Funny books

[Robot DeNiro]

And, I think finally, The Pickwick Papers.

So did you enjoy Pickwick Papers, Jemble?  I read it recently and thought it was amazing.  The "Walentine" scene between Sam Weller and his father is pretty much a perfect comedy sketch.  Incredible to think that for the second half of the novel, Dickens was spending two weeks a month writing 'Pickwick' and two weeks knocking out 'Oliver Twist'.  What a guy.

Was there any Evelyn Waugh on your 'must read' list?  'Scoop' is very good.

Michael Green's 'Art of Coarse...' books are very funny, particularly 'The Art of Coarse Rugby' and 'The Art of Coarse Acting'.

[EOLAN]

Frank Skinners Autobiography

[the midnight watch baboon]

Vernon God Little is masterly, but not taken in '.. Broken English', yet.. heard it wasn't as good as VGL.  Dan Rhodes's stuff is surreal and funny, spesh Timoleon Vieta Come Home, and The Little White Car.

My Elvis Blackout by Simon Something is quite a laff, and The World According To Garp is an extremely imaginative read. Mmmm.

[benthalo]

For out and out comedy, the Nicholas Craig [Nigel Planer] book is amongst my favourites. Reprinted about five years ago and worth it for the pictures alone, although the increasingly hostile queeny bitching is craftily staggered throughout and delightfully cruel. The book as a whole is consistently funny in a way that Patrick Barlow's National Theatre Of Brent books never quite manage, fixating as they do on about three jokes. Both are better on stage/radio/screen of course, but the Craig book is well worth the asking price.

As for novelists, I'm working my way through Evelyn Waugh's work chronologically. He might well have locked his children in cupboards, but he knew how to make his characters suffer in markedly funnier ways. It's not belly laugh territory, but Decline & Fall is a good black comedy.

[ccbaxter]

Yes, was just going to suggest Evelyn Waugh, both "Decline And Fall" and "Scoop" are wonderful mixtures of obvious farce and subtle, deadpan sheer-nonsense.

Jonathan Coe's "What A Carve Up" and "The Rotter's Club" are lovely reads and have some great funny moments.

I also enjoy David Lodge's "Rummidge University" books, though strangely didn't start reading them until long after I'd left Birmingham Uni and all the lecturers there would throw in their "why-I-oughta" complaints about him transposing real characters into his satires, while obviously enjoying their imagined, indirect "fame" at the same time...

Oh, and which reminds me: managed to get away with doing my dissertation on the Alice books (and Oscar Wilde's prose fiction), while well-meaning colleagues found themselves struggling through serious, stodgy, doorstop Victoriana... As funny books go, nothing gets funnier... (though "The Hunting Of The Snark" comes admirably close...)

[Sheldon Finklestein]

Confederacy of Dunces is an incredible book that I'd recommend heartily. Likewise just about everything P.G. Wodehouse ever wrote and The Liar by Stephen Fry.

[JPA]

Try 'Well Remembered Days' by Arthur Matthews if you can find it.

[Bigflood]

If you like travel books I've always found Tim Moore can make me laugh out loud. Make sure you read Frost On My Moustache or French Revolutions first though, he seems to be getting less and less funny every book he writes.  

Catch 22 should be read by every literate being on the planet.  Any non-literate beings should have it read to them.  I love that book.

[buttgammon]

Try 'Well Remembered Days' by Arthur Matthews if you can find it.

One of my favourite books of all time!

I would also highly recommend anything by Stephen Fry.

[Manford Thirty-Sixborough]

Tom Sharpe is largely enjoyable, despite an almost complete absense of likeable characters. Almost all of Douglas Adams books are fantastic (I wasn't so keen on 'Mostly Harmless'), but the one I keep coming back to is Dirk Gently.
I've never read any Wodehouse that I've not enjoyed, and his short stories fit conveniently into a bus journey.
I may be the only one who likes Making History and The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry, though I'm at a loss as to why, and would reccommend them to anyone.
The Dairy of a Nobody is one of those books where I knew nothing about it, wasn't particularly grabbed by the title and eventually read to keep quiet those people who'd been nagging me about reading it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and wished I'd read it sooner. Another such book, though possibly not the type of thing you're after, is Catcher in the Rye.
Also, I think they're out of print, but, if you can find any, Peter Tinniswood is very funny, if a little odd.

