Anybody feel like recommending a funny book for me to read?

[AlCzervik]

I'm about to start "The Wrecking crew" and i'm thinking i may want something fun to read after i'm done with that, i've already read all the David Sedaris books and Colbert's I am America.

please and thank you.

[bicentennial_baby]

1. No, but I wanted to thank you

I picked up the new Sedaris book. :)

:loveya:

[AlCzervik]

2. Glad you enjoyed it, i love his books so much and i'm sad i don't have anymore to read.

:loveya:

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. "A Confederacy of Dunces" is always good, as is "Fletch".

[AlCzervik]

4. that looks interesting, thank you.

[Patiod]

21. "Confederacy" is very dark

Maybe a dark comedy, but barely

[Fire Walk With Me]

23. Yes, but still funny.

His other book, "The Neon Bible", is scathing and truthful in a manner most wouldn't enjoy. Not very funny, unless you think wounds are funny.

[Patiod]

22. "Straight Man" by Richard Russo

Comedy about academia

I'd second the Hiaasen rec above, as well as the Jean Shepard one. Jean Shepard is pure, unadulterated funny

[Joe Fields]

5. Any George Carlin book will do the trick.

[sarge43]

6. Jean Shepherd

In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters

[mcctatas]

7. I love most of the books by Christopher Moore...

"Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff Christ's Childhood Pal" is my personal favorite, although if you are offended by irreverent treatment of the Bible, I'd skip it;)

http://books.google.com/books?id=Vimx2y5WKpMC&dq=christopher+moore+lamb&pg=PP1&ots=qZqlxmU2Lb&sig=GqU--0T4tq_Bjk16KFB6l3jtjos&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result

[Dr. Strange]

17. You Suck.

God I love Christopher Moore!

[mcctatas]

30. And you sir are a...

Sequined Love Nun;)

[peacefreak]

38. Good news for Christopher Moore fans

New one coming out in February. It's called "Fool". This time he's taking on King Lear. "Warning. This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason & heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity & profanity..." Quote lifted from the back of the Advance copy.
Yeah, it's got all the good stuff.

[MountainLaurel]

41. Hooray!

:party:

[Dr. Strange]

40. You make a good point.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7440072

[mcctatas]

49. I must be psychic!

:woohoo:

[BrotherBuzz]

8. Just about anything by Carl Hiaasen should do the job

Stormy Weather might be a good start.

[Lex]

9. I thought Hiaasen's "Double Whammy" was hysterically funny too.

nt

[BrotherBuzz]

13. Yes!

Double Whammy is a double :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[AlCzervik]

10. the only book i ever read of his was "Hoot", i really need to give his stuff a try.

[BrotherBuzz]

12. Hoot was fun, even my thirteen-year-old loved it, but...

He has some stuff, well, stuff that is really funny. Dark humor, too.

Lucky You: Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles--the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. And now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery. Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot....

Skinny-dip: Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn't know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he's found a way doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades...

and there is more...

http://www.carlhiaasen.com/books.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Carl Hiaasen's "Skinny Dip" is hilarious, too

:7

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. Maybe not "funny", but entertaining and amusing

Anansi Boys

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OlttZSUQL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-bottom,BottomLeft,25,43_SH20_OU01_.jpg

Read one review at the link: http://www.amazon.com/Anansi-Boys-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0060515198/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223342614&sr=8-1

[redwitch]

14. "Sarah Palin's Lifetime Accomplishments"

Not only is it funny, you can read the entire book at a red light.

[tismyself]

15. oh yeah

1. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

Every time I get to the part about shopping for camping equipment it sends me into hysterics.

2. Pissing in the Snow by Vance Randolph.

Laughing at that all night probably contributed to my divorce.

[Connonym]

16. Boomsday by Christopher Buckley

[Starbucks Anarchist]

18. "Company" by Max Barry.

[pokerfan]

19. Reading Colbert's right now

Have you ever read Candide?

[Redneck Socialist]

20. A Short History of a Small Place

by TR Pearson.

Funny and heartbreaking all a the same time.

[yellowdogintexas]

33. absolutely. A GREAT book. nt

[ovidsen]

24. dup.... sory about that.

but things happen

[ovidsen]

26. Anything by Dave Barry will do.

He's a semi retired humor columnist for the Miami Herald, and IMO he's as funny as hell. He's written a host of books, and I'm sure your local library or Barnes ans Nobles has copies to spare.

It's no co-incidence Barry and Hiaasen were sort of cubicle mates at the Herald.

