Top 10 Funniest Books

Abe's Books sent me an email with this llist of the Top Ten Funniest Books of All Time. The list was copiled from votes of amazon.uk readers. I don't read a lot of humor (have only read Lucky Jim from this list), but I thought some of you might find this interesting. Comments, anyone? Got a recommendation from this list, or did they leave out a great book?

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (1933)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)
Wilt by Tom Sharpe (1976)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse (1938)
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)
Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall by Spike Milligan (1971)

Clearly, according to ABE, the Brits take the cake.

I know a lot of people who find Christopher Moore funny. I don't particularly.

I read a lot of satire which can be quite funny in its own way. For example, The Life of Insects by Victor Pelevin and Towing Jehovah by James Morrow. Will have to think on this more.

The Cracker Factory

Funny Farm

These are both older books & probably out of print.
Funny Farm was made into a movie.

Right Ho, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters were both very funny. Likewise with the Hitchhikers' Guide. But there is one glaring omission from the British side, and two from American lit:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (funnier than all of those on the list combined)

and
Straight Man by Richard Russo (academic satire, and it manages to be both extremely funny and very touching--this is one of my favorite novels, and I recommend it to everyone I know)
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace (I read certain scenes out loud to my husband--parts of them I could barely make it through because I was wiping tears from my eyes--this is a zany, funny book)

eta: representing African lit:
The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Great satire, and some of it is laugh-out-loud funny.

A second for cold comfort Farm book and film;
Suzi, Led Zeppelin and me - . Probably the funniest new book I've read a long time.
1066 and all that - . I've read sections of it hundreds of times, and I still smile.
(hmm..these ARE all Brit books - but after 1066 we know history came to an end after the 1st WW, so..)
..OK when Dave Barry is on, he can be pretty hysterical. At least it's impossible for me to read a column aloud, if it's one i WANT to read to Patty. My favorites are his "Year in Review" pieces.

There are so many varieties of humor, how does one decide a "best"? I'm a little surprised by the missing Mark Twain, although I don't think his humor has aged as well as some others.

Of course, they leave out Terry Pratchett and similar things. Too light apparently... but it is humor we're talking about. I'm not sure whether I should complain about that or not. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Pratchett, as long I added a warning that not everyone loves him as much as I do.

ETA touchstone and fix a typo.

I don't read much humor either, but Catch 22 is a brilliantly humorous satire, if you like your humor both black and hysterical.

Hey Avaland

Its funny that you think that Life of insects was a comedy because I find it to be the opposite - especially the final chapter. It is actually one of my favourite books. It just goes to show how two people can read the same book and get such a different impression.

I definitely agree that Cold Comfort Farm should be at the top of the list.

Yes Richard Russo's Straight man & 2 other academic humor
Pictures from an instutution by Randell Jarell & Moo by Jane Smiley

Have been lurking around Club Read for a while and am finally posting because I've read everything on this top ten list except A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Never could get into it.

I'd replace Bridget Jones's Diary with its prototype, Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Others worth considering are Diary of a Nobody, The Towers of Trebizond, The Good Soldier Svejk, Decline and Fall and something by Saki.

E.F. Benson's Mapp & Lucia series - not a knee slapper but full of wry wit and great situational humour. Definitely Catch 22 although I haven't read it since the sixties, so don't know if it holds up. Love Spike Milligan, including Major Rommel Who (I think that's the title).

All the P.G. Wodehouse I have read (quite a few, Jeeves and not).

there's the decline and fall of practically everybody by will cuppy, which was an American attempt to emulate 1066 and while not a fail, by any means, is also no where close to 1066 and all that.
1. Outline joyfully (1) Henry VIII (2) Stout Cortez
2. Which do you consider to be the stronger swimmer, (a) the Spanish Armadillo, (b) the Great Seal

In a diff. genre altogether:
Joann Sfar's graphic novels:
Vampire loves and
the rabbi's cat v1 & 2

#14 Reminds me of Down with Skool, another very funny book. I think we might have some gurly swots here.

ETA tiffin, Mapp and Lucia, definitely.

When my husband and I were in college, we read Tom Jones out loud to each other. Parts of that were hysterical. I found Catch-22 brilliantly funny, but I had never been exposed to that kind of humor before, and it hit me between the eyes (about 1969, I suppose.) I'm with tiffin in wondering if it would still make me laugh. For me, the top prize in this category has to go to Mark Twain's re-translation from the French of his Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

There's no Pratchett or Jasper fforde on there which from Amazon.co.uk ! is a major omission. Both slightly satirical, full of puns (sometimes bad) and exceptionally funny, sort of fantasy and alternate history equivalents of HG2G.