[wherearethespoons]

Hugh Laurie - The Gunseller
Stephen Fry - The Liar (and most others - Moab Is My Washpot is excellent, but not fiction)
most of Chris Brookmyre's
Jasper Fforde
obviously Wodehouse

Great list that. I wish Laurie would write more because The Gun Seller is just bloody brilliant - some wonderful stuff in that. Stupidly excellent. My favourite of Fry's is Making History I'd say. And, is it just me or is Fforde's latest offering, The Big Over Easy, a bit weak?

Some others;

Booty Nomad - Scott Mebus
James Hawes - Speak for England
Jerry Stahl - I, Fatty
David Nicholls - Starter For Ten and The Understudy
Dominic Holland - The Ripple Effect
Mark Watson - Bullet Points

And, it's an oldie but I love it, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Also, pretty much anything by John O'Farrell - and Mark Steel's three books are well worth reading.

[Blue Jam]

Anyone read this? I've been recommended it a few times now:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0413690806/qid=1147555758/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2_2/203-3270634-1547135

[12 years, 11 months old]

'Low Life' by Jeffrey Bernard and 'Inside the Magic Rectangle' by Victor Lewis-Smith.

[Jemble Fred]

Oh, I forgot to say...

John Mortimer, John Mortimer, John Mortimer.

John Mortimer.

I've just finished Catch 22 and hadn't a clue what to read next, and also couldn't afford to spend £20 on one of the new Beatles books that I'm desperate to soak up.

Church fete, a JM book called 'Dunster' that I've never heard of, a novel from 14 years ago. 50 fucking pee, and after five pages I'm well and truly hooked.

So... John Mortimer. And not just for Rumpole.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Manford Thirty-Sixborough wrote:

Also, I think they're out of print, but, if you can find any, Peter Tinniswood is very funny, if a little odd.

Too bloody right! The Tales From A Long Room, his downright bizarre fantasy epic send-up The Stirk Of Stirk, any of his books in which Uncle Mort and/or the Brandons in general appear (it astonished me, having picked up Mog when it was re-issued to tie in with the TV series (which I loved) that Mort and the Brandons are fairly major players in that as well). Great stuff.

Also - I can't believe that Robert Rankin hasn't been mentioned yet. In particular the Brentford books with Pooley and Omally, or the Cornelius Murphy/Hugo Rune series. His more stand-alone books are also pretty darn good, but the Brentford stuff really is the bollocks du chien.

[ProvanFan]

I'm half way through The Gun Seller and I agree it's excellent. Gripping and very funny.

Rich Hall's Things Snowball also had me grinning quite a lot.

I read Frank Skinner's autobiography ages ago. I can't remember how funny it was apart from one particularly great joke, but I empathised with his passion for football whilst being absolutely shit at it.

[Jemble Fred]

For me The Gun Seller suffered from the same problem as The Liar – when the brilliant characterisation and witty dialogue becomes completely swamped and all-but replaced two-thirds through by Plot with a capital P. And not just Plot, but the most boring straight-down-the-line action/espionage-type swill.

But that's probably just me hating action thrillers.

[ProvanFan]

Two thirds through eh? Damn.

[cleverjake]

Great list that. I wish Laurie would write more because The Gun Seller is just bloody brilliant - some wonderful stuff in that. Stupidly excellent. My favourite of Fry's is Making History I'd say. And, is it just me or is Fforde's latest offering, The Big Over Easy, a bit weak?

I found Something Rotten to be Frorde's weaker one, I thought The Big Over Easy was quite back-to-form really, I'm looking forward to the next Nursery Crime one either way.