In the same vein, read Gene Weingarten, formerly of the Herald (he was Barry's editor) and now works as the humorist columnist for the Washington Post.

He writes a Sunday humor column, Below the Beltway, which (when it's good, it can be very very good).

Also, every Tuesday, he hosts a real time on line dialogue, which is sort of like a blog, but really isn't. You'll either laugh your privates off, but scratch your head and wonder, "What IS this???" It's entitled "Chatologal Humor". It's been running in the Washington Post web page for years, every Tuesdays (it's subtitle is "Tuesday's with Moron"), and either you get it, or you don't. Click below and make up your own mind.

Tuesdays with Moron

I hope you find these as funny as I do.

[Fire Walk With Me]

44. Another set of thumbs-up for Dave Barry.

[LostinVA]

25. Bill Bryson -- "Neither Here Nor There" or Sue Townsend's "Adrian Mole" series

[FloridaJudy]

61. Bryson's "The Adventures of the Thunderbolt Kid"

Had me in stitches, but I expect it would be most funny to my fellow boomers. I'll second the recommendations of Christopher Moore and Carl Hiaasen as well. And just about anything by Tim Dorsey: something about Florida encourages over-the-top humor. If you have to live here, it's either that or give in to despair.

[Forkboy]

27. The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie. Funniest book I've ever read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gun_Seller

Here's a short excerpt from the beginning of chapter 1;

**

Imagine that you have to break someone's arm.

Right or left, doesn't matter. The point is that you have to break it, because if you don't...well, that doesn't matter either. Let's just say bad things will happen if you don't.

Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly -- snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint -- or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?

Well exactly. Of course. The right thing to do, the only thing to do, is to get it over with as quickly as possible. Break the arm, ply the brandy, be a good citizen. There can be no other answer.

Unless.

Unless unless unless.

What if you were to hate the person on the other end of the arm? I mean really, really hate them.

This was a thing I now had to consider.

I say now, meaning then, meaning the moment I am describing; the moment fractionally, oh so bloody fractionally, before my wrist reached the back of my neck and my left humerus broke into at least two, very possibly more, floppily joined-together pieces.

The arm we've been discussing, you see, is mine. It's not an abstract, philosopher's arm. The bone, the skin, the hairs, the small white scar on the point of the elbow, won from the corner of a storage heater at Gateshill Primary School -- they all belong to me. And now is the moment when I must consider the possibility that the man standing behind me,gripping my wrist and driving it up my spine with an almost sexual degree of care, hates me. I mean, really, really hates me.

He is taking for ever.

His name was Rayner. First name unknown. By me, at any rate, and therefore, presumably, by you too.

I suppose someone, somewhere, must have known his first name -- must have baptised him with it, called him down to breakfast with it, taught him how to spell it -- and someone else must have shouted it across a bar with an offer of a drink, or murmured it during sex, or written it in a box on a life insurance application form. I know they must have done all these things. Just hard to picture, that's all.

Rayner, I estimated, was ten years older than me. Which was fine. Nothing wrong with that. I have good, warm, non-arm-breaking relationships with plenty of people who are ten years older than me. People who are ten years older than me are, by and large, admirable. But Rayner was also three inches taller than me, four stones heavier, and at least eight however-you-measure-violence units more violent. He was uglier than a car park, with a big, hairless skull that dipped and bulged like a balloon full of spanners, and his flattened, fighter's nose, apparently drawn on his face by someone using their left hand, or perhaps even their left foot, spread out in a meandering, lopsided delta under the rough slab of his forehead.

And God Almighty, what a forehead. Bricks, knives, bottles and reasoned arguments had, in their time, bounced harmlessly off this massive frontal plane, leaving only the feeblest indentations between its deep, widely-spaced pores. They were, I think, the deepest and most widely-spaced pores I have ever seen in human skin, so that I found myself thinking back to the council putting-green in Dalbeattie, at the end of the long, dry summer of '76.

Moving now to the side elevation, we find that Rayner's ears had, long ago, been bitten off and spat back on to the side of his head, because the left one was definitely upside down, or inside out, or something that made you stare at it for a long time before thinking 'oh, it's an ear'.

And on top of all this, in case you hadn't got the message, Rayner wore a black leather jacket over a black polo-neck.

But of course you would have got the message. Rayner could have swathed himself in shimmering silk and put an orchid behind each ear, and nervous passers-by would still have paid him money first and wondered afterwards whether they had owed him any.

