Need an upbeat/funny book. Can you recommend one?

[Wills]

Hi,

Life is scarey/blue at the moment as I've issued a grievance against my old boss as he went too far. Being 25 weeks pregnant I could really do without the stress but can't leave his slur on my file unchallenged! Along with other tensions going on I could really do with an escape book to disappear into that makes me smile. I travel for approximate 150 minutes by tube and train each day and could really do with just emersing myself in a good book.

anything?

Mavis Cheek - Janice Gentle Gets Sexy is fab!

A Year in the Merde, but maybe funny because we've been there done that.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is very sweet
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

I have old fashioned tastes

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I quite like John O'Farrell
May Contain Nuts is rather droll on the subject of competitive modern parenting

Read your way through Mr Pratchett?

Pruni ANY EXCUSE to mention your "boyfriend" Jonathan Coe....

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Done most of mister Prachett unfortunatley. OK off to have a look at them and get one. Many thanks

Poor you, Wills. Are you off to a library? If you are not averse to a 'feisty woman detective' story then try 'One for the money' by Janet Evanovich and work your way through the sequence (I think they also stand alone). I've read both of Harpsi's suggestions and they are both lovely. Not read the one about driving tractors in the Ukraine but heard good things about it ? supposed to be funny.

I am 28 weeks pg and ill and have been escaping into the Piers Morgan autobiography over the last two nights - scurrilous and entertaining

ooh yes I Capture the Castle. and if you do happen to like old fashioned things, then some Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh is always good. These are all my comfort reads, especially The Pursuit of Love (Nancy Mitford)

will leave others to recommend more recent things.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is a great laugh-out-loud book if you haven't read it.
It also features an infuriating boss

I don't know how she does it by Alison Pearsson v funny and def easy to realte to if you are a WOHM (Not v literary I know)

a life stripped bare by leo hickman

tis funnhy although also a bit depressing as it talks about all that is wrong with the planet environmental wise! But it is funny!!

and melrose's choice is indeed funny partly as you can really relate

I read Diary of a provincial lady the other day and found it hilarious

i was trying to think of that one enid
hilarious

Amusing anecdotes of a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales - any of the series of books by Gervase Phinn. Gentle, funny, an easy read, full of the funny little things children say.

Fab fab
I've done the One for the money plus the whole series unfortunately and you're right about being light and humerous.

Have also done don't know how she does it but whilst I enjoyed it found it struck too many chords with my own life (apart from the affair and so far I've not been found bashing M&S mince pies at 2.00 am in the morning)

God enid 28 weeks wow. Hows it going. In what way are you ill honey?

The Andrew McCall-Smith ones? (hope I've got the name right!)

best friends guide to motherhood/ toddlerhood etc. American but still amusing

Guy Browning books (man who writes the how to... column in the guardian mag)