Funny HaHa or Funny Peculiar

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I need a funny book to read. I just reread Lucky Jim and it made me realise how rare it is to read a book that funny. I have got most of the way through The Ground Beneath Her Feet and I'm just about ready to throw it across the room into the bin. Because it isn't funny. I want FUNNY, God rot you. I'm in the mood.

― Sam, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Alternatively I want to read something extremely weird which freaks me out. The last book which freaked me out was something by J.G. Ballard, but it didn't freak me out nearly enough.

― Sam, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Confederacy of Dunces'. 'Long Hard Road Out of Hell'.

― dave q, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Anthropology" by Dan Rhodes may well fit into either category. 100 stories all 100 words long. Some are laugh out loud funny ("Jam", "Trick") some are just disturbing ("Honesty"). If you get a chance to see him read, I'd thoroughly recommend it - I was nearly on the floor crying by the end it was so funny.

― Andrew Williams, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hmmm...Mysteries by Knut Hamsun!

― jel, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Them:Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson. Brilliant.

― Ronan Fitzgerald, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I read 'Confederacy of Dunces' earlier this year. Fucking fantastic. Is it true it's being filmed?

― Sam, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Fiction makes me sick so I don't read it

― Ronan Fitzgerald, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Anything by Jerome K Jerome is pretty silly.

― Ally C, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Civil War Land in Sad Decline' and 'Paradoxia', two short story collections by George Saunders, are both laff out loud funny and also v. odd/strange. Best 'new' writer I've read in years.

― Andrew L, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Do you mean 'Pastoralia'?

― Sam, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

jel - mysteries? you just love it, that's no excuse

sam - have you tried the obvious like Tristram Shandy? he writes about hobbyhorses and a digression includes reciting the alphabet -

and of course there's marian keyes - i recommend her and what's the other, Bridget Jones Diary - of course we should all be studying these INTENSIVELY

― maryann, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Road to Wellville by T Coraghessan Boyle, quite how Parker screwed up the film is quite amazing.

― Billy Dods, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Celine, 'Journey to the End of the Night', now THAT is hilarious.

― dave q, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

lord of the barnyard is tres funny

― Geoff, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Rabelais is just insane, of course, and to mention two recent things I linked, Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary and the collected works of Jack Chick, for very different reasons. As for something else...*ponders*...well, there's always Great Pop Things.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Confederacy of Dunces is not funny, it is just lame lame lame, y'all are crazy. The only funny part is right at the beginning. Then it falls of. Rapidly. Dire, dire, dire.

― Josh, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a collected Jack Chick?? Are we talking the lil rectangular tracts everyone knows or the scary 70s comic books that look like thinly disguised gay porn??

Most of the funny ha-ha I like is also funny disturbing. Um...the work of Jim Woodring is always good...although its not really "funny." Hrm.

― jess, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't listen to Josh, though he is a better literary critic than I, but a Confederacy of Dunces is very funny!

― jel, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's the tract ones, Jess. What! You did not read my recommendations on the Christian Fundamentalists thread? I'm saddened.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Someone mentioned Confederate Of Dunces. I looked for one funny passage but I failed. Dud.

― nathalie, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sam, I do indeed mean 'Pastoralia' (wot a dunce!), and it sounds like you know Saunders already so feh....

― Andrew L, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Walking on Glass' by Ian Banks. Both Funny HaHa annnd funny Peculiar.

Very peculiar in places.

― DavidM, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I had more trouble reading Walking on Glass than any other book I've read, very very odd, but yeah, kinda funny

― cabbage, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Alice's Adventures and Wonderland=haha funny

Through the Looking Glass=peculiar funny

I think a very funny book is "The Burning Questions of Bingo Brown" by Betsy Byars. It is easy to read, too, as it is meant for maybe sixth graders. But the best and funniest book. Plus Bingo is every boy I have loved. Please read this book.

― 1 1 2 3 5, Friday, 24 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought High Fidelity, in addition to being a generally good read, was also very funny.

*cowers as entire ILE/ILM posting community rises up en masse, stones Dave M. to death, and subsequently inscribes "Nick Hornby suXoR" on his tombstone*

― Dave M., Saturday, 25 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Silver by Matthew Remi wins for me or House of LEaves by Lewiinski (sp )-

― anthony, Saturday, 25 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four months pass...

What was hard to read or freaky about Walking on Glass? I just remember it being OK.

― N., Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I just couldn't follow it, it's probably more a symptom of my short attention span than Mr Banks' writing.

― chris, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one month passes...

Don't let the bad reviews of Confederacy of Dunces sway you....most say its great, and its my personal favorite.

― Deltron 3030, Tuesday, 5 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the thought gang tibor fischer
confederate general brautigan
retro book by the ben is dead magazine editors.

― elizabeth anne marjorie, Wednesday, 6 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

T. Fischer's "the thought gang" seconded. probably the funniest book I read. His other stuff was suprisingly unengaging though

― Fabrice (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 13 August 2003 08:46 (twenty-two years ago)

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