Lough out loud fiction/non-fiction?

[FriedSprout]

Wonder if anyone could recommend their favourite funny books?

We are going through a tough time at the moment, and I can't remember when I last indulged in a good side-splitting roar.

If it helps I found Tom Sharpe's Wilt funny, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams too.

Want to do lots of these

Thanks

I like Crime Fiction and find JD Robb's Death in Series very funny at times. The main protagonist Lt Eve dallas is very sarcastic and that just appeals to me. The books are written to a formula eg on page x, y happens but that aside they are good.

Sue Townsend - The Queen and I. It's honestly hilarious. I buy a copy and lend it out, then but another one....you get the idea

Keith Waterhouse, Billy Liar (there's a sequel too, but the first one is the one!)
He wrote some very funny novels, but I suspect they may be out of print now. Office Life. The Bucket Shop. Soho. Sweet Charity. Oh, and one that consists of a long letter from a man to his mistress which is hilarious and devastating at the same time.

I remember laughing a lot at Danny Wallace's Join Me and Yes Man.

And Bill Bryson's Down Under is very funny too.

David Thorne is hilarious. He has a couple of books "The Internet is a Playground" and "I'll go home then, it's warm and has chairs". Mostly based on columns from his website 27bslash6

Spike Milligan's war diaries will make you laugh, think and the later ones will make you cry.

Yes to Bill Bryson, David Sedaris (although I find him slightly hit and miss, when he's funny he's very funny).

Diary of a Nobody
Three Men in Boat
Clive James autobiogs and books of criticism

I also like David Lodge, Michale Frayn, and early Kingsley Amis.

Ok so i've got a very unique suggestion to add. Did you like red dwarf on tv? If so, the books are hilarious. Better than life is supremely funny.

Wow - so many new books to hopefully fall in love with.

Have even realised I already have a couple of the books suggested, but have not read yet. Down to Earth and Diary of a Nobody for example. I just need to unearth them now.

Thanks, primmadonnagirl, will visit Waterstones, using public transport and hopefully will be snorting, inappropriately, on the way back.

Yy to The Tent, the Bucket and Me, bought back so many childhood memories of camping incidents, probably best forgotten!

Recommend, Sick Notes - true stories from a GP's surgery which was funny and a bit of an eye opener re the NHS at the same time. Wish he was my GP

So many brilliant suggestions, hope everyone on thread is trying each others suggestions out?

Thanks again

Mention of Diary of a Nobody reminds me of another Keith Waterhouse gem: Mrs Pooter's Diary, which recounts all the events of the original but from the viewpoint of Mrs P. It's brilliant!

Camberwell Beauty by Jenny Éclair.

A seriously black comedy!

izzieanderton.blogspot.com/

Matt Beaumont's E books.

And ancient, but has stood the test of time - EF Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels.

Both of Chris Evans Memoirs books.

I was skeptical, approached thinking, yeah right, he is going to be an arse.

And he is an arse, much of the time, but the way he just KNOWS he is and the unraveling of his bonkers life just had me and DH howling!!!!

P.G. Wodehouse is very funny.

I think that Lee Evans' biography was pretty damn funny (but then again I lurve him).
www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Lee-Evans/dp/0718156196

Otherwise Karl Pilkington's books are also l-o-l material;
www.amazon.co.uk/Karl-Pilkington/e/B002WYA4VC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1369238956&sr=1-2-ent

Another one for Bill Bryson here :) Good shout with Paul Carter, I've yet to read his latest one (bike diesel) but the others were LOL

Sophie Kinsella is pretty good for chick lit (and whimsical plotlines), Fiona Niell's Slummy Mummy books are also brilliant! IIRC Slummy Mummy was also her column in The Times

Terry Ravenscroft is also very funny, in a One Foot in the Grave way...!

I'm having a memory blank, so I'm just looking through my last read books... The Importance of Being Ernest was pretty funny and not too dated

Recommend I'd Sooner Starve by Mark Sinclair for a quick, light, funny read :)

Three Men in a Boat and Diary of a Nobody are free on amazon kindle if anyone else is checking out the books

The Alan Partridge autobio had me in hysterics, one of the funniest books I've ever read.

Lets pretend this never happened by jenny Lawson. Every page made me laugh. A bit like an American Caitlin Moran.

Another one for Diary of a Nobody.

Also The Eliza Stories by Barry Pain,

The Mapp and Lucia books by EF Benson

Yes also to Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. jerome
1066 And All That by W.C. sellar and R.J. Yeatman
My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
molesworth by Geoffrey Wilan and Ronald Searle
my Life And Hard Times by James Thurber
the Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. delafield
cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

I don't usually recommend these on here but i wonder if you would like clive james' collections of his tv criticism (e.g. the crystal bucket, visions before midnight).

another vote for tim moore's french revolutions, also i have just read his 'you are awful but i like you' which also made me laugh. the others of his that i have read haven't tickled me so much.

non-fiction

Jon Ronson - the psychopath test

Excellent read.

Simon Garfield - the nation's favourite

Piss funny (Dealing with smashy nicey era of radio 1)

Any Jenny Eclair book, amazingly funny