Funny. FUNNY. FUNNNNY Books.

I found The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin very funny, but in a subtle, melancholic way. Not laugh-out-loud. I tend only to laugh out loud at news items about human suffering.

Those are priceless. I only wish I had been around for the Hindenberg disaster - I would have rolled off my chair!

The Flashman books are hilarious. The best one is probably Royal Flash or Flash for Freedom. Call me childish/pretentious/whatever but I really love A Series of Unfortunate Events, the best one is The Miserable Mill.

Hmmmm...the Flashman books look pretty good (from a quick glance at Amazon)

Is it a kind of Blackadder Lord Flashheart sort of humour? I'm tempted to give it a go. At the very least it looks like you could zip through one in a couple of hours...

[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]Hmmmm...the Flashman books look pretty good (from a quick glance at Amazon)

Is it a kind of Blackadder Lord Flashheart sort of humour? I'm tempted to give it a go. At the very least it looks like you could zip through one in a couple of hours...[/QUOTE]
They're really great. You know the Flashman character from Tom Brown's Schooldays? It's that character.

Give them a bit more credit, it'd take a couple of days. If it only takes you a couple of hours you're not reading properly.

Fair play -
At first glance they looked a bit flimsy (hark at him judging books by their covers) - but I've just skimmed through a few synopses and reviews and they sound pretty cool - full of history as well as rollicking good yarns.

I shall give them a whirl. Cheers for the reccommendation.

Wigfield : The Can-Do Town That Just May Not
by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert
running with sissors by augusteen burroughs(specifically when natalie talks about yeast infections "jesus christ its like my pussy is brushing his teeth")
geek love by KATHERINE DUNN

[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]Fair play -
At first glance they looked a bit flimsy (hark at him judging books by their covers) - but I've just skimmed through a few synopses and reviews and they sound pretty cool - full of history as well as rollicking good yarns.

I shall give them a whirl. Cheers for the reccommendation.[/QUOTE]
Hey, oh aye, those mothers are substantial alright. Thanks for listening.

I liked three men in a boat as well, pretty funny. What's _really_ funny is Vernon God Little. Amazing.

Looking back, Vernon God Little may actually be my favourite book of the year. And you're right - it's bloody funny.

This fucken life.

[QUOTE=phlegmatics]Wigfield : The Can-Do Town That Just May Not
by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert
running with sissors by augusteen burroughs(specifically when natalie talks about yeast infections "jesus christ its like my pussy is brushing his teeth")
geek love by KATHERINE DUNN[/QUOTE]

I didn't find 'geek love' laugh-out-loud funny... I'd say quirky...
Wigfield... whatever happened to her? Saturday Night... or was it Whigfield?

Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show...Barson, Michael (ed.)
Groucho as the lawyer Flywheel and Chico as his assistant Ravelli.
These are lost radio shows that turned up in 1988.

So funny, So very very funny.

"I didn't say she was as ugly as a cow. I said if she were better looking she'd be as ugly as a cow." - Flywheel

[QUOTE=rkdaley]Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel: The Marx Brothers' Lost Radio Show...Barson, Michael (ed.)
Groucho as the lawyer Flywheel and Chico as his assistant Ravelli.
These are lost radio shows that turned up in 1988.

So funny, So very very funny.

"I didn't say she was as ugly as a cow. I said if she were better looking she'd be as ugly as a cow." - Flywheel[/QUOTE]

So this is the transcripts? Can you get the audio? Or has it all disappeared?

[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]So this is the transcripts? Can you get the audio? Or has it all disappeared?[/QUOTE]

the audio is gone. it was recorded onto to records a the studio and they were destroyed. I just read that on like amazon, so you should check out how they were destroyed, but no, there is no audio.

But man, this book will make you laugh.

it's where a lot of the movie stuff from, like the elephant in my pajamas bit.
paraphrasing...

- the day saw us up at 6 and back in bed by 7

- we took pictures of the native girls but they weren't developed yet, so we're going back next year.

