How about Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures by Montague Glass. It’s a book of short stories about two Jewish businessmen in the garment trade in New York in the early 1900s. I thought it was very funny. There are a number of sequels, too.
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren is a memoir by a geochemist and geobiologist. It has some science in it, but it’s also full of wild and hilarious anecdotes, especially about field trips with her students.
Richard Zacks
History Laid Bare: Love, Sex, and Perversity from the Ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding.
Perennial (February 1, 1995)
ISBN-10 : 006092599X
ISBN-13 : 978-0060925994
Mostly not that dark, but sure.
Okay, one book, but quite thick- The Hounds of the Morrigan.
If you don’t mind something a little dated there are the books by Edith Nesbit- Five Children and It, etc.
If your a fan of road trips, Robert Sullivan’s meandering treatise on life on and the history of the American Road might be of interest–
Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother-In-Law, Two Kids, And Enough Coffee To Kill An Elephant
Anything by Tobias Smollett.
Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. About running the Iditarod. It is howlingly funny. Which I guess is a pun.
Very different is A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles. The premise:In Stalinist Russia, an aristocrat’s death sentence (for being an aristocrat) is commuted to spending the rest of his life inside the Metropole Hotel. A gentle wise book, I don’t know anyone who has read it who does not feel fondly toward it.
Some non-fiction. Not funny books, but fascinating ones that focus on really neat and wonderful aspects of humanity.
The Emerald Mile is one of my favorite reads ever. It’s a ramble of a discussion of the Grand Canyon, using a record-setting dory run as a sort of focal point. But the book itself wanders through science, history, and biography. It’s just delightful.
Anything by Simon Winchester. Krakatoa is my favorite. Science and history in equal doses. And he does such a good job reading them, if you like audio books.
The Dawn of Everything. This one isn’t light at all, but it’s absolutely freaking amazing. And it’s about prehistory, so it doesn’t feel all heavy and relevant.
Jimmy Breslin, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. A 1967 or thereabouts mob comedy. What impressed me was how well-written it was, crammed with these amusing, sometimes silly details. Concerns a low level wiseguy who thinks he can take over from the old crime boss, but, well, he makes a lot of stupid errors. It’s funny, and has no Trump content.
I didn’t expect to see Georgette Heyer mentioned here, but yes, light and frothily witty. Friday’s Child and Cotillon are two of the lightest and most sparkling. Both are available on archive.org if you like ebooks or want to sample.
Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series, from the 30s, is amusing too. Start with High Rising or Wild Strawberries, both available here: Search: fadedpage.com
I tried reading Terry Pratchett, based on so many positive comments here on the Dope, but couldn’t get into him.
A fantastic read: The Cheese Monkeys (Chip Kidd)
Excellent recommendations. I would add Regency Buck (because classic Regency, with Beau Brummell as a supporting character, and a “thriller” theme, as that term was used in 1930s book talks), Sprig Muslin (because of a different take on the older gent - young damsel theme), and The Quiet Gentleman - a detective mystery, before there were detectives.
I second this. It’s been decades since I read that book, and I still remember large parts of it because of Breslin’s inimitable way with words. Example, the mooks who kept getting killed in the gang war were described as dying “suddenly,” “very suddenly,” or, in the case of the mook who was playing around with the bomb’s remote control, “very, very suddenly.”
An oldie but a goodie, Summer of '42, about a teenage boy’s efforts to lose his virginity.
David Brin, The Practice Effect.
Definitely Pratchett.
If psychotic serial killers and beyond hard core drug abusers are your thing, Tim Dorsey’s “Serge” books are a hilarious look at Florida. People who should know say he captures the crazy perfectly. #25 is being released tomorrow, in fact.
I can highly recommend the Zamonia works of Walter Moers; I (of course) have been reading them out of order but most folks start at the beginning with The 131⁄2 Lives of Captain Bluebear.
The Milagro Beanfield War, by John Nichols is very funny; I think I’ve read it three times. It’s actually book one of a trilogy, but stands alone.
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. It’s a lighthearted account of being a veterinarian in 1930s Britain.