Funniest books you've ever read?

To me White Noise by Don DeLillo was, while dry and depressing at times, laugh out loud funny at other times. Not many other books have had me laughing besides that,Hitchhiker's Guide, and Augusten Burroughs .. and certain parts of Tom Sawyer, actually.
So what are your favorite books that make you laugh out loud?

Mr. Adam by Pat Frank
I don't know if this was written to be a comedy or not but this book is funny. The entire male population of the world is made sterile due to a major nuclear accident in Mississippi except one. Mr. Adam. The infighting of the various parts of the goverment Milartary, science, Senate, foreign affairs etc)is hilarious. After each department wins and gets Mr. Adam the same peaple end up running the committees. The whole world gets in the picture, and argue about what is fair. The Russians not to be outdone claim to have two Mr. Adames. A fast easy read and a pure joy.

Also Cap'n Fatso by Daniel V. Gallery for that matter any of his books of sea storie Now Hear This, Stand By-Y-Y to Start Engines, Away boarders. These are a must for anyone who has been in the Navy.
Another book that made me laugh out loud was Seaspray and whisky: Reminiscences of a tramp ship voyage by Norman Freeman

Parts of She's Come Undone made me laugh out loud as well as Spanish Lessons by Derek lambert

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham had me laughing so hard I was crying. Terrible movie, but the book was fantastic! I have always wanted to skip a Christmas, so I knew just how his character was feeling. Fortunately, my neighbors are happy to have their 15 foot Frosty the Snowman on their roof without pressuring me to match their efforts.

e by Matt Beaumont.
Written totally in the form of emails between employees at a London ad agency...I reread it every couple of years and still find it funny.

Good Omens made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Funniest Non-Fiction: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris had me in stitches even in the aftermath of 9/11.

Funniest Fiction: I just about peed my pants reading Bridget Jones's Diary when it came out and cringed when they made it into a movie.

And honorable mention to Ruth Reichl's Tender at the Bone

I second Good Omens. It has got to be the funniest book I've ever read.

I can't think of one single funniest book, but Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books are hilarious.

Tanya Huff's Smoke and Ashes completely cracked me up, over and over again.

John Scalzi's The Android's Dream and Agent to the Stars were also very funny.

I have to third Good Omens. I'll also throw in Lamb and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as well!

For my I-really-shouldn't-be-laughing, but I am, there's always Choke. The hardest part of recounting what was funny at work was making sure that we weren't discussing certain passages in a tone that could be easily overheard by more sensitive co-workers.

Second to skipping Christmas and that it was a bad movie. Why did they change the concept when it was so good. Why did Grisham let them. Anywho. That's my vote.

The Fourth Bear made me laugh out loud - it is the sequel to The Big Over Easy but ten times more hilarious. It was the one thing that cheered me up after a death in the family.

Ther is a book called Funny farm whichwas laughs from beginning to end. There was a movie made from it, which I didn't see, because I heard it wasn't so good.

I'm still reading the Thursday Next series, but the books seem to be getting funnier, to the point where you want to think twice before reading them in a public place. Also Naked by David Sedaris. I have to read more of him, definitely.

candy, by Terry Southern.

there's a good snippet of it in another of my favorite funny books, Drinking, Smoking, & Screwing.

Lamb by Christopher Moore is without a doubt the funniest book I've ever read.

I'd say either Me Talk Pretty One Day or Naked.

I think the book that made me laugh the most while reading it, and I can't believe no one has mentioned it yet, was Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I can't remember another book that had me chuckling so hard.

Also a lot of Garrison Keillor is good. Its very funny if you're Lutheran or know Lutherans and good if you You're norwegian, but we german lutherans enjoy it too.

I thought Bridget Jones's Diary was hilarious. I loved the movie too, but I couldn't bring myself to read the sequel.

I also find a lot of Bill Bryson's stuff pretty funny. I think Neither Here Nor There was my favourite (it's the one about him traveling through different countries in Europe).

More support for all of Fforde's work, and Pratchett of course.

Other options:
Michael Marshal Smith. Though generally only the first half of the books.... it gets a bit darker in the second. Only Forward is a very funny favourite.

grr. touchstones are just rubbish today.