Classic stuff and amazing timing.

Big Trouble by Dave Berry is funny as hell

the funniest one i've read i'm reading right now, The Satanic Nurses by JB Miller

its a collection of parody stories from a lot of famous works
my personal favorite so far is Nabakov's pre-'Lolita' lost manuscript of "Colita" where the narrator is infatuated with an 87 year old grandmother

[QUOTE=mr_hash]Big Trouble by Dave Berry is funny as hell[/QUOTE]

I just finished reading Big Trouble last night. And, yea, it's hilarious.

[QUOTE=gobo_fraggle_uk]I didn't find 'geek love' laugh-out-loud funny... I'd say quirky...
Wigfield... whatever happened to her? Saturday Night... or was it Whigfield?[/QUOTE]

something about a bald albino dwarf hunchback flashing her tits and dancing on stage allwayse made me laugh alot. and i dunno i got a really big kick out of the self mutilation cult and picturing that fat girl the first one to be cut up rolling around fat as hell without arms or legs in a chair preaching about how wonderfull auturism is

wigfield was this crazy wierd book about a bunch of redneck squatters who set up a town infront of a huge crusty damn and the government wants to get them the hell out so all three of thier mayors (including the retarded one) decide that the town will go on a constant parade(i think it ends up going for 36 hours before the trucker smacks into the hooker float and kills two of em) in attempts to prove thier a town

[QUOTE=jessecantrall]this is a really good one[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I'd have to say that the Hitchhiker's Guide was the very first book that had me laughing out loud. I had to read passages to my brother so he could hear how funny it was.

Never come unglued on transit, but nearly got killed for reading "Nigger of Narcissus" and scolded by a mother for reading "Shit Magnet".

Yeah, I imagine anything by Douglas Adams is a given. I'd like to recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. I haven't read any of his other books (yet, it was thick!), but my keen judgement tells me that they are just as funny.

Alchemy -

I've recently read Wilson's Prometheus Rising and found him to be like some kind of mad, wired, part genius part fried hippy. It was certainly entertaining and thought provoking. Not sure I'd say it was laugh out loud funny, but occassionally made me snigger. I have a feeling that Illuminatus Trilogy is a different kettle of fish from this though - Prometheus is a kind of philosophy, almost self-help kind of book talking about maximising human brain function, the eight circuits of consciousness and other craaazzzeeee shit like that.

What's the deal with Illuminatus?

I have remembered a book which made me laugh out loud!
'The Fan Man' by, I think, William Kotzwinkle

If anyone reads it, tell me if you agree with me that the Coen brothers ripped off the character of 'The Dude' in The Big Lebowski from the main character in this book - Horse Badorties.

[QUOTE=gobo_fraggle_uk]If anyone reads it, tell me if you agree with me that the Coen brothers ripped off the character of 'The Dude' in The Big Lebowski from the main character in this book - Horse Badorties.[/QUOTE]

I believe they based The Dude on some chap they know/knew early in their film days.

Although both are pretty literate (if only they’d have some little ‘ode to Faulkner’ in every flick), so they may know of the book you cite.

I can’t say I recall ever enjoying a book that is supposed to be a comedy. I find them trite, cute and annoying. I like my comedy to sneak up on me, not to be attempts at wit.
Fraggle’s first post on this thread is a pretty good example (of the former).

(maybe) Oddly I have snickered out loud a few times with Harold Bloom’s newest semi-scholarly book, _Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?_, with such lines as, “Scholars who denigrate Falstaff are the undead, at best.”

Yes, yes, I know my ‘funny bone’ has no marrow.
But I’m cool with that,
j(ay)

Can I hire you to break the ice at parties?

[QUOTE=Riddlegimp]Can I hire you to break the ice at parties? ;)[/QUOTE]

Sure. You pay the gas for my chainsaw and I’m there.

I should have thanked rkdaley for the Marx Brothers book mention, as I didn’t know that finally came out (knew it would one day…).