Oh, how I disagree with a lot on that list! In particular, although I know there will be loud disagreement with this, the unreadable (for me) Confederacy of Dunces.

But I have to enthusiastically fourth or fifth the recommendation of Cold Comfort Farm.

Probably, my favorite funny book of all time is the tragically out-of-print The Straight and Narrow Path by Honor Tracy; my copy, inherited from my mother, is falling apart from age and rereading.

I'll think about this some more.

>8 keren7: Keren, well, I'm not sure that I would go so far as to call it a comedy, but there are some exceedingly funny parts. Like when the two businessmen mosquitoes are discussing desirable human 'landscapes':-) I think Pelevin is funny in an odd way.

Dittos on Cold Comfort Farm.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: clearly, the pair of you were intended for l-o-n-g relationship.

i couldn't get into A confederacy of dunces either - didn't come close to finishing it.

oops, forgot - Nick Hornby can be really good, so can Chuck Klosterman sex, drugs and cocoa puffs

I found Tristram Shandy to be a very funny book. Ditto for A Confederacy of Dunces--but I lived in New Orleans for 18 years, and being familiar with the places and character types is helpful.

I took "A Confederacy of Dunces" and Wicked with me on vacation, and ended up driving 60 miles to a book store to get something decent to read. No accounting for tastes, I guess, but both were big disappointments.

I liked About a Boy by Nick Hornby. Some pretty funny stuff there.

Gil's All Fright Diner has a funny premise--hillbilly vampire and truckin' werewolf team up to fight zombies at a roadside diner. Doesn't always deliver, but it had it's moments.

An Evening of Long Goodbyes is both hilarious and poignant by turns.

A big fan of Confederacy of Dunces and Catch 22. I always thought of Bukowski and Celine as funny. It's black humor for sure. Catch 22 it seems to me is in some ways a rewrite of the first 100 pages of Journey to the end of the night. Bukowski's Post Office has my workplace down cold. Factotum is another work of his which revolves around boss and employee antipathy. As well to mention William Faulkner's As I lay dying and here's another one from left field--the usually very sober Emile Zola's The earth--in which one character Hyacinthe is known instead by the nickname 'Jesus Christ' because of a resemblance to religious art more than his actual behavior which is almost always outrageous. Raymond Queneau's Children of clay is a novel that has one section devoted to 19th century French literary madmen. A lot of that is eye opening stuff about squaring circles and various insane religious and philosophic stuff that you'd never dream of.

I first read Catch 22 in 1970 and have re-read it many times since. When work, politics and bureaucratic insanity leave me twitching, I read Catch-22 to put things back in perspective. Used to re-read The Castle annually for the same reasons. Would describe The Castle as blackly and bleakly humorous, but wouldn't put it on a list of funny books.

Iriley, recommending Magnus Mills, particularly The Restraint of Beasts for an entertaining perspective on the world of work.

I would add the Satyricon by Petronius.

#24--funny that you mention Mills as currently I've his The scheme for full employment on my short list for the next month or two.

Another funny writer is the czech Bohumil Hrabal. His Too loud a solitude is a great book.

I'd nominate also another not normally comic writer Graham Greene for Our man in Havana.

the clouds Aristophanes
the golden ass Apuleius
foisted on me by my parents in high school, but remembered as v. funny - esp. the performance of "The Clouds."

Ah, if we're going classical and dramatic -- it has to be Lysistrata by Aristophanes wherein the ladies of Athens and Sparta refuse sexual favors to their husbands until they end the wars. And Tartuffe by Moliere which skewers pomposity and religious hypocrisy with Dorine, the sassiest maid in literature.

but The Clouds has more fart jokes, iirc.

>14 bobmcconnaughey:, Bob, Concur that The Rabbi's Cat was quite funny. Did you like vol 2 as much as the first one?

I would also add Small World by David Lodge to the list.

#30 - I did, and so did Patty*. The Rabbi's Cat V. 2 is a bit more poignant than V. 1, but equally funny in parts.

I've read four on the list
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
Wilt by Tom Sharpe (1976)
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996)

All were laugh out loud funny.
I haven't read anything else suggested, must look out for them, but cold comfort farm I know from the film, and it was brilliant.
I'd like to add another Brit to the list, pretty much anything done by Terry Prachett is a scream, from distant memory, I think I really loved wyrd sisters and monstrous regiment. Some of his analogies just blow me away. :-)
For 2 hilarious travel parady's for those who have travelled in south-east asia Phaic Tan or central europe Molvania, both by a couple of Australian comedians.
For something from the US, The world according to Garp comes to mind.

