I love a good story. I love listening to people tell stories and I love listening to podcasts with comedians where they just shoot the shit and talk for 2 hours. I also really love books that do that too. They’re so entertaining and a breeze for me to read. If anyone could give more suggestions on actually funny books, that’d be awesome.
Books so far I’ve liked:
Life of the Party: Tales from a Perpetual Manchild - Bert Kreisher
Sex Drugs and Coco Puffs - Chuck Klosterman
All of David Foster Wallace’s essays
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
And I’ve actually enjoyed every single pro wrestling book I’ve read and it lets out my inner nerd child that used to love that stuff.
Along the lines of memoirs, stories from people’s lives (some funny, but not for comedy per se):
“The Kid Stays in the Picture” both book and documentary about film producer Robert Evans. I listened to the book on CD with Evans narrating. Very entertaining.
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” anecdotes from physicist Richard Feynman
Bill Bryson’s travel books would also fall into this category. Yes, they’re about various travels, but told as his experiences (often hilarious) during these travels.
His The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is more of a straight memoir, and it is quite funny.
I thought Paul Feig’s two autobiographical books were quite funny (Kick Me and Superstud).
John Cleese: So, Anyway… It isn’t very silly, but it is flat out hilarious.
David Niven: Bring On The Empty Horses Old as this is, it’s still great.
Mark Twain: Roughing It Written 143 years ago. Try to read it without laughing out loud,
One that I enjoyed was A Guide to Western Civilization or My Story by Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom). It was published in 1988 and it’s long out of print but you can find used copies around.
I love Lenny Bruce’s How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Um, it doesn’t have a whole lot of what you’d call “factual truth” in it, about his family, his marriage, or his drug use–it wasn’t written with collegiate research in mind–but it’s a very entertaining book.
Going Too Far by Tony Hendra is another brilliant read. The memoir parts are kind of self-serving, especially his interactions with Michael O’Donoghue and PJ O’Rourke, which is kind of astonishing considering the dirt on himself he actually cops to, but it’s an indispensable history of late 20th Century humor by someone who sat at the epicenter of much of it. (His family life, which is said to make Woody Allen’s look wholesome by comparison, isn’t discussed here, and for the record, he denies his daughter’s heinous accusations, but the reader should probably be aware of them nonetheless.)