And that reminds me of 3 books I damn well may have laughed out loud over, Oscar Levant’s 3 memoirs (he was a friend of Harpo, hence the association in my head):
_A Smattering of Ignorance_, _Memoirs of an Amnesiac_ and _The Unimportance of Being Oscar_

Now let’s get to that ice…
j(ay)

[U]The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales[/U]

HI LARE EE US

[QUOTE=gobo_fraggle_uk]I have remembered a book which made me laugh out loud!
'The Fan Man' by, I think, William Kotzwinkle

If anyone reads it, tell me if you agree with me that the Coen brothers ripped off the character of 'The Dude' in The Big Lebowski from the main character in this book - Horse Badorties.[/QUOTE]

I have wanted to read that for some time. I picked it up once in Barnes and Noble and started reading it, really liked it, and always meant to buy the damn thing.

fear and loathing in las vegas makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.

on the other hand, the only book that's ever made me actually gag was Gerald's Game

Yeah, Douglas Adams is the man. Also, I would read anything by Nick Hornby. He's really good. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was an awesome hilarious real-life book. Good Omens from the book club had me in hysterics. What else? I read way too much.

[QUOTE=ireLocus][U]The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales[/U]

HI LARE EE US[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, I remember it well.
"You cant catch me I'm the stinky cheese man!"
"We dont want to catch you! You are stinky!"
Or something like that.

Also, any book by Robert Rankin, hey're mostly just a bit strange but they do include comic gems such as...

"He's got more chins than a chinese phone book!"

Permanent Midnight by Jerry Stahl had me laughing out loud. The movie was cool, but the book, based on real-life experiences of the author, was a riot. Stahl was a comedy writer for a sitcom (ALF, I think) who had a massive heroin habit. And yes, it's damn funny stuff.

I have always been a fan of Robert Rankin, some great work. Strange though. A good book to start with would be "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse". Very amusing and witty.

[QUOTE=gobo_fraggle_uk]I found The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin very funny, but in a subtle, melancholic way. Not laugh-out-loud. I tend only to laugh out loud at news items about human suffering.[/QUOTE]

Both that and [I]Shopgirl[/I] are both excellent.

[QUOTE=LadyPlural]Candide, by Voltaire, always makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.[/QUOTE]

You should read Terry Southern's spoof on that, [I]Candy[/I] which is a great humorous/subversive novel.

[QUOTE=alchemy_of_consciousness]I'd like to recommend The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.[/QUOTE]

Co-written with Robert Shea, and it's a stone riot once you get past the first 100 pages (slow starter, big payoff).

I'm always beating the drum for [I]The Magic Christian[/I] by Terry Southern, which is for me his best (though I've yet to track down [I]Flash and Filligree[/I] or [I]Blue Movie[/I] so I could have cause to adjust the ranking.

Max Barry is an obvious one, always funny.

[I]A Confederacy of Dunces[/I] is great fun, if you haven't read it I highly recommend you bump it up your list.

Also, [I]Catch-22[/I] by Joseph Heller if you've missed it.

And I just started a very promising one, I'm only 50 pages into it, but [I]The Good Soldier Švejk[/I] by Jarslov Hašek is so far a laugh-out-loud affair.

I was reading Cruddy whilst on the eliptical machine at the gym today and I laughed out loud when I read this part where this guy was accusing some woman of farting and when she denied it he goes, "Its nothing to be ashamed of, I did it once when I was in the army".

[QUOTE=LadyPlural]Candide, by Voltaire, always makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.[/QUOTE]

Voltaire is hilarious -I really wanna read the Philosophical Dictionary after I finish RoA...

[QUOTE=Draco Delacroix]Yeah, Douglas Adams is the man. Also, I would read anything by Nick Hornby. He's really good. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was an awesome hilarious real-life book. Good Omens from the book club had me in hysterics. What else? I read way too much.[/QUOTE]

No such thing has reading to much

[QUOTE=Cosby Sweater]COSMIC BANDITOS by Allan Weisbecker is my vote for funniest book of all time.