**

:hi:

[dixiegrrrrl]

52. Thank you for that !!!!!

Just reading the last sentence got me going....:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Forkboy]

56. You're welcome.

Hugh is pretty awesome in everything he does. Comedy, drama, and writing, he does it all, and does it well.

[timtom]

28. Either "Candy" or "The Magic Christian"

by Terry Southern.

Master of the absurd.

[Withywindle]

29. Almost anything by Terry Pratchett

Really engaging satirical fantasy that's a lot deeper than it first seems. He's best-known for the Discworld series, which is set on a fantasy world that managers to skewer every cliche of the fantasy genre as well as lots of things in our own real world. 'Jingo' is about an ill-advised territorial war with a continent that suspiciously resembles the Middle East. 'Small Gods' is one of the best books I've ever read about religion. (So is his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, 'Good Omens,' if you want to read the most entertaining refutation of End Times Rapture-Ready crap ever.)

[madeline_con]

31. Boy Wonder by James Robert Baker. Funny. n/t

[RushIsRot]

32. Here's one you can read online. It's an old book, published in 1899.

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. I was guffawing frequently reading this little masterpiece of wit.

http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/222/2445/frameset.html

[Rhythm]

34. "Good Omens" - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

This is my 'i need something to take my mind off the world' book... i have given away probably two dozen copies in the last 15 yrs.

[Spacemom]

39. Another vote for "Good Omens"

The end of the world has never been funnier! :D

[MountainLaurel]

42. Love that book

It was one of those that earned me stares on the commuter train because I would suddenly break out into snorting laughter.

[Rhythm]

51. You too?! *L*

It's weird that you never stop doing that, either, even after reading it through several times.

[dropkickpa]

47. 3rd vote

Love Pratchett, love Gaiman, and the 2 together are brilliant!

[bicentennial_baby]

53. 4th vote!

:D

[AlCzervik]

59. i just ordered it, it's out of print but i found a used one on Amazon.

thanks.

[yellowdogintexas]

35. "The Joyous Season", by Patrick Dennis who also wrote the "Auntie Mame" books

which I also recommend.

Patrick McManus's essay books on life in the North Woods are screamingly funny...

"The Grasshopper Trap"
"They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?"
"Never Sniff a Gift Fish"
"The Night The Bear Ate Goombaw"

and another vote for Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen

[Shakespeare]

36. Either of these two:

The Magic Christian by Terry Southern (hilarious and absurd fiction)

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Christian-Southern-Terry/dp/0802134653/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223355721&sr=8-2

-or-

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley (kind of a female Sedaris)

http://www.amazon.com/Was-Told-Thered-Be-Cake/dp/159448306X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223355797&sr=8-1

[Fleshdancer]

37. "My Horizontal Life" by Chelsea Handler

Chelsea was on Girls Behaving Badly and she now hosts a show on E called Chelsea Lately. "My Horizontal Life" is a hysterically funny book about her sex life. My husband read it too and couldn't stop laughing.

[RubyDuby in GA]

45. Anything by Laurie Notaro

http://www.laurienotaro.com/

The Idiot Girls Action Adventure Club, etc...

Her books make me laugh out loud when I read them.

[YankeyMCC]

46. Hitchiker's Guide the Galaxy

but you know that's both British style humor and Science Fiction based so I'd certainly understand if that isn't quiet what you're looking for your tastes.

But your question has made me realize, as much reading as I do I don't read comedic or humorous novels, except for the Hitchhiker books. I should try and find something myself from the recommendations people are giving you.

[Bake]

48. War and Peace

It's a real hoot. And a quick read, too.

:rofl:

Bake

[AngryAmish]

50. Scoop

[DarkTirade]

54. Anything by Terry Pratchett.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

55. Tom Sharpe is almost always hysterical

Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure are a great starting point. They got him kicked out of South Africa back in the 1970s.
Porterhouse Blue and
Blott on the Landscape are excellent next steps.

[tekisui]

57. Richard Brautigan.

A Confederate General From Big Sur.

Please read it, if you haven't. Then read more Brautigan.

[Jade Fox]

58. If you can find a copy....

I recommend "How I Saved the World", by Philip Slater.

[AlCzervik]

60. thank you everyone, i printed this thread out and i am already ordering some books.

thanks again.

[PassingFair]

62. "Youth in Revolt"

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VHMVFRTKL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg

You will NOT be disappointed. A movie is in the works, and will premier in December.

Also try: "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole"

Both are hilarious books about clueless youths coming of age,
one in Britain (Adrian Mole) and the other in America (Nick Twisp, Youth in Revolt).