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Original poster

I need to read something that will make me laugh, any recommendations?

33 replies

cadelaide · 25/08/2011 00:21

Too much doom and gloom on my bookshelf.

Jonathan Coe makes me laugh in "House of Sleep" (well he did 15-odd years ago anyway).

Any ideas?

OP posts:
niccibabe · 25/08/2011 00:29

Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair

AlfalfaMum · 25/08/2011 00:32

Have you read any David Sedaris? All autobiographical (but - I suspect - embellished for comic effect), I swear his books can cure depression. Naked was the funniest imo, also Me Talk Pretty One Day

Original poster
cadelaide · 25/08/2011 00:35

Read Jasper Fforde, but very much along the right lines, thanks.

Will investigate Sedaris, never heard of.

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PenguindreamsofDraco · 25/08/2011 08:41

PG Wodehouse, no contest. If you can read the account of the prizegiving in Right Ho Jeeves without crying with laughter, you're probably dead Grin

JiltedJohnsJulie · 25/08/2011 12:45

Think I need to get some Sedaris too. Have heard him on R4 and thought he was hilarious then heard him interviewed on the radio and loved that as well.

Original poster
cadelaide · 25/08/2011 13:03

OK.

Which Sedaris?

Never heard of him, this should be ineteresting.

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BooBooGlass · 25/08/2011 13:05

I'm reading The Tent, The Bucket and Me, and it really is very funny. I needed it, I've just finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and it depressed the hell out of me.

FreddoBaggyMac · 25/08/2011 19:19

I second The Tent, The Bucket and Me. In terms of a book to make you laugh out loud it's probably my all time Number 1. Some mumsnetters despise it but personally I think that's because they're treating it as something that it was never meant to be! If you think of it as a good story which is a somewhat exaggerated version of the truth you can't fail to love it imo!

I'm currently reading the sequel and it's just as good, but so far not quite so laugh-out loud funny.

mrscompost · 25/08/2011 21:09

I loved How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran - very very funny,

Can't beat Bill Bryson at his best - any of his, but I wept with laughter at Walk in the Woods.

Early Terry Pratchett - the Hogfather is very good.

The Tent, the Bucket and Me is funny as well.

But try Caitlin Moran - I still snurk occasionally thinking about the best bits

bramblina · 25/08/2011 21:13

Michael McIntyre's auto biography is having me in stitches every evening just now....dh not amused Grin
Marian Keyes.
I'll agree with Bill Bryson too.

Moulesfrites · 25/08/2011 21:15

Starter for Ten - by the same author as One Day but far better and funnier in my opinion.

Am reading Skippy Dies by Paul Murray at the minute - very funny too.

hanahsaunt · 25/08/2011 21:21

I had tears running down my face on the TGV reading Bill Bryson much to the bemusement of sophisticated Paris commuters.

Not funny, but lovely are the Adriana Trigiana books.

FellatioNelson · 25/08/2011 21:25

Three men in a boat by Jerome K Jerome. the bit where he and his friends are trying to put up a tent will have you unable to breathe and in need of an ambulance. All of it is an absolute hoot.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons is very funny, and I second David Sedaris -a wonderful writer, a wry observer who finds the absurd in the mundane.

AlfalfaMum · 25/08/2011 23:48

Any of Sedaris' autobiographical books: Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
He recently brought out a book of fictional short stories - something with 'Squirrel' in the title Confused, which I still haven't managed to get into so can't really recommend (because I haven't read it yet).

Book Depository have them for cheap and free delivery

AlfalfaMum · 25/08/2011 23:49

The ncome back and tell us what you think :o

Original poster
cadelaide · 26/08/2011 10:33

OK, it has to be sedaris, 'cos i love 3 men in a boat and cold comfort farm so it fits.

I shall indeed come back and report Smile

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Original poster
cadelaide · 11/10/2011 14:05

Oh dear.

I tried "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and I really, really did not get on with it at all. Just not funny. In fact, I found it curiously depressing. I'm fighting an urge to apologise Grin

I'm now reading Jonathan Coe's "Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim" and I'm loving it, it's had me chuckling. I do love JC.

OP posts:
KatharineClifton · 11/10/2011 16:42

Adrian Mole! Nowt funnier. Any Sue Townsend tbh.

auntierozzi · 12/10/2011 11:20

"The Moon's A Balloon" by David Niven.

LottieJenkins · 12/10/2011 11:33

The Cat Who Came In From The Cold is very amusing!!

UnlikelyAmazonian · 12/10/2011 21:06

my bank statements

Auntiestablishment · 15/10/2011 09:48

Sophie Kinsella - The Undomestic Goddess
Rosy Thornton - More Than Love Letters

TroelsHartmann · 15/10/2011 14:15

I'm reading At Sea which is very amusing, haven't read Laurie Graham before

thesurgeonsmate · 15/10/2011 21:13

I may be not be following the focus onto what you are personally finding funny, OP, but just to add to a list of laugh out loud books - Spike Milligan's war memoir, "Adolf Hitler, My part in His Downfall" and sequels are irresistably funny.

peggyblackett · 15/10/2011 21:15

Rachel Johnson's First Year and a half at The Lady.