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Original poster

Can anyone recommend a good funny book please

62 replies

MummaChaps1 · 27/01/2015 07:36

I've nearly finished The Storyteller and I'm in need if a little light relief. TIA

OP posts:
tobee · 05/02/2015 00:44

I love Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy. Great oddball characters recurring.

SkaterGrrrrl · 04/02/2015 10:24

The Rosie Project

Lets Pretend This Never Happened thebloggess.com/lets-pretend-this-never-happened-a-mostly-true-memoir/

Bossy Pants by Tina Fey

Caitlin Moran has 3 books, all 3 very funny.

BOFster · 04/02/2015 01:07

I second The Giles Waring Haters' Club.

It's made all the funnier, given Tim Dowling's experience of self-googling and finding us talking about him...

saturnvista · 04/02/2015 01:01

Love, Nina is hilarious.
My Family and Other Animals
Winterdance by Paulsen
Round Ireland with a fridge

itsveryyou · 04/02/2015 00:51

Any book by David Sedaris.

keepitsimple0 · 04/02/2015 00:45

David Sedaris is definitely worth a look, before you commit to buying a book you could listen to one of his shows on Radio 4.

i must be a weird person because I can't stand him on radio, but really like his books.

Canyouforgiveher · 04/02/2015 00:43

Yesterday I rediscovered (at back of bookshelf) "The Papers of AJ Wentworth BA" and have been reading bits out to dh (again - benefit of a long marriage, your husband forgets). It is really funny. Think it was originally in Punch - and think they may have made a series from it at point.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 04/02/2015 00:34

James Herriot books (although those are a mixture of funny/sad/happy). Agree with Gerald Durrell, I still laugh out loud reading those.

Smurfingreat · 04/02/2015 00:32

Don't Tell Mom I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse - by Paul Carter.

Supposedly a memoir of an oil rig worker, my cousin who works in the industry informed me that it's more a collection of urban myths but I still cried with laughter reading it. In fact I may have to go and read it again now!

Canyouforgiveher · 04/02/2015 00:22

The Mapp and Lucia novels are very funny

The Diary of a Nobody

The Bear Went Over the Mountain (not sure if it is published in the UK - didn't exactly make a splash in the US but it is very funny)

Evolution Man or How I Ate My Father

The Diary of a Nobody

Augustus Carp Esq

If you like PJ Wodehouse or Cold Comfort Farm, you might like the above

Bits of Robertson Davies' books are also very funny.

unclerory · 31/01/2015 17:22

Phineyj I came on here to say Cold Comford Farm and Love in a Cold Climate. Love them both. Also like a bit of Jeeves and Woosters.

Tristram Shandy is very funny but you have to be in the mood for it, watch a Cock and Bull story first to prepare for it.

MyDHhasnomemory · 31/01/2015 17:14

Love Nina

Annarose2014 · 31/01/2015 17:13

How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran made me cackle like a fishwife.

Phineyj · 31/01/2015 17:10

Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate
The fall and rise of Reginald Perrin
Cold Comfort Farm
Anything by Jane Gardam or Marina Lewicka (spelling possibly wrong)

AgentCooper · 31/01/2015 17:04

YY to Jeeves and Wooster! Reading those books is like comfort food to me - so lovely and escapist but so bloody, proper funny.

In a similar vein, I'd say Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh. I LOLed at that on the bus.

Going a bit more recent, Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor is really funny. It's like a fictionalised memoir of growing up in Minnesota, with lots of odd types.

Newquay · 31/01/2015 17:03

'Are you experienced' - William sutcliffe. I was reading it once almost vomiting with laughter in an airport and someone asked me what I was reading as she had never seen someone burst out laughing reading a book. It may be a bit dated or too young - about a bloke travelling on his year out.

riverboat1 · 31/01/2015 16:59

Marian Keyes, definitely. Also Nancy Mitford.

dementedma · 31/01/2015 14:54

Bill Bryson, Gerld Durrell, Janet Evanovitch all made me laugh out loud. Less well known but side-splittingly funny for me is a book called On the Origins of Findo Gask, by David McCreight.

iseenodust · 31/01/2015 14:51

Agree Sick Puppy made me laugh out loud.
Bill Bryson is more wry smile of recognition.

hackmum · 29/01/2015 09:11

Daisy - I love the Giles Wareing Haters' Club too. Never met anyone else who had read it!

Bill Bryson is v funny. So is David Sedaris, though I've only heard the books on the radio, not read them. I love Nick Hornby's books too - they're not really laugh out loud funny but they make you smile.

BaconAndAvocado · 28/01/2015 21:59

The Rosie Project, hilarious and tender too.

ihatethecold · 28/01/2015 13:05

The 100 year old man who disappeared.
Any Bill Bryson.

twofingerstoGideon · 28/01/2015 12:50

Mark Haddon's 'A Spot of Bother'.

SweetestThing · 28/01/2015 12:45

Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen.
Second Lucky Jim and several by Tom Sharpe - Wilt, Porterhouse Blue.

Sootgremlin · 28/01/2015 12:45

Adrian Mole