Advice for my disabled daughter

straight off the top of my head, i'd suggest anything by tibor fischer -- particularly "the thought gang" and the short-story collection "don't read this book if you're stupid". his last novel, "voyage to the end of the room", is very douglas-adams-esque but maybe a little too obviously so.

alexei sayle's last novel, "the weeping women hotel", is in the same kind of orbit, too.

Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm comes to mind.

P.G. Wodehouse?

Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy.

Chris, I meant to post this hours ago: Wodehouse: S/D

Kingsley Amis: 'Lucky Jim'
Jerome K Jerome: 'Three Men in a Boat'
William Boyd: 'Stars and Bars'

Thank you for your advice so far. Some, of course, she has read and is going through P.G. Woodhouse at the moment. I am to look for some which are not Jeeves and Wooster next time I visit the library.

Keep them coming, please, she has a long life ahead of her to read!

Jill

Anything by Barbara Pym, though not especially funny or silly. They are gentle, interesting, and well-written.

Maybe new ILB fave J.R. Ackerley?

Edmund Crispin! Murder mysteries, but not shocking/gory - along the lines of a far more literary Agatha Christie, but funny as hell.

She might like the Jasper Fforde books (The Eyre Affair, etc.) and the two books that he set in the nursery-rhyme universe (The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear).

Does she not like Terry Pratchett, or has she read all of his stuff?

Somewhat in the vein of Douglas Adams are Spider Robinson's "Callahan's" series (Callahan's Cross Time Saloon, Lady Slings the Booze, etc.) - I think they're hilarious.

Sarah Caudwell's four books (Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Shortest Way to Hades, The Sirens Sang of Murder, The Sybil in Her Grave) are literary, intelligent, witty, and delightful - should be read in order of publication, if possible. (Not at all violent - in fact, I can't recall the murders at all - it's all the dialog and marvelous narrator.)

Does your daughter enjoy non-fiction? Maybe one of Bill Bryson's travel books would hit the spot. Or maybe Bernd Heinrich's "Winter World" (fascinating and very readable)?

Thinking about recent stuff, there's "Carter Beats the Devil," maybe "Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," maybe Lethem's "Motherless Brooklyn", maybe Isabel Allende (I love "House of the Spirits" and "Eva Luna"), Westlake's "God Save the Mark" had me chortling (actually, Westlake's Dortmunder novels are wonderful, too - totally inept thief, working with a crew of equally as ill-talented cronies).

Good thoughts for your daughter and please let us know what enthralls her and what misses, so we can better help her find the books that provide the needed escapism.

Sheesh - dialog was SUPPOSED to be dialogue.

Jane Austen; Anthony Trollope (The Paliser novels); Colette; Edmund Wilson's essays; classic children's literature is a blessing to re-read or discover for the first time (Little Women); E.B. White's essays, many of which are humorous.

And for pure fun, the Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich...a few of the scenes in the early books are a tad violent, but 90% is quite humorous, and the later books are pure camp.

Best wishes.

Oops, meant Palliser novels. Sorry about that.

EM Delafield's 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' books
Definitely Jane Austen, esp. 'Northanger Abbey' and 'Pride & Prejudice' for humour
Robertson Davies' 'Salterton' trilogy seconded, too
HE Bates: Any of the Larkin novels

Anthony Powell's 12 volume masterwork Dance to the Music of Time. Has a few tense wartime moments and one really mean person (toward the end), but lots of other wonderful characters and memorable funny passages.

Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana.

I'd recommend a couple of books by Farley Mowat, a Canadian writer: Never Cry Wolf and The Dog Who Wouldn't Be.

Another author she might enjoy would be Gerald Durrell (brother of the somewhat more famous novelist Lawrence Durrell). His most popular book was My Family and Other Animals, but he also wrote a long series of travel books about collecting live animals for his zoo, all of which tend toward chuckleworthy and endearing anecdotes.

If she hasn't read Mark Twain's travels books they all have their various charms. I would rate them: #1 Roughling It, #2 Innocents Abroad, #3 A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator. The first two he wrote as a young man and tend to be much sunnier than the other two, especially the last.

Another oldie that has been much read and loved would be Life With Father by Clarence Day.

Gerald Durrell's 'Rosie is my Relative', a novel about a man who inherits an elephant, is funny too.

You're the first non-Canadian I've seen recommend Farley Mowat. Though I guess he's your style, though to my shame I haven't read him.

Also, D*v*d S*d*r*s.

A Spell for Chameleon - Piers Anthony
He won an award for best fantasy novel in 1977 with this book. It is full of puns, humor, imaginative stuff, cliff hangingness, and it is well-written and intelligent. I read reviews on amazon.com and that is what the reviewers said. I never read the book but my sister and father have and they loved it.

Hark Helprin - Freddy and Fredericka

Farley Mowat... to my shame I haven't read him.

For those who have no prohibition on content that is shocking, violent or heavy-going, I would recommend his WWII memoir, And No Birds Sang.