Also agree on Mark Watson's Bullet Points - a surprisingly mature novel from a young stand-up, it's nice to see a stand-up wrinte a story that doesn't have a 20-something loser, living in London as his hero.

One other reason for bumping this thread is that I've just finished Christopher Brookmyre's latest, A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil, which is excellent and thoroughly recommended.

I'm also half way through my first Blandings (can't believe I haven't read any yet) and am finding it wonderful.

[cleverjake]

For me The Gun Seller suffered from the same problem as The Liar – when the brilliant characterisation and witty dialogue becomes completely swamped and all-but replaced two-thirds through by Plot with a capital P. And not just Plot, but the most boring straight-down-the-line action/espionage-type swill.

But that's probably just me hating action thrillers.

I didn't find that at all, but then I quite like action thrillers...

[Jemble Fred]

Ah. I despise them with every fibre of my being. Well, okay, James Bond is an exception. But the only one...

PG WODEHOUSE  ANYWAY.

Last night I sat through one of the oddest straight-to-DVD movies ever – Piccadilly Jim, adapted by Julian Fellowes and starring Sam Rockwell, and well, an ensemble cast. It's a stone-cold turkey, but sometimes difficult to put your finger on exactly why. Although there's a brilliant write-up here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371878/ which explains a lot, especially the director's lack of sympathy with Wodehouse.

There's so much that could have worked – the jazzy versions of Tainted Love and Love Will Tear Us Apart sound good enough to buy a soundtrack album for, but as they're the only songs (bar a Jamie Cullum, er, thing), they seem incongruous. And making a 21st Century '30s' in the same way that, say A Knight's Tale was a modern medieval period, or Casanova was a modern 18th Century, was a fascinating idea.

Plus, it had Kevin Eldon in it, and a special Thank You at the end for Graham Linehan, presumably for additional gags or something.

Anyone else seen this? There was so much to like, but boy what a flop.

[Banana Woofwoof]

"The Vesuvius Club" by Mark Gatiss is fantastic.  It's a bit of fluff as he says himself and quite stylistically written, but it's filthy fun.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Yes, a good call there, although I'd still call it more pulp adventure - "Oscar Wilde: Special Agent" - than outright funny. Still looking forward to the next Lucifer Box yarn from his pen, mind.

[cleverjake]

Yes, a good call there, although I'd still call it more pulp adventure - "Oscar Wilde: Special Agent" - than outright funny. Still looking forward to the next Lucifer Box yarn from his pen, mind.

Another one for The Vesuvius Club here. Also looking out for The Devil in Amber in (I think) October).

[Muel 2]

'The Pirates In An Adventure With Scientists - Gideon Defoe

[Felatio Imperative]

'The Henry Root Letters' by Henry Root is very funny, as was the spin off TV show 'Root Into Europe' starring the wonderful George Cole, available on video.

[Jemble Fred]

For some reason, yuor post sounds like it should be read in velvety voiceover tones.

Has anyone else bought the two recent ISIHAC books? I can't afford to, but the Uxbridge one seems like it would make the toilet a very happy place to be.

[Ignatius_S]

The Third Policeman or 'The Best Of Myles' by Flann O'Brien are both wonderful.

Good call - beat me to it - absolutely outstanding.

I know Confederacy of Dunces has been mentioned, but  it's worth another.

Also anything by...

Saki
Terry Southern
Damon Runyon
JB Morton
The Lucia series - EF Benson
A Melon for Ectasy - John Fortune and John Wells

Although they aren't humorous novels, 'And The Ass Saw The Angels' by Nick Cave and Charlie Higson's first four novels are dripping with black humour

[ProvanFan]

I've finished The Gun Seller now, started The Detainees by Sean Hughes. What does anyone think of that one?

[green crayon]

http://www.junglewalk.com/animal-pictures/637/T/Great-Horned-Owl-7474.jpg