What's the funniest book you've ever read?

War and Peace.

That Girl and Phil.

“No fucking cooooookieeeeees???!!!”

The Confederancy of Dunces

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

One of Woody Allen's first two, I think "Without Feathers."

But if truth be known, the books that invariably had me in tears of laughter weren't really "books-books" but rather compilations of comic strips: the Dilbert series. Then Scott Adams told the world how much a MAGAt he is, and like that his characters lost their humor for me.

R3, I am not sure it was the funniest but that was the first book that jumped to mind. I do have strong memories of how absurdly funny it was.

A Short History of a Small Place by T.R. Pearson.

R6 I remember reading it on the plane and not being able to stop myself laughing out loud and hysterically at parts.

"Vile Bodies" by Evelyn Waugh.

A collection of short stories by John Collier - Fancies and Goodnights

Bullet Park - John Cheever

And that Shirley Jones memoir about poppers and dicks.

Naked from David Sedaris was funny

The Flashman series, by George McDonald Frasier.

The Adrian Mole Diaries.

White Teeth by Zaide Smith.

"Holidays on Ice" by David Sedaris. I laugh out loud at "Santaland Diaries" every year.

R5 here. That has to be one of the all-time greats!

I meant that for r15!

There isn't a David Sedaris book that I don't laugh out loud reading.

"Daisy Fae and the Miracle Man," by Fannie Flagg. She wrote it in 1981, six years before she wrote "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe."

It was originally titled "Coming Attractions," then republished and remarketed after the success of "Fried Green Tomatoes."

I remember reading it on the train to and from work and having to constantly put it down because I was laughing so hard, I looked like a crazy person in public.

NORTH GLADIOLA by James Wilcox, a truly laugh-out-loud smart novel from 1985 about a group of friends and frenemies in a small town in Louisiana. It followed Wilcox's debut MODERN BAPTISTS, also very funny, and some of the same characters, including a few gays, appeared in both.

I became a huge fan and he subsequently came out with a new novel almost every year throughout the 1990s but none lived up to the promise of the first two. I reread those first two books about 20 years ago, still hilarious, and have kept them and will eventually read them again. I believe he teaches writing at Tulane or one of the big universities in Louisiana but hasn't published a new novel since 2009 (I think).

Another vote for Confederacy of Dunces. It gets even funnier on the reread. God bless John Kennedy Toole’s mother for finding the professor who eventually got it published (posthumously for John).

I remember laughing really hard at Christopher Moore’s ‘The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove’

Might not be as funny to me now as it was when I was twenty, but it was a riot then!

Confederacy of Dunces quotes that sound like DL:

“Will you please stop screeching like a fishmonger and run along? Don't you have a bottle of muscatel baking in the oven?”

“Oh, my God!" Ignatius bellowed from the front of the house. "What an egregious insult to good taste.”

“In my private apocalypse he will be impaled upon his own nightstick”

“Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet!”

“Employers sense in me a denial of their values...They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe.”

“Mother went out again looking like a courtesan”

"My Blue Heaven" and "Putting on the Ritz" by Joe Keenan.

"What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter, and Me by Rielle Hunter". Unintentionally hilarious. I was reading on a plane and was laughing so hard people might of thought I was having a seizure. The delusion ranings of this complete narcissist was perfect for a long haul flight.

Another vote for Joe Keenan's Blue Heaven (but definitely not its sequel).

Runners up would be David B. Feinberg's dark funny Eighty-Sixed and Richard Friedel's The Movie Lover.

I read them when they came out and have wanted to revisit them because I'm curious to see how I would feel about them decades later.

A lifetime ago

“Genius” by Patrick Dennis

Calypso by David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris was the first book of his I read and made me an instant fan.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to jump on and add my votes for David Sedaris.

It's even funnier when he reads it - which is why he's one of a few authors who sells out large theaters and people pay to hear him recite his works. I can't think of too many authors who have that.

I think Barrel Fever was probably the darkest book that I didn't like as much.

