# Best Humorous Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516 "2002-06-29T02:55:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![benlormat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d26b3c/32.png) [@benlormat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/benlormat)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/1 "2002-06-29T02:55:28Z")
I want to read something funny. Any suggestions? Ben ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/2 "2002-06-29T03:01:24Z")
Terry Pratchett…Douglas Adams… ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/3 "2002-06-29T03:04:48Z")
_The Princess Bride_ - William Goldman _Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ - Douglas Adams _Discworld Series_ - Terry Prachett _Still Life with Woodpecker_ - Tom Robbins _Skinny Legs and All_ - Tom Robbins _Jitterbug Perfume_ - Tom Robbins _Catch-22_ - Joseph Heller _Return of the Twelves_ (Okay, a kid’s book. Bite me. 🙂 ) - Pauline Clark _Cat’s Cradle_ Kurt Vonnegut _Good Omens_ Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett ---
**Author:** ![WSLer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@WSLer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WSLer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/4 "2002-06-29T03:39:00Z")
Terry Southern: The Magic Christian ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/5 "2002-06-29T03:50:45Z")
_Double Whammy_ and _Tourist Season_ by Carl Hiassen(sp?) _The Hot Rock_ by Donald Westlake _Burglars Can’t Be Choosers_ by Lawrence Block _Bill, the Galactic Hero_ by Harry Harrison _The Lazlo Letters_ by Don Novello _The Complete Book of Guys_ by Dave Barry _Miami Blues_ by Charles Willeford(sp?) _Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot_ by Al Franken _Give War a Chance_ by PJ O’Rourke _What Do We Have for the Witnesses, Johnny?_ by Gary Trudeau ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/6 "2002-06-29T04:00:20Z")
‘a confederacy of dunces’ by john kennedy toole ---
**Author:** ![Osbie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cdc98d/32.png) [@Osbie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osbie)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/7 "2002-06-29T04:46:21Z")
_Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States_ by Dave Barry _Hype & Glory_ by William Goldman I third _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams _Letters from the Earth_ by Mark Twain (his other short stories are good too) _Straightman_ by Richard Russo ---
**Author:** ![Osbie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cdc98d/32.png) [@Osbie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osbie)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/8 "2002-06-29T04:49:50Z")
**Benlormat** , you’ll come back and let us know what you picked, right? ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/9 "2002-06-29T06:07:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by essvee \* > \*\*‘a confederacy of dunces’ by john kennedy toole \*\* Ooooh. That’s a great one! ---
**Author:** ![NightRabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbce88/32.png) [@NightRabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightRabbit)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/10 "2002-06-29T07:10:55Z")
Anything by David Sedaris! ---
**Author:** ![Bernard\_Marx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@Bernard\_Marx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bernard_Marx)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/11 "2002-06-29T10:00:12Z")
I hear Mr. Wodehouse can be quite humorous… ---
**Author:** ![singular1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba9def/32.png) [@singular1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/singular1)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/12 "2002-06-29T11:33:05Z")
_Island of the Sequined Love Nun_ _Coyote Blue_ _Practical Demonkeeping_ all by Christopher Moore ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/13 "2002-06-29T12:32:04Z")
Anything by Patrick McManus. True American humor that most can relate too. I wish I knew a Rancid Crabtree when I was growing up. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/14 "2002-06-29T12:36:06Z")
Anything by Dave Barry. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/15 "2002-06-29T15:02:55Z")
anything by David Sedaris (my favorite is _naked_, followed by _me talk pretty one day_) _Fraud_ by David Rakoff the title essay of David Foster Wallace’s _A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again_ and I’ll second the Discworld books and The Princess Bride (written by the same person who wrote the screenplay) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/16 "2002-06-29T15:08:51Z")
Classic American humorists: Robert Benchley James Thurber S. J. Perelman Corey Ford Richard Armour Art Buchwald Ogden Nash Woody Allen Roy Blount Jr. H. Allen Smith ---
**Author:** ![Kallessa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7993a0/32.png) [@Kallessa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kallessa)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/17 "2002-06-29T18:37:09Z")
Everything by Joe Queenan. His movie reviews/celebrity interviews are priceless, and his observations on American pop culture (or lack thereof) is dead on. He is a snob–I dare you to read _Red Lobster, White Trash, Blue Lagoon_ without once saying "but I like . . . " ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/18 "2002-06-29T19:08:01Z")
My favourite humourous writer is [Paul Quarrington](http://www.quarrington.org/works.htm). You may be familiar with the film adaptation of _Whale Music_. The book is much better, but still not one of my favourites. Highly recommended: _[Civilization: Its Part in My Downfall](http://www.quarrington.org/civil.htm)_. Film students will relish the many in-jokes. Everyone else will piss themselves over the “fuck-pigs.” Mr. Quarrington often writes what superficially appear to be “Sports Novels”, which should be enough to turn any semi-literate person off – **however** , he’s an amazingly gifted writer. Gifted enough that I read everything of his, _except_ the “sports” themed novels (I am phenomenally unmoved by sports,) and then read and enjoyed them all, too. Not your typical “sports” novels. _Logan in Overtime_, for example gives us a protaganist who is a goalie for the losingist hockey team in Canada-- and, although the book is ostensibly about the longest overtime game in hockey history, not a single hockey play is described. Mr. Quarrington tends to focus more on Logan’s sincere belief that his kneecaps are actually hostile intelligences from the Sirius system, out to ruin his life. Hell, in _Home Game_ he writes compellingly about a baseball game. (No mean feat- baseball is about a banal and pointless an activity as I know of.) But this is a baseball game between a troupe of stranded Circus freaks and a bunch of dour religious extremists, for whom the game is a deadly-serious spiritual metaphor, or something. The protaganist, Nathaniel “Crybaby” Isbister has quite a history himself. Dear god. Yes, Quarrington is my favourite funny guy, but, like Vonnegut, his work is not _merely_ funny – it’s insightful and often profound. He’s the only author that consistently makes laugh out loud since Douglas Adams – and I was about thirteen when I was reading Douglas Adams – I think that my threshold is somewhat higher now that I’m a bitter, jaded old man. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Big\_Kahuna\_Burger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Kahuna_Burger)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/19 "2002-06-29T20:21:08Z")
Right on **Weird AL** , I never read his books in public after people thought I was crazy while reading _Dave Barry in Cyberspace_. _Dave Barry Slept Here_ will be one of the funniest books you’ve ever read if you know American history. Also, Art Buchwald is worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2002, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516/20 "2002-06-29T20:36:35Z")
Kinky, Kinky, Kinky…Friedman, that is. In the mystery section. Also get one of his CDs for background music. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-humorous-books/116516.md?page=2)