Without any doubt anything by P.G. Wodehouse.
And I agree on Bill Bryson, by the way.

Kurt Vonnegut always manages to make me giggle.

Many years ago (long before the not very good movie) a friend lent me Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley for a plane ride home. I was laughing so hard in the terminal while waiting for the flight that people were looking at me.

Honor Tracy's The Straight and Narrow Path is one of the funniest books I've ever read; I reread it every few years when I need cheering up.

More subtly funny are the Nancy Mitford novels Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love and Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons/

I think it is hard to carry excellent humor through an entire book. One I can think of is Bored Of The Rings. When I first read Catch 22 in 1968 or so, I thought it was hilarious. Upon repeated readings it became less funny and more and more tragic. The funniest thing I ever read was a chapter from Child Of The Century by Ben Hecht in which he chronicles his time in Hollywood as a script writer. The chapter later appeared in The Seven States of California. A close followup is in the Oxford Book Of Humorous Prose wherein Groucho Marx writes a letter to Warner Brothers in response to a threatening letter from one its attorneys claiming Marx infringed its copyright to Casablanca. In it, he inter alia, counterclaims that the Marx Brothers were performing as "Brothers" long before the Warner Brothers.

Almost anything by Christopher Moore (I am partial to The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove). Listening to the "Stephanie Plum" books (Janet Evanovich have people staring at me as I drive. Bill Fitzhugh's Pest Control had me laughing all the way through a tedious plane trip. And some of Tim Dorsey's "Serge" books are a riot.

I forgot to add Cooking With Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson and its sequel Amazing Disgrace.

The most recent book I've found quite funny is Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar: understanding philosophy through jokes. I chuckle every time I pick it up.

Earlier this year I read Three Bags Full : a sheep detective story by Leonie Swann. A flock of sheep solve the mystery of the death of their shepherd, led by Miss Maple. Ingenius and funny.

Many years ago I read The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor. This is a take-off on the Mahabharata under the guise of late 20th century politicians.

The Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend, especially The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

On the YA front Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging certainly startled me into some laughs!

For adult stuff I've never laughed so hard as I did reading The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore, there is this one scene with a monster and a tanker truck...well, you really just need to read it.

The first half of Me Talk Pretty One Day kind of made me wonder what everyone was on about, but the second half just about killed me. I had some definite issues with public laughter while I was reading it.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason really made me laugh in places. Her Christmas cards were way too funny!

More recently, both The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch have had me howling. Both of them also have very serious parts, but the sarcasm! Oh, the sarcasm!

Christopher Brookmyre's crime novels always make me laugh.

Oh this is easy! I laughed all the way through Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg. This is a hilarious book about relationships in a "fishbowl" community - you know where the whole town knows all your business. Be warned though, that if you have a serious illness or are grieving, it might not all seem so funny. There are some death and dying issues - only they are FUNNY.

Right now I'm working through the Stephanie Plum series. They are funny, but not continuously. If you think Grandma Mazur at Stiva's is funny, you will bust a gut on Fannie Flagg's book.

Two other books that are similar in style to The Plums are Sammy's Hill and Sammy's House, by Kristen Gore. They should be read in order, starting with Sammy's Hill

James Joyce Ulysses has parts that cracked me up as did Cervantes'Don Quixote.

I've got David Foster Wallace on the brain, and it occurred to me that I didn't think I'd ever seen him on the "funny books" threads. The Broom of the System is one of the funniest books I've ever read. I pulled it off the shelf recently to read the Norman Bombardini restaurant scene to my husband, and we were both exhausted from laughing by the time we finished. Note also that for those who don't have the time or stamina for Infinite Jest (I haven't managed it myself yet), The Broom of the System is considerably shorter.

Another vote for 'anything by PG Wodehouse'. I have more than once embarrassed myself by repeatedly laughing out loud on a bus or train while reading Wodehouse. I also love the subtle humour in Jennifer Crusie's books and inTerry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons - "There's something naarsty in the woodshed!"

The Art of Coarse Acting by Michael Green. If you have ever appeared in an amateur dramatic production, you will recognise so much of this that you can hurt something laughing.