Weisbecker is like a lighter-hearted, funnier Hunter Thompson. I laugh out loud every time I read it.[/QUOTE]

"It's a Cosby Sweater! A COSBY SWEA-THURRRRR!"

[QUOTE=Cosby Sweater]Ah! Someone who knows where that's from. That's one of my favorite movie lines ever.[/QUOTE]

High Fidelity was a funny book, too. They did a good job adapting it.

Ethan Coen (of Joel & Ethan Coen fame) : "Gates of Eden", his first collected short stories. Very close to the spirit of their films.

Douglas Adams, Voltaire - I agree

But I must add Moliere and Oscar Wilde to the mix, and as far as modern writers I get a grand snicker out of Stephen Fry. He makes me giggle very much, esp with THE LIAR

I'm also fond of the printed words of Steve Martin, Woody Allen and The Marx Bros., but of course they are all just as good as their performances (which are great imo).

I enjoyed the sig pic of the late great Peter Sellers as prez and the clever quote - can't recall who has it, but it dead clever nonetheless.

And I like the quip about having no marrow "j(ay)" very cheeky as always

Hellion444

Listening to a 2 minute clip from the audio book of Steve Martin's "Pure Drivel" has reduced me to tears more than once. It's a collection of essays he wrote for the New Yorker, and what I heard of it was hilarious. I don't think reading yourself it would be nearly as funny as hearing him do it, though.

[COLOR=DarkOrange]Omlette du fromage?[/COLOR]

I can't really think of a completely funny book that i've read... mostly because i don't read a whole hell of a lot and most of what i've read has been Stephen King. And so, i'll speak of what i DO read, and say that in a couple books of his he's had me laughing my ass off on a few little dark lines of his. I can't really quote any though... cuz i can't really remember. I recall something from The Dark Half (i THINK) about a guy talking about his bladder... funny for my gross brain area.

Tom Robbin's HALF ASLEEP IN FROG PAJAMAS killed me on a daily basis, got major looks from people by breaking up over a line..

Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence

I agree with the Tom Robbins recommendation, although I'd start with Still Life with Woodpecker. I find it to be the funniest of his books.

The person I consider the finest comedy writer around is [URL=http://www.chrismoore.com/]Christopher Moore[/URL]. His newest book is [URL=http://www.chrismoore.com/bookpage.asp?PB_ISBN=0060590270]A Dirty Job[/URL]. He also has the best names for books:
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story
Coyote Blue
and
Practical Demonkeeping

All of these are great books - great fun and well written.

A couple more come to mind. 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' (which, if Toby Young hadn't taken that title, would work for my own memoir, the bastard).

'Colors Insulting to Nature,' Cintra Wilson's novel about the Normal family is cute. Good light reading and I laughed until I cried at a couple of points.

'Geronimo Rex' by Barry Hannah. I didnt connect with this the first go, but on a second read it hooked me, largely because I got to laughing. Of course, by that standard, most of Faulkner is highly comic, so maybe that's a bad example for this thread. His shorter book 'Ray' has its moments, too.

'Portnoy's Complaint,' or really almost anything by Roth. He's written a couple of stinkers, but he should have sued the 'American Pie' people for royalties even if a calf liver is a different food.

P.J. O'Rourke has his moments too. It's been a while since I read him, but 'Republican Party Reptile' is great fun. 'Parliament of Whores' too.

Can't go wrong with Max Barry and T.C. Boyle, for that matter.

Tom Bodet's tales of life in Alaska are pretty funny too, as I recall.

Perfect Skin by Nick Earls - funny stuff! Some ridiculous cat stuff happened that really made me laugh out loud.

50 Cent's autobiography, From Pieces to Weight.

Hands down the funniest book I've ever read.

'Apathy and Other Small Victories.' Excellent book, Max isn't kidding when he endorses it. Funniest shit to come along since Max Barry.