I am looking for a really funny, fiction book - I mean LOL funny. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance…
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams. That’s the name of the first book, the others are called:
The Restaurant at the end of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
(there’s one more called “Mostly Harmless”, however, I personally would never recommend anyone reading that one).
These books are hilarious.
Anything with the name “Terry Pratchett” on the cover. Especially if it is identified as a “Discworld” novel.
I’ll second Terry Pratchett.
And Third…and Fourth:)
A Conderacy of Dunces
Try My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Malcolm Durrell. It’s the naturalist’s memoir of his childhood on the Greek island of Corfu and it is really, really laugh-out-loud funny. I seem to remember reading a sequel, but I don’t see it listed on Amazon.
An excerpt:
Any of Nick Hornby’s books (High Fidelity, About a Boy, How to be Good) are good fun and manage not to get gushy. I really recommend the last one.
I am also planning on getting “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” ASAP, for the title alone, plus it’s got that British humour I love.
Naked - David Sedaris
Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men In A Boat.
One of the funniest books ever written.
And for those of you who don’t believe me… here’s a link. Read it yourself.
Some of my all-time personal favorites:
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, by Anita Loos
• Little Me, by Patrick Dennis
• Vile Bodies, by Evelen Waugh
. . . I’m sure I’ll think of more later.
This isn’t fiction but, my favorite Laugh-Out-Loud Funny book is No Laughing Matter by Joseph Heller and Speed Vogel. I’ve read it several times and I laugh till I cry every time.
I second the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as well. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve just read it for the first time at the age of 42.
VERY funny book! I’ve read it a couple of times. Loved it!
I just finished The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint and it is brilliant. So very funny and sad, too. A must read!
I agree.
My mom borrowed this book to me from the English section of the library when I was 12. I have since read it five times.
The part where they try to open the can of pineapple is perhaps the funniest thing I have ever read.
I thought the cheese scene was funnier, but that’s just me.
“Laugh out loud funny” presents a challenge. I love Terry Pratchett, but he rarely makes me laugh out loud. I can be amused, thrilled, educated. I can appreciate his world, his wit, his cultural references (thanks to the annotations at the L-Space site), but he rarely makes me LOL.
These do:
Bored of the Rings. A must-read if you like LOTR, but try to get it used. Penguin charges an arm and two legs for a thin trade paperback version.
P.G. Wodehouse. The Bertie Wooster stories are a particular favorite.
Hitchhiker’s Guide. The first book’s the best.
3 Men in a Boat. Of course.
God, I love well-done crude humor, so I’d pop for the National Lampoon’s 20th anniversary book to get a concentrated dose of P.J. O’Rourke before he became a Republican, Doug Kenney before he jumped/slipped off the cliff and Michael O’Donoghue before his head exploded. Look for the Yearbook and Newspaper parodies as well.
The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
Barrel Fever, Holidays On Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day—all by David Sedaris His tale of his experiences working as an elf at Macy’s are screamingly funny.
I thought Catch-22 was hilarious.
I strongly recommend “Who Goes Here”, by Bob Shaw. Truly funny SF, which was a rarity until Douglas Adams.
Gotta be HitchHikers Guide: Wowbaggers coping mechanism for being ‘damned’ to an eternal life is enough to set the funny-neurons a’wiggling.