1066 and all that -a memorable history of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, 2 dates and 103 Good Things. Unfortunately, it ends after WW1 when England stops being Top Nation, so someone else can have a go, but up until then, it is hilarious and the more you know about English History, the funnier it is.

I quite agree about Pratchett - how can you not love a man who invented Bloody Stupid Johnson and The Librarian? Although I have never quite "got" Good Omens I could see the skill without finding it funny. - perhaps I ought give it another go

Gil's All-Fright Diner has a pair of rednecks - one a werewolf, the other a vampire - trying to prevent a Lovecraftian apocalypse. Great stuff!

The book I'm reading right now, Automated Alice by Jeff Noon is a retelling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and is quite funny, with lots of wordplay, if you like that kind of thing.

A Confederacy of Dunces is the funniest book I ever read. Don Quixote is probably second.

I was not expecting Emma to be so funny, but that was my own ignorance about Austen in action.

The Thursday Next books are a hoot. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is good too, but for my money Thursday has 'em beat.

Catch 22 is also a great call, although the humor there is so mixed with sadness and horror. While we're on war satires, can't forget Good Soldier Schweik.

And I can't leave out Mr. Roth: Portnoy's Complaint, Sabbath's Theater and The Great American Novel all go on my "funniest books" list.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

Regarding Jasper Fforde, I find the Thursday Next books to be about five times funnier than the Nursery Crime books.

I'm with all of you in the Catch-22 camp, hilarious, tender ... and important.

Anything by Jonathan Safran Foer, especially Everything is Illuminated.

I think I like the mix of hilarity and heartbreak.

And for all-around general amusement, anything by Nelson Demille.

I have to second A Confederacy of Dunces. I also love David Sedaris, especially Me Talk Pretty One Day. I also remember having a really good time with The Rachel Papers, though it has been a really long time and I don't remember why. (Perhaps I need to reread it.)

Still hilarious given it was written about 2,000 years ago: The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius. Robert Graves' translation is excellent.

A Confederacy of Dunces, and Catch-22 are the funniest I've read so far.

Emotionally Weird was the funniest book I've read in a long time. It's about an english major and her wonky group of friends - seriously strange group of people!

Guards! Guards, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, and The Fifth Element - all part of the Watch Novels by Terry Pratchett. They are some of the funniest books, ever.

ok I'll pluck my courage and throw just my two cents

The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills

Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene

Evolution Man by Roy Lewis

masgar

I have only read one Evanovich novel... Eleven on Top. I doubt I would read more of hers because essentially I didn't like it, but it was laugh out loud funny in parts...

maybe I should rethink it and read another.....I guess few of my books are funny?

forgot to name

Pioneer, Go Home by Richard Powell

masgar

I would like to second the choices of Catch-22 and P. G. Wodehouse and add two that haven't been mentioned. The first is The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. It is about gangsters in New York and an Italian bicycle racer. The laughs are big out loud laughs and come through out the book. The other is From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor. It is about the advertising business. The title is somebody's idea of a slogan for Panasonic. The book is a little dated but has some very good lines. It also is a good picture of what the advertising business used to be.

Another book that just came to mind is Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen.

oh, Marley.... so funny but the ending...

Almost any (comic) book by Franquin, but his Gaston/Guust books are worldclass. They can get me out of a depression within minutes.

Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier.
I read it in Norwegian many years ago, and I remember I burst into a laugh very often throughout the novel. Really an amusing and humorous book!!

P.S. The Norwegian title is:
Et forargelsens hus (= 'A house of offence', alluding to the urinal in the book).

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by the good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson.

Can't forget The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson had me on the floor laughing. You might have to be a working mother to really know what I'm t alking about But it's a nose snorther.

I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson had me on the floor laughing. You might have to be a working mother to really know what I'm t alking about But it's a nose snorther.

I hardly stopped laughing through A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Utterly hysterical.

I would have to say two series come to mind
1) Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich
2) The Shopaholic books by Sophie Kinsella
The Plum books are a riot and can be read non-stop, The shopaholic books I have to take a rest after a few.