Great Reads (funny)

[Peter Voice]

I just read Jasper Fforde's "The Well of Lost Plots" and am trying to type this with my left hand as I stand and salute.


What have you read lately that stands out?

[Ivan Bellari]

big trouble - dave barry i laughed outloud reading it.. never got through the movie though

pagan babies- elmore leonard. funny in a way that maybe should not be funny....

[jester]

"A Prayer for Owen Meaney." by John Irving. Funnier than Garp in my opinion.

"Money" by Martin Amis is really funny too, although the first time I read it I did not get the joke at all.

[Magrat2005]

Terry Pratchet

I love Terry Pratchet, I've got 8 of his Diskworld Series, I've only read 4 and a bit, and I love what I've read so far....though before xmas I never heard of him, then my friend gave me some books for xmas, and I haven't read anything else since....but I have taken a break from them for now, to read something else....er....'How To Kill A Mockingbird'.....I think...

[Peter Voice]

It might only be me but, while I thought them both great books, I couldn't describe either "Garp" or a "Prayer for Owen Meany" as funny. Esp. the latter.

Christopher Brookmyre's "A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away" is a hell if a lot of fun.

[Magrat2005]

sorry, the book is called 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

I just finished "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night", which did have a few good ones, and was poignant.
"White Teeth" also had some sweet laughs, but definitely is not comic in nature.

For pure laughs per page, it's gotta be "Confederacy of Dunces", in my book. Nothing has ever touched it.

[jester]

Irving is funny.

Garp was funnier second time around for me because the first time I read it, I was so compelled by the story, I didn't laugh at the jokes, although I often saw them there. Second time around I've dealt with a lot of the serious stuff so I can laugh at the funny bits.


When I read Prayer for Owen Meany, I laughed often. It is a tragic tale punctuated by lots of funny interludes. And come on, The Nativity Scene has to be the most universally hilarious farce of modern times.

I understand why you didn't find them funny, but the humour is there, it's dark, yet it is never cruel. I don't think it's just you, many people I know feel the same way and I have had this conversation several times.

[Famos Bramwells]

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens. Really really funny,

[Lynneski]

Karl, if you liked "Curious Incident" I'm sure you'll love "Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem. Not zactly funny *hah hah*, but more funny *odd*.

Protagonist has Tourette's - awesome insights into how he processes internally, in a similar way to the lead in "Curious Incident".

Peter, I'll second your nod to Brookmyre. Read everything he wrote after having stumbled upon "Big Boy".

I'll toss in Paul Quarrington. Canadian chap. "Whale Music" was indifferently movied. "King Leary" is a very funny look at hockey and old men. "The Life of Hope" does up small men and big fish in small towns.

Also Tim Sandlin "Skipped Parts", "Social Blunders" and "Sorrow Floats" - sorry, I don't remember which order they're in but it's a threesome. Very good coming of age stories, along the lines of Nick Whasisname's "Fever Pitch" and "High Fidelity".

Oooh. Oooh. And Daniel Handler's "Basic Eight". Not anything like his Lemony Snickett work. Black funny, like the movie "Heathers".

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

ooooh, i forgot...

Salut, Lynne.

I'll have a look for "Motherless Brooklyn", sounds good.
"Fortune's Bastard" by Robert Chalmers was a real treat, introduced to me by our own Eddie. Not only is it a real joy watching the just-lame-enough-that-you-loath-him protaganist go from frying pan to fire to freak show, but you find youself starting to love him about midway through, against your better judgement.
Peter, having finished it on a train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, I traded in my Banana Yoshimoto "Asleep" for "Well of Lost Plots" at a used bookstall where a crooked-backed peasant farmed a microscopic plot of rice in the very palm of his hand. I invested a couple of hundred baht in the thing and I'm finding it, well, certainly cheery after Bannana's stuff, but, um, only mildly engaging. Had you read the previous two first?

[Peter Voice]

It might be a time and place thing, Karl, then again it might just be me but I liked the layers of fiction upon fiction and all the grammer, language and literature (in)jokes in "The Well of Lost Plots". It could also be that I have bad taste.

One of my all time favourites is "Venus in the Half-shell" by Kilgore Trout (according to the cover).

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Mm hm, or any Vonnegut. Strange that he hasn't been mentioned yet: and it might do to give a nod to Robbins, and Wodenhouse.
I won't write it off yet, it may pull me in still...

[Ivan Bellari]

pappa kurt

geraldo riviera ( sp?) was his son in law for a while...
i have tried to read lots of his books... but at the time i didn't get them.. mostly maybe i was too young...

he definately is a time and place sort of writer,

but

bluebeard was really good..

and


he did write my favorite love story ( it's in welcome to the monkey house ) but it's really short fiction... and in the intro to it he said it is one of the stories he hates the most ...

[martin ewen]

'Geek love' by Katherine Dunn