But start with Santaland diaries - it's hilarious and made him a star when they played it on NPR. Launched his career.

Also - for the holiday spirit - 6 to 8 Black Men by David Sedaris makes me almost cry laughing. It's about Dutch Christmas.

And I also think his sister is one of the funniest actresses around, so there's that also.

Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints ... 60 year old jokes that are still very funny, a sign of a classic.

So many books in this thread. Thanks, DataLounge.

Crackpot by John Waters

The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen

Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs made me laugh out loud a lot. His memoir Running With Scissors was also amusing to me.

Stiff by Mary Roach is unintentionally hilarious. It's about mortuary care.

I thought the Fifty Shades series books were darkly funny. Bonus: it's trash reading that moves very fast.

Infinite Jest

R23 Wow. The title should have been “Confederacy of Marys.”

I remember the first time reading Shock Value by John Waters. I was on a subway in Manhattan and cackling uncontrollably over his description of re-enacting car crashes when he was a young kid. If anyone had been reading over my shoulder they would’ve thought I escaped from the loony bin. I loved that book (I had to buy it a second time because the first one fell apart I read it so much. I still have that one.)

Confederacy has a few setpieces that leave me rolling: the disaster in the Bourbon Street strip club with the trained bird, and the gay French Quarter party with the butch lesbians in the kitchen ("Put 'er there, Fats"). I also loved his mother's coarse confidante Santa Battaglia ("No one makes a potatis salad like Santa").

[quote]"My Blue Heaven" and "Putting on the Ritz" by Joe Keenan.

Keenan is really the modern Wodehouse. "Ritz" satirizes Donald and Ivana as Peter Champion and his wife, a woman so rich "she ovulates Fabergé eggs." Peter has a superyacht with endangered ivory tampon dispensers, and their apartment foyer resembles "a waiting area at some ancient Greek airport."

His third novel, "My Lucky Star" wasn't quite as good but features a Tom Cruise-type star getting laid at a private Beverly Hills whorehouse by a stud dressed as an Oscar who fucks him in the ass.

Peed my pants!

R41 Oh, my God! Me, too! That part about that chick getting pregnant by an angel? And that Noah dude putting two of every damn animal on the planet on a big boat - I was laughing so hard I cried!

Samantha Irby’s books.

The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy

The humor in Confederacy of Dunces fell flat for me.

It's a very polarizing book - you either love it and think it's hilarious or you don't.

Ignatius just seemed like an incel loser to me. The quotes listed above aren't really laugh out loud funny.

Half of the world supports me, the other half don't think I have a sense of humor. Fine - but just beware. Not everyone thinks it's funny.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

R45 - I'm glad to hear your opinion, because I didn't think any of those quotes from it above were funny.

R47 - Yeah - it's hard for me to trash it because it won a Pulitzer and has SUCH dedicated fans. But for me, it was a long, aimless book of unlikable characters with no pay off and not one single laugh.

There are plenty of people on Reddit/GoodReads and other places who also scratch their head over why people like it. But then there are massive amounts of 5 star ratings.

Some people have said that those who love it see parts of themselves in Ignatius, who is just a complete asshole.

Here's a list of some of the 'best' quotes - once again, I just don't understand what people find to be funny or interesting about any of it. I feel like it's straight, white male humor?

In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash - Jean Shepherd

Where the Boys Are by Glendon Swarthout is hilarious - unlike the movie version.

I have always said there's nothing more subjective than fiction, Especially funny fiction.

In no particular order:

Genius (Patrick Dennis)

Auntie Mame (Patrick Dennis)

Please Don't Eat the Daisies (Jean Kerr)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

"My Ten Years in a Quandary (and How They Grew)," by Robert Benchley.

The Catcher The Rye was very funny. Most of Salinger's writing was.

I'll have to make it a three-way tie between:

Don Quixote, by Cervantes (slapstick comedy)

Tom Jones, by Fielding (comedy of errors)

Vanity Fair, by Thackeray (comedy of manners)

Boy Wonder - James Robert Baker - it is so brilliant and hilarious I could read it every day.

