Funny/Lulz Books

Edmund Crispin's mysteries always make me cackle. Also I laughed my ass off at Jasper Fforde's stuff, but that might not be what you're looking for.

You might also harvest some useful suggestions here: When in Rome, ask directions.

Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men In A Boat has been proven in scientific tests to be the most mirthful publication in the history of mankind. And if the (uproarious, top-fifty-material) Code Of The Woosters is your bag, I can only see you wrapped up in paroxysms of the good stuff.

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almost anything by de vries will do though. he iz genius.

best comic novel about terminally ill children taking a trip to disneyland ever:

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again, almost all elkin is choice. and hilarious. and brilliant.

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'Lucky Jim' by Amis even better and funnier

italo svevo, "zeno's conscience"
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i think i actually did laugh out loud more than once reading this book:

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also, if you can find it, this book made me who i am today:

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yes stanley elkin!

i lol'd with great frequency while reading catch-22 fwiw

not to bring down the level of dialogue but i kinda want to read this:

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anyone ever read nigel williams? i know nothing about him - don't think they even publish his books in the u.s. - but i read *east of wimbledon* and thought it was very funny. one of a trilogy, supposedly. i always mean to ask on here if his other books are good/funny too. (east of wimbledon is about a brit lad who pretends to be muslim so that he can get a job teaching at an islamic private school in wimbledon. hilarity ensues.)

I was going to recommend "Shut Up And Eat Your Snowshoes" by Jack Douglas, and I am freaked that you also posted a Douglas book. I haven't read that one, although I really didn't like his other books.

The Best of Myles, beyond doubt.

Catch 22, definitely.

Douglas Adams may be your thing, it may not.

Can't really go wrong with a Jeeves and Wooster collection, except perhaps that it gets repetitive.

Lucky Jim, The Green Man, The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
Early Anthony Powell - Afternoon Men, Venusberg, From a View to a Death, and Agents and Patients especially (although the novels in A Dance to the Music of Time can be very funny indeed as well)
Evelyn Waugh - recommend especially his early travel writings.
Henry Fielding

The Edmund Crispin/Bruce Montgomery mysteries I must admit I find slightly wearing, with that endless tone of facetious humour becoming a strain on the nerves after a bit.

Early Anthony Powell - Afternoon Men, Venusberg, From a View to a Death, and Agents and Patients especially

Love these books

And 'Lucky Jim' is one of my favourites, ever

And unavailable - lying there helpless waiting for Faber to get their grubby mitts on them. Get to abebooks before they do it!

I found The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club pretty funny as well. I'm thinking Boswell's Life of Johnson too, although I've only read small parts - next on my list I think, when I've finished demolishing this huge wobbling tower of books that I am apparently going to read and which are about to precipitate onto my head, anyway.

And while I'm at it - Kingsley Amis's letters, particularly the ones to Philip Larkin, are just incredible - amongst the funniest and most inventive things I have read (Larkin's back aren't that bad either). KA's Memoirs are also exceptional and I was delighted to see that his writings on drink are being reissued in one volume: the Means Sod's guide and Hangover sections of On Drink are especially amusing.

A word of warning, my edition of The Alteration has a quote on the jacket from some idiot-man that says it is 'amongst the funniest things Kingsley Amis has written.' This is simply not true. It's not funny in the slightest. It is however one of the best books ever written - no, don't look at me like that, it IS. Philip K Dick even wrote Amis a letter saying it was the best Alternate World fantasy he had read. It's peculiarly satisfying and slightly odd that Kingsley Amis and Mark E Smith are linked by both having received letters from PKD.

Rambling! Hush, Gamaliel, hush.

A word of warning, my edition of The Alteration has a quote on the jacket from some idiot-man that says it is 'amongst the funniest things Kingsley Amis has written.' This is simply not true. It's not funny in the slightest. It is however one of the best books ever written - no, don't look at me like that, it IS.

Absolutely OTM. My only criticism of 'The Alteration', and it's a very small one, is that it has the inevitable bit, common to many alternative-history books, where one of the characters tries to imagine a world where history was different, and imagines our world.

Ha! Yes, I know what you mean. Bit cheap, isn't it? Although, hang on, it's been to long since I read it, but doesn't he get tiny bits wrong or different? I can't remember. I'd dig it out, but all my bloody books are in storage at the moment.

Wow, Anthony Powell fans! Dance... is my favourite novel of all time.

Agree with Lucky Jim and Confederacy of Dunces in particular. I would add Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections.

Although, hang on, it's been to long since I read it, but doesn't he get tiny bits wrong or different?

Maybe he does--I'll have to check. That would be cool.

Dancing with Cats

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dancing cat gifs never get old

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dancing cat gifs never get old
^MAXIM^

I'm just giving another vote to Waugh (though I would go for Decline and Fall for the straight-up funnies) and The Best of Myles (Also The Third Policeman) and Amis's Memoirs (I find this very funny, though it might be less so if you're unfamiliar with mid-century English lit culture). Also Saunders
Might Simon Raven fit the bill? I've only read one of his novels, but it seemed fun enough. No lolling, but fun enough.

Yeah, Simon Raven's great for uneasy black comedy.