I agree that Nick Hornby's About a Boy was very funny - as are several other of his books, but often the humor is interspersed with very serious topics. I, too, couldn't get into Wicked. Not sure why.....

When I think of books that make me laugh, I don't think they were actively written for that purpose, but they have their moments. He seems to be an author that a lot of people actively dislike, but the travel writing of Paul Theroux always makes me laugh The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express and Riding the Iron Rooster all have moments of fairly dark humor. I think travel writing that mentions a bit of the suffering can be great fun if you've had the experience.

Lucky Jim has already been mentioned, and that IS really funny. Somebody mentioned Bukowski and I found Ham on Rye to be pretty funny, in a kind of depressing way. Raymond Carver can work in this vain as well.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Pickwick.

Gogol's Dead Souls is also very funny (really, it is, it made me laugh out loud several times).

Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers and Enderby books are also very funny indeed. And Iris Murdoch's Under the Net had me weeping with laughter in one scene especially

And of course don't forget that comic genius, Kafka.

Murr,

You old Cheshire you, we didn't include Gogol, Kafka, et al because they're sooooo obvious. We were trying to suggest other humorists with whom readers might not be familiar.

but I thought.... oh. ok. jolly good.

Quite.

The funniest books I've read would include (in no particular order):

A Confederacy of Dunces (I think it helps greatly if you've lived in New Orleans or have relatives from there, as I did)
A House for Mr. Biswas
White Teeth (I'll never forget the "Niece-of-Shame"!)
The Mystic Masseur

kidzdoc,

Thanks for reminding me of Zadie Smith - On Beauty definitely made me laugh out loud and is worth mentioning in this thread.

Christopher

Wow, I never thought of On Beauty as funny; I really disliked the book and couldn't believe I actually read it all the way through. So interesting to see the differences of opinions on books.

I haven't read On Beauty yet, although I have it. What did you dislike about it, Rebecca?

Well, as I said in an earlier thread, I thought the characters were poorly developed and that there was a lot of very self-indulgent writing, including subplots and characters who only seemed to be there so Smith could make some topical points. But maybe I would have liked it better if it hadn't been designed as an homage to Howards End, a book I truly loved.

If Three Men in a Boat is on the list, I'll nominate Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog as a very funny book, along with her Bellwether, the latter skewering modern pop culture. And The Android's Dream by John Scalzi skewers science fiction tropes, while Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones skewers fantasy tropes. I also concur heartily with the mentions of Terry Pratchett (his collaboration with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens is one of the funniest books of all time) and Jasper Fforde.

Right, Rebecca, I remember your comments now. Hmm...Christopher liked it, but Rebecca didn't. I think I'll still give it a try, but not in the immediate future.

William Gerhardie's The Polyglots - not just funny, but brilliant. I'll leave the final recommendation for this to Evelyn Waugh: "I have talent, but you have genius".

Also Michael Moorcock's The Dancers at the End of Time - when Moorcock is not bashing not generic fantasy for the money, he can be a very good novelist. Love, sex, time travel - like The Time Traveler's Wife but 1000 times better, and infinitely funnier.

round ireland with a fridge - dude (bloke?) circumnavigates Ireland, dorm fridge in tow. The consequences of actually fulfilling a bet made under the influence. The fridge begins to acquire personality as it adventures along, taking up surfing, assisting in picking up rides/women.

>48 bobmcconnaughey: - it was Tony Hawks (not the skateboarder) He became famous in the UK for this - Stutter Rap.

i knew it was tony hawks..what i didn't know was whether as a american i should refer to him as a dude or a bloke . didn't want to use an English bit of jargon incorrectly. (very tiny joke emoticon here)

#45: Agreed on To Say Nothing of the Dog. I still giggle every time that I think about the protagonist's theory of why the Victorians were so repressed: because it was impossible to move around inside without knocking something over.

Gore Vidal's Duluth, satire on romance writers and their methods is pretty scathing and satisfying if you hate bodice rippers.

I didn't think Myra Breckenridge or the sequel Myron were that great, but the Supreme Court had issued a ruling about smut Vidal didn't like, so in "Myron" he substituted the names of the majority opinion writers for various sexual activities and parts. I thought it was funny for about 50 pages, but then it got to be irritating.

I also like E. Nesbitt's The Bastable Children books. I listened to a mother read one of those books to her kids on a train from Edinburgh to London one time (one of those four-seat deals where I was the fourth person).

I pretended to be reading a newspaper and marking my map o' Britain with our train stops, but I got caught up in their story.

When they broke for lunch, I asked her what the book was, and read it when I got back to Michigan. I always hear that woman's voice when I read Nesbitt.