Genuine laugh out loud books?

Cyrus

Has anyone recently read a genuinely laugh out loud book? apart from the ross o carroll kelly series, which obviously arent to everyones taste, i havent read anything properly funny in a while, any recommendations?

Aln_S

I read "Don't Tell Mom I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse" By Paul Carter recently.
Truly funny book about his life working on the Oil Rigs. Probably mainly Male humor but brilliantly entertaining.

emeraldstar

Any of the Jeeves & Wooster books, by P.G. Wodehouse.

hidinginthebush

Aln_S wrote: »

I read "Don't Tell Mom I Work on the Rigs: She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whorehouse" By Paul Carter recently.
Truly funny book about his life working on the Oil Rigs. Probably mainly Male humor but brilliantly entertaining.

That's an excellent book, but I wouldn't say I laughed out loud reading it, but I would definitely recommend it.

The only books I think I've real life laughed at while reading are the Ross O'Caroll-Kelly books OP.

Morzadec

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz

Paxmanwithinfo

Frankie Boyle's My Sh*t Life so Far -(Autobiography) is laugh out loud funny.

Cyrus

cheers folks i will look into these

it goes to show tho, paul howard has a special gift

Sergeant

The Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser.

The Wilt novels by Tom Sharpe.

--Kaiser--

I've read a lot of books by Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and the like; they're funny, but they rarely make me laugh out loud, more smile quietly to myself.

The only book I can remember laughing out loud to was (and I imagine I'll get a lot of stick for this) is The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox (he of thebestpageintheuniverse.com). I was roaring laughing, in tears, rolling around on the floor, the whole shebang. A juvenile sense of humour is a prerequisate

Honey-ec

McCarthy's Bar & The Road to McCarthy, Pete McCarthy

Mutiny on the Bounty, John Boyne (more sniggers than outright belly laughs, but still very, very funny)

Gridlock, Ben Elton. Admittedly, I read this when I was about 15, but I cacked myself laughing pretty much the whole way through.

old gregg

as a teenager (many, many years ago) I laughed all the way through Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas but I suppose the jazz cigarettes helped create the ambiance

MungBean

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy had me in stitches. Funniest book I've ever read I'd say.

wilkie2006

Morzadec wrote: »

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

I'll second this and throw "Lucky Jim" by Kingsley Amis into the mix

Dj Stiggie

Paxmanwithinfo wrote: »

Frankie Boyle's My Sh*t Life so Far -(Autobiography) is laugh out loud funny.

I just finished his latest book 'Work! Consume! Die' which is also hilarious

Hart

Any of the collections by Woody Allen are hilarious. Also check out Tim Allen's "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man."

behan29

Carl Hiaasen's stuff can be very funny, comedy crime with warped anti-hero's, Lucky You is one of his best. Chuck Palanicuk's stuff is also very funny and extremely perverse, Choke is excellent and has quiet a few laugh out loud moments,

Eliot Rosewater

I cried while reading Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat it was so funny! And that's not an exaggeration - on one long passage there's loads of smudges on my book from my tears! Hilarious book if you're in the right mood

Cherry Blossom Girl

WHen You are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris.
Really funny book, I laughed out loud numerous times during it. He has a few more too but I haven't read them.

sonofsteptoe

Colin Bateman a Northern Irish writer, has a number of very funny books set in Belfast. Wicked sense of humour. Try 'Mystery Man' or 'The Day of the Jack Russell' or Belfast Confidential'. Honestly couldn't finish one quick enough to buy the next one.

Chuck Stone

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Douglas Adams.

Excerpt

"Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"

"The what?" said Richard.

"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a ..."

"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."

"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissed shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." ...

"You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap ... ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."

livinsane

The Average American Male: A Novel by Chad Kultgen is laugh out loud funny as well as being obscenely filthy and hilariously misogynistic. D!ck lit you might call it!

Joe R Lansdale's series on best friend duo Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (one white, one black, one straight, one gay) are good laughs. Rough and ready adventures.

Depending on