi, metafiction, and absurd humor. It’s best to read them in order, starting with The Eyre Affair, though IMHO some of the later ones are better. His “Nursery Crimes” books featuring Jack Spratt are fun also (they sort of do for fairy tales and nursery rhymes what “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” did for cartoons).

Clyde Edgerton: Another Southerner. Killer Diller was his first that I read, and it had at least one laugh-out-loud moment (involving Santa Claus’s car), but it’s a sequel to the even better Walking Across Egypt.

Robertson Davies: The great Canadian novelist. I haven’t read anything by him that I haven’t liked. Though his “Deptford Trilogy” (starting with Fifth Business) is generally considered his masterpiece, his earlier Salterton Trilogy, starting with Tempest-Tost, is funnier and more light-hearted.

Garrison Keillor: Wobegon Boy is both funny and moving. It’s the book that got me to think of Keillor as a genuine novelist and not just that guy on the radio.

Nick Hornby is well enough known that I hesitate to mention him, but his novels have both humor and depth and are very good.

I was tempted to mention the fiction of G. K. Chesterton, especially The Man Who Was Thursday (which is on my personal Top Ten), but a search reveals that you were the one who started a thread about him several years ago.

And, anyone who wants a funny book to read and has not read Alice In Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass must do so. Immediately. A huge amount of humor, especially British humor, that has come along since shows the influence of Lewis Carroll. For extra insight, get Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice.

16

Good luck. And here’s to hoping you get another shot at it. I haven’t had my chance either.

17

Ditto…I know he has his detractors, but I think Bryson is funny and engaging…all of his books. Don’t know if one wants to read about traveling while traveling, but not all of it is that way. His latest is about growing up in Iowa. No, really, it’s interesting…and funny.

Another, if you haven’t already read it could be Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs.

Oh, and I’m totally gonna come see y’all play if you hit DC…

18

Thanks. I told my wife just the other night I was going to start hiking it 2 weeks per year after I finish school and she asked how long that would take. I paused to do a little head math and then said . . . about 24 years. We both burst out laughing. It’s a daunting task but I really want to do it. I grew up about an hour and a half from the trail so I knew some people who did it and it was always in the back of my mind.

Yeah, I’ve read most of his books. The Thunderbolt Kid was really good but not as laugh out loud funny as A Walk in the Woods. Although the part about his friend’s dad going off the high dive had me in stitches.

19

Damn - we have a gig that night. Any other stuff?

And I second Robertson Davies hugely - read’em all but find The Rebel Angels to be a great intro (first of the Cornish trilogy - he’s all about trilogies…)

20

John Dies at the End, written by (former) webmaster of pointless waste of time (which was dissolved after he became assistant editor of Cracked.com). It’s hilarious and genuinely scary.

The original story (written as the prologue) was a one time thing that was meant to be a once-a-year short story, but got so much support from his readers that he retconned it a bit and made it into a full length novel, published as an online serial. It eventually got picked up by a publisher and edited further, the re release has now replaced the original online. You can read it at johndiesattheend.com or buy it at Borders if you want to read it on the train/toilet/skydiving lesson/world tree after Ragnarök.

It’s not the best written thing, but considering it’s narrated in first person by a college dropout it works well. (It’s not terrible at all, just don’t expect Tolkein). It still reads a lot like something published in chunks online and as such you may find yourself putting it down for a while and coming back, depending on how engaging you find it.

The general gist of the story is that a bunch of people at a party take a drug called Soy Sauce, which causes several of them to die (or other strange things, such as drop out of time), the main character accidentally takes it and a bunch of really, really disturbing stuff happens. It’s also very funny though, it’s not completely dark humor, a lot of it has to do with some of the histories of items (Soy Sauce gives you heightened senses, to the point where you can see everything that has happened to any given object in the past, including the parts before it was created, it also simulates mind reading in a similar way, they can read every little line of your facial features and body language).

It’s not everyone’s book though, and it is a bit crude in its humor, and is very disturbing (and genuinely scary) in its horror sections. But if it sounds like you’ll like it go for it.