It’s Saturday. It’s pretty outside. I’m going to the wedding of the daughter of one of my two oldest friends (since we were 9th graders — 40 years) where I will also get to visit with my other oldest friend whom I don’t get to see nearly often enough.
I don’t want to think about all the bad things in the world. I want fun. I want a list of really funny books to read. I want to know the funniest books you’ve ever read.
I have a three-way tie for my funniest book:
Tom Holt’s Expecting Someone Taller
This is the sequal to the Ring of Nibelungen Wagner could never have written.
Fran Lebowitz’s Metropolitan Life
Essays that should never be read when you have anything in your mouth. A sample quote: “If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.”
Calvin Trilln’s Alice Let’s Eat
The funniest book about food and family ever written.
I love David Sedaris. All of his books are funny, but the best is his newest “Dress Your Family in Cordouroy and Denim.”
He has this awesome, conversational style of writing that is really easy to read, and often I laugh outloud at his books. This one in particular also has some profound and touching elements. A plus for me is that all of Sedaris’ books are short stories or essays, so I can read one in the 15 and then fall asleep. Zonk.
David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell are two writers who I would actually rather hear than read. Their speaking styles are a great enhancement to what they’ve written.
while I enjoy Sedaris, Holidays on Ice is by far the funniest. I actually downloaded the This American Life episode containing some of ’em and listen to it on my iPod every so often. The idea of having a serious theater critic going after children’s holiday pageants was fucking brilliant.
I liked that one too. What’s really funny is that I now live in Raleigh, about a mile from where he grew up, so I can totally picture the settings for his childhood stories. My kids currently attend his high school. Weird.
I used to work with someone who taught Prince in elementary school…and a community center I used to do work at was Prince’s elementary school…that’s as close to fame as I’ve come.
One of my co-workers went to high school with Prince. Oh, and I once saw a really garish purple limo driving down Lake Street in Uptown Minneapolis — does that count?
sure…i also forgot that one of my friend’s co-workers is married to a woman who used to dance with Prince….the Purple One is everywhere
Sedaris is screamingly funny — especially since I never read him without hearing his very very distinctive voice in my head. Lebowitz makes me laugh, sometimes, to the point of tears.
Though it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, when it comes to funny, I’m all about PG Wodehouse. He’s one of a very few novelists who can sustain such a level of chaotic absurdity for two hundred-plus pages without it feeling forced, IMO. Another is Nancy Mitford, particularly in Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love. Finally, Jessica Mitford, Nancy’s sister — not a novelist, not a humor writer, but anyone can make me laugh out loud in the middle of a description of an embalming in The American Way of Death is someone I’d like to spend more time with.
Along with Wodehouse, I’d also suggest Peter DeVries.
Speaking of humor about death, have you read Stiff by Mary Roach?
I loved Stiff. I picked it up at the library when it was just out and I’ve been telling people stories from it ever since.
I just checked the library catalog for DeVries and while they have a ton of his stuff — twenty seven entries — none of it is available now! (My city is building a new main library, and many of the older items in the collection are in storage until early 2006. It’s extremely frustrating.)
My extreme sympathies on the library. I am so addicted that I use the libraries in two different cities. Don’t know if this is available where you are but in mine for a very small fee ($25 dollars !) you can get a card that let’s you use any library in the state.
“In a Sunburned Country” It’s about his travels around Australia.
It’s been a long time since I read anything funny – thanks for the reminder, I’ll be looking for Sedaris’ book.
Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume – Pan, perfume, royalty, sex, beets, Mardi Gras, and the secret of immortality… Now that’s a party.
Skinny Legs and All, circa 1990, had me laughing out loud…also highly recommend his latest Villa Incognito…referred to as…”a surreal parable written from the perspective of a SE Asian badger”… by Alfred Hickling of The Guardian. Link to review and excerpt:
http://www.noexit.co.uk/titles/villa_incognito_244.php
Enjoy!
is actually my all-time favorite book ever. I’ve read it so many times, the pages are falling out, and I carefully tuck them back in for next time.
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
Imagine a plot as complex as Dickens, characters as goofy as “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” and set it in New Orleans. I read this 25 years ago and still remember it fondly.
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
Classic satire of the British upper class in the 1800’s. Love, lies, and wickedly witty dialog.
The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight, Jimmy Breslin
Spoof of the mafia in New York. If you’re not Italian-American, finding a friend who is may help with some of the jokes (e.g. there is a character named “Baccala,” which is Italian for cod.
Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert & Sullivan
Another British satire of love and culture. This is a musical (operetta), but don’t let that scare you; rent the video with Linda Ronstadt at Blockbuster. You already know half the songs, you just didn’t know this is where they came from. I had never seen any G&S before seeing this video, and I just about died laughing in spots. You may end up watching it twice to catch the witticisms you missed the first time.
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Classic satire on the madness of war. Serious, sad, and wickedly funny all at the same time. I read this while in a Dilbertesque job and it changed my entire outlook on life for some time…
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
They forced you to read it in high school, but there were levels of meaning and social satire wasted on the young. Consider a re-read, or definitely read it if somehow you never have.
Great list though I think Catch-22 makes me cry more than laugh.
One of my favorite lines of all time is from the Importance of Being Earnet: To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
For some reason I have been drawn back lately to “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” by Jane Wagner. Its really a play that was written for and performed by Lily Tomlin, but I have it in book form. Its full of wonderful one-liners like:
“I worry no matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” (I’ve thought about using that for my sig line)
“Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.”
“You can’t expect insights, even the big ones, to suddenly make you inderstand everthing. But I figure: Hey, it’s a step if they leave you confused in a deeper way.”
“All my life I’ve always wanted to be somebody. But I see now I should have been more specific.”
Penguin Lust, Billy and the Boingers, Steve’s brain reversal, Opus’s wedding to Lola Granola….
THE ANXIETY CLOSET!
My favorite book, the one book I would take with me if stranded on a remote uninhabited island, is Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. And while I may be the first person in the history of the internets to mention Woolf’s name in a thread about funny books, it’s worth noting that Orlando has a very rich vein of subtle, dry humor.
Last Chance to See by the late Douglas Adams, creator of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Written in 1990.
This is non-fiction. Adams toured the world to check on the status of an assortment of endangered species, such as the black rhino, the Yangstze river dolphin, the kakapo, the komodo dragon… I picked the book off the shelf and began reading, and before long I was shaking with laughter. You can read it as a continuous narrative or as a series of essays.