Actually funny fiction

[Decidedlydex]

Hello

I'm coming out of a really difficult and intense few months and am desperate to disappear into a genuinely funny book now that I actually have time to read for enjoyment again. Any recommendations, please?

Oh and yes, Cabin Pressure is brilliant.

Skios by Michael Frayn
Bridget Jones's Diary
Adrian Mole
Bill Bryson's travel works
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

These all make me properly laugh out loud.

Three Men in a boat is hilarious. Going to find and read again

The tent the bucket and me every time for me

Good suggestions.
I'd add 'Experiences of an Irish RM' and 'Further Experiences of an Irish RM' by Somerville and Ross.

Christopher Moore, Lamb son of Biff

Sorry the gospel according to Biff

Humour is an enormously difficult genre and no one has ever done it better than the Master, PG Wodehouse.

Ah, superstars. Thank you. Lots to try!

McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland https://amzn.eu/d/5sUYqxE

This is laugh out loud funny. I need to read it again.

Kill Your Friends by John Niven
Not for the faint hearted but absolutely hilarious

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.

Agree with all your choices!
My favourite part is relating the story of Uncle Podger. Also his realisation he has all diseases known to man apart from housemaid's knee. And the cheese! So many good bits. Off to reread! Op, definitely start with Three Men in a Boat

Another vote for Three Men In A Boat.

And Notes From A Small Island - I still remember my long-gone DM, just a few pages in, laughing till she cried.

A probably lesser known novel, more of a gently but very funny read - Crampton Hodnet, by Barbara Pym. Set in pre WW2 North Oxford, she gently but wickedly takes the P out of the academic community and the clergy.

I passed it to dh, who usually only reads very heavy non fiction - he loved it.

Also Pym’s ‘Some Tame Gazelle’ (something to love) - set late 40s or early 50s - opening line goes, ‘The new curate was a very nice young man, but what a pity it was that his combinations showed, tucked carelessly into his socks, when he sat down.’ 😂

Both pure period-piece escapism!

Another for Woodhouse. Also, not fiction but autobiographies of Peter Ustinov and William Shatner had me in tears of laughter.

To my surprise I absolutely loved Terry Pratchett's The Wyrd Sisters and have just finished Witches Abroad. I'd struggled to get into TP but started with an excellent audio version of Wyrd Sisters read by Indira Varma who brought the witches to life so I started reading alongside and was hooked. Really, laugh out loud funny.

If you want lighter humour then try Milly Johnson's earlier romances (the themes in the later ones are a bit darker) but I'd also second PG Wodehouse and I love Miss Buncle's Book if you like quainter books. It's very well written and acutely observed.

The Queen and I. By Sue Townsend

I’d forgotten Under the Frog! That’s a lovely novel — i must find my copy.

Puckoon is offensively anti-Irish, OP, and about as funny as a cup of cold sick. The first two Adrian Moles are pretty much perfect comic novels. I’m not particularly well-read in David Sedaris, but my sisters rate his non-fiction highly.

Nina Stibbe's 'Man at the Helm' and its follow-up, 'Paradise Lodge', are the funniest books I've read in ages!

I laughed a lot reading the Adrian Mole books.

I'm a fan of Carl Hiaasan books these days, set in Florida and some really odd characters. I ordered three at Christmas as I wanted something humorous rather than the very dark crime stuff I usually read.

The Tent, the Bucket and Me. Really funny.

If you ever watched the BBC series The Kennedys it is the book that preceded that.