Well, Great Minds Don’t Always Think Alike. I saw some vague resemblance to Vonnegut in his style. And it wasn’t just me – the blurb on the back cover of one of his books gushed that he is the next Kurt Vonnegut – I though that was a bit overboard. Kurt Vonnegut he ain’t exactly.
Feels more Pratchett to me than Vonnegut.
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving From Wikipedia - “The novel deals with serious spiritual issues, such as the importance of faith, matters of social justice, and the concept of fate in the context of an outlandish narrative.”
I remember laughing out loud at several points while reading this when it first came out. I should probably read it again.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole I read this after a similar thread about funny books. I liked it a lot. Other people, not so much.
IMHO, amusing but not light.
If you haven’t read them, there are always Jane Austen’s novels. Emma and Northanger Abbey are outright comedies and Pride and Prejudice has slyly comic elements strewn throughout (the novel starts with the sentence “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”, one of the wittiest first lines ever)
For an often amusing take on diagnostic cytopathology, don’t miss Richard DeMay’s The Art And Science Of Cytopathology. He has a quirky writing style and wry comments on various weighty matters, and speaking of weight, even though it’s a four-volume set, the individual books aren’t all that heavy, though the price might be off-putting to some.
If you’re after even more amusement, buy what Amazon claims is the Middle English version of the book:
Since that style of English went out of fashion about 1500 A.D., I imagine that DeMay comes off sounding like Chaucer:
Ye knowe ek that in forme of celles is chaunge
Withinne a thousand cohesive groupes, and wordes tho
That hadden mitotic activitees, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem, and yet thei spake hem so
Should be a gas.
Point taken. Not as heavy as say, Atlas Shrugged or as light as the Hiaasen books. Like the Wiki entry says, serious issues but I found it easy to read.
Or perhaps Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a zombie in possession of brains, must be in want of more brains.”
Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer Sorcery and Cecelia. Epistalotory book in the Regency era. And there’s magic.
Many of these are anthologies, collections of columns written for various magazines.
Anything by Robert Benchley.
Patrick F. McManus for “ourdoorsey” themes. Last books that made me laugh out loud.
Jean Shepherd books (Remember the movie “A Christmas Story”?)
Daniel Pinkwater’s autobiographical books.
Rather obscure, but “Cobwebs and Cream Teas” and “Dry Rot and Daffodils” by Mary Mackie. As the cover blurb has it: “Behind the scenes in a National Trust House”.
Betty MacDonald is famous for “The Egg and I”, but she also wrote three sequels well worth reading.
We Took to the Woods by Louise Dickinson Rich - life in the Maine Woods.
The Northwood’s Reader’s series by Culley Gage - life in Michigan’s upper Peninsula .
For Pratchett fans, and fans of detective novels, I recommend Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart.
It won the 1985 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and it deserves to be better known. There are also two sequels which are just as good.
The books are set in ‘an ancient China that never was’, with magic, gods, ghosts, etc. They are light, readable, fast-moving, with intricate plots, and many original ideas, and hilarious throughout.
Chicken Every Sunday by Rosemary Taylor. (Adapted into a movie.)
Ernie’s America. The Best of Ernie Pyle’s 1930s Travel Dispatches.
Hard Tack and Coffee by John D. Billings. Later incorporated in Soldier Life in the Union and Confederate Armies (Humor is mainly the Union army part.) Edited by Philip Van Doren Stern,
Bill Veeck’s sports books, but especially Thirty Tons a Day.
For first-person reminisces, any of the books put out by Reminisce magazine. For example: When the Banks Closed, We Opened Our Hearts.
Can you believe I’ve read two of these? Chicken Every Sunday and Hard Tack and Coffee.
We must share the same tastes. I’ll look into the others you mentioned.
If you liked Hard Tack and Coffee (U.S. Civil war) you might try Over the Top (WWI) by Arthur Guy Empey.
Darker, but with flashes of humor.
Else…
The Bark Covered House by William Nowlin.
Drug Store Days by Richard Armour
I’d forgotten all about Reminisce magazine. I think I looked forward to them more than my grandma did.
Or any of Pinkwater’s novels, no matter what age group they’re aimed at.