Colors Insulting to Nature - Cintra Wilson. Bitchy, sad and hysterical.

The Loved One and Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh. Fucking crazily hysterical

The Adrian Mole books - WERE my childhood. I have them all. Was saddened by the death of Sue Townsend.

Also really liked Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

R56

"You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man" by Richard Bissell

R48 "Some people have said that those who love it see parts of themselves in Ignatius, who is just a complete asshole."

If this was true, you'd be it's #1 fan, so nope. False.

Insulting people that love a book just because your little brain doesn't comprehend its absurd humour is beyond the pale. I never get why people are so preoccupied in obsessively bashing things just because they don't "get" them. If you don't get them, then move on, it should be no skin of your back. Anything to make yourself feel more superior I guess. How pathetic.

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

Another vote for A Confederacy of Dunces. And yes, maybe I’ve read other funny books, but I just remember being so surprisingly entertained and delighted by that funny book, yet I can’t exactly state why. Maybe now is a good time for a reread.

R56 - come sit by me! I read through this thread wondering if anyone else would post "The Adrian Mole Diaries." Oh my God, one of the funniest books. I did not think the sequels were as good, but they were definitely enjoyable. Since it's New Year's weekend, best to include the opening:

Thursday January 1st BANK HOLIDAY IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES These are my New Year’s resolutions: 1. I will help the blind across the road. 2. I will hang my trousers up. 3. I will put the sleeves back on my records. 4. I will not start smoking. 5. I will stop squeezing my spots. 6. I will be kind to the dog. 7. I will help the poor and ignorant. 8. After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.

ALSO, funny for me? "Thank You for Smoking", "Little Green Men", and "Boomsday" by Christophre Buckley. That man knows how to skewer Washington, DC.

R49, I loved that book. I would also recommend Shepherd’s A Fistful of Fig Newtons and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories.

Does anyone know a brilliant book called THE DECLINE AND FALL OF PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY by American humorist Will Cuppy, which I believe was first published around 1950?

It consists of about 2 dozen wickedly satiric short essays of famous people throughout history from Hatshepsut to Henry VIII to Lady Godiva to Myles Standish to Catherine the Great, et. al., accompanied by charming little caricatures of them. My parents had bought the book and I discovered it as a child and read through it many, many times. It's really where I first learned about those historical figures, as it's all quite factual.

I still have the book. Highly recommended if you can find a copy!

Lake Success by Gary Sheteyngart was the last book I remember laughing out loud while reading. Agree that David Sedaris is an all time comedy writer. Who else? I read a novel by Dave Barry recently that was funny and then another few that were not. Jon Ronson is very funny. Also, a mystery/thriller had a surprisingly funny character and excellent audiobook reader Crimson Lake by Candace Fox.

A Little Life … well, it’s laughable at least

While I enjoy the whole series, book 5 holds a special place in my heart.

R59 is showing his own true colors. I was just stating that despite tons of people liking the book, there are many others who did not understand why people find it so funny, so your mileage may vary.

And no it doesn't mean that detractors are humor-deficient. I provided a list of quotes from the book that people loved and they all just fell flat for me.

"Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet" "I really have had little to do with them, for I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one."

Again - whatever. Glad you think it's funny. Just seems like trite bitchy gay man quotes who think they are funnier and wittier than they actually are.

JOhn Kennedy Toole never got a chance to edit his book. It would have been snappier if he had. That doesn't always work of course. Proust's work is better unedited then when he was allowed to rewrite it to make it unintelligible.

R68 fucking coward, you speculated that people liked the book because they were assholes like the protagonist. You insulted those who like it just because you didn't. Don't throw stones then hide your hand, bitch.

R70 - I said people have said online that those who like it see parts of themselves in Ignatius. And he was an asshole - so maybe the two fit?

A lot of people are assholes or have asshole thoughts that they may not express openly. I know I'm the minority here, but it's not a small minority opinion.

I provided a list of quotes that people love from the book - some of which were posted by others above.

“Will you please stop screeching like a fishmonger and run along? Don't you have a bottle of muscatel baking in the oven?” “Oh, my God!" Ignatius bellowed from the front of the house. "What an egregious insult to good taste.” “In my private apocalypse he will be impaled upon his own nightstick”

I mean - it's tired older gay bitchy quotes that I've heard a 1000 times. And the author was an alcoholic gay man - so it tracks. But it's not for me.

** sigh ** yet another fun and interesting thread on DataLounge hijacked and ruined by two bickering strangers.

Thanks you two... here's a good way to close the 2023 and a possible resolution for 2024 - stop attacking the keyboard with useless retorts to those you do not know, will never know and who do not care what you think.

PLEASE someone... re-start this thread with you r choice of a funny book (but don't add Confederacy of Dunces - it seems to trigger some).

Ignatius was not a sympathetic figure but the New Orleans cast of characters is very realistic, like a Vic 'n Natly cartoon come to life. This is a place where the protestant work ethic never had purchase.

R72...sorry but I have a low threshold of bullshit, and being told I (and others) like a book because I'm an asshole and connect with the main protagonist that way is pushing it. I won't apologize for standing up for myself and calling out crippling insecurity disguised as affected superiority (what's hilarious is he sounds exactly like Ignatious Reilly )

R74... you are NOT sorry, but at this point? You are obnoxious.

There are only three books that had me laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks:

Bad Movies We Love - Edward Marguiles and Stephen Rebello (Pretty much the whole thing)

If You're Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble - Joe Queenan (Specifically "Mickey Rourke for a Day")

Our Band Could Be Your Life - Michael Azzarad (Specifically the description of Gibby Haynes naked, tripping, and ranting while attempting to perform)

Yeah, these are pretty lowbrow, but trust me... you'll laugh.

MY SEARCH FOR WARREN HARDING by Robert Plunket. A cult classic from the 80s - reissued last summer. Hilarious.

I’m surprised no one has referenced “Less” (Andrew Sean Greer), which won a Pulitzer and is absolutely hilarious.

I live Less, but it’s humor feels both wrier and more wistful than hilariously funny. But is a lovely comic novel that doesn’t depend on meanness to entertain—a rare achievement.

That should be I LOVE Less (but it’s also true that I live it as well).

The Mapp & Lucia novels by E.F. Benson are very funny in a dry British way.

Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy but you really have to be from Ireland to get it

R76 I still own my worn to shreds copy of Bad Movies We Love and re-read bits from time to time. Good choice!

Buddy Babylon: The Autobiography of Buddy Cole by Scott Thompson is dark and hilarious.

Running with Scissors. I especially found this funny:

1. Living in a makeshift living room in the front yard.

2. Wearing a McDonald's uniform even when not at work, just because you like the uniform.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

R76 I SO wanted a sequel to that.

I've yet to make it through a P.G. Wodehouse book without giggling like a schoolgirl. If you've never had the pleasure, give one a try.

PG Wodehouse has a special place in my heart. I love the Mulliner stories and Lord Emsworth. I like Bertie and Jeeves but Lord Emsworth is a personal favorite.

R62, I’m so glad there’s someone out there who loves A. Mole as much as I do. It is my dream to adapt it into a series. Sex Education kid comes close, but he’s from an affluent family which goes against the whole point of poor Adrian and all his dreams.

Have you read the Queen and I? It’s funny but nowhere near Adrian Mole.

R89, I haven't read 'The Queen and I." I heard about it years ago, but never picked it up.

Finally P.G. Wodehouse got mentioned... I thought of him after my initial post about Adrian and Christopher Buckley. I have a DVD collection of the Wooster & Jeeves British TV show with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. That might be a good NY Day marathon (unless I get sucked into the annual Twilight Zone run).

"Metropolitan Life," 'by Fran Leibowitz.

Not the funniest I've ever read, but parts of Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor were hilarious. (And Golden Girls practically plagiarized Keillor with Rose's St. Olaf reminiscences.)