Really funny books

[PepeLePew]

dd is after funny books - she’s 14 and reads a lot, and widely, but wants books that “make me laugh out loud”. She loves PG Wodehouse, and Diary of a Nobody. I’ve just got Three Men in a Boat out of the library for her, which I think she’ll like. And then I’m a bit stumped as my reading tastes incline more to the less jolly end of the spectrum. One of the challenges is finding humour that is age appropriate, of course. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

My younger brother finished the shadowhunter books (only the first three) no point reading the last three they get a bit gloomy and dark but not needed after the first three anyway no big story impact and he found moments of them lol worthy and the last two Harry Potter books he was in hysterics (15yrs old)

I loved the Adrian Mole books when I was that age (still do). The topical references are obviously very dated but I don't think it detracts from the laugh-out-loud humour.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?

I loved the Maureen Lipman books when I was that age. Enough to make you feel grown up, but nothing too explicit!

Hitchiker is a good call. She liked the audiobook a couple of years ago, but didn’t read the rest of the series. She was underwhelmed by Adrian Mole. Odd, as I cried with laughter when I read it at her age. I don’t think it was the dated nature of it either (given how much she laughed at Diary of a Nobody).
I wonder if she found Harry Potter funny? I must ask her...

I love the books you mentioned in your OP and when I was your dd's age I loved James Herriot's vet books. I also really like Bill Bryson.

Roald Dahl.

Bill Bryson is a great idea! And she loved My Family and Other Animals so she may we’ll feel the same about James Herriot.

We really do have the same tastes then. I love My Family and ... too.

Parts of Bryson's The Thunderbolt Kid are hilarious so it might be a good one to start with.

Thinking about memoirs, I wonder if she would like Clive James? I remember crying with laughter at Unreliable Memoirs when I was in my mid teens. And I’ve never read The Thunderbolt Kid so we can read it together on our kindles and compare notes, maybe.

Cold Comfort Farm is funny.

So are Decline and Fall and Scoop - Evelyn Waugh

If she likes PG Wodehouse, she might like FE Benson's Mapp and Lucia books

I never really got into them, but loads of people find Terry Prachett's books hilarious and there are a lot of them!

Hitchhiker's Guide is great as pp have suggested already.

What about Bill Bryson?

I don't read a lot of laugh out loud books but Bryson would be my recommendation too. And James Heriot.

Has she read Cold Comfort Farm? And I can't remember how funny the Miss Read books are, but they are the same sort of gentle social commentary as James Heriot.

Tom Sharpe?

I love Gerald Durrell's "family" trilogy - "My Family and Other Animals", "Birds, Beasts and Relatives", and "Garden of the Gods" - I have read and re-read them since I was a teen and they are truly LOL funny.
More recently I adore the "St. Mary's" series by Jodi Taylor - link here

Terry Pratchett and Chris Moore. She might like Dorothy Parter too.

Wildcard idea but what about “ I Capture The Castle “ ? It’s one of my favourite books and my DDs loved it as well.
Written by Dodie Smith who also wrote 101 Dalmations .

I second/third Bryson.

Also check out Tony Hawks’ books. (Not the skateboarder!)

His most well known book is probably Round Ireland with a Fridge which is hilarious - one of my favourite books to read again and again. One Hit Wonderland and Playing the Moldovans at Tennis are also good, but maybe not as funny as Round Ireland. I liked a Piano in the Pyranees but it’s nowhere near as funny, so probably not what you’re looking for.

Some great ideas here. She’d probably love Dorothy Parker - she has read Nancy Mitford and loves that smart, sharp female voice. Jodi Taylor also a good idea - she loves history. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that (perhaps because I wasn’t that impressed by the first of her books but what do I know?). Cold Comfort Farm also a good idea - she has shades of Flora Poste about her so will probably love that.

Some of the Alexander McCall Smith books - especially the Scotland Street novels and Fatty O'Leary's Dinner Party.

I find the Alan partridge books hilarious. I Partridge and Nomad in particular.

The ascent of rum doodle, by W. E. Bowman

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Rum_Doodle

Everything is illuminated made me laugh (and cry)

@NellMangel The very idea of an Alan Partidge book called Nomad is making me giggle. Is it a tour of the Travelodges on the ring road outside Norwich?

Not as grown up as some but the Georgia Nicholson series, starting with Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging, made me laugh a lot, I have reread them fairly recently and I still find them funny now.

Nomad is best experienced as an audiobook.

Cold Comfort Farm is truly excellent. Wodehouse, Pratchett good shouts too. Yes, Pratchett is fantasy but it's not really; it's satire. Very sharp at times, too.

Also, try To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It's sci--fi - about time-travelling historians, and it's laugh-out-loud funny. Predates Jodi Taylor by about two decades (and is far, far better written in my opinion).

Jodi Taylor does like to throw in the occasional surprisingly explicit sex scene, just so you know.

I recently enjoyed a book called Clovenhoof by Heide Goody and Iain Grant. The basic set up is that Satan is performance-managed out of Hell, and ends up living under the name Jeremy Clovenhoof in a flat in Solihull. It's supremely silly and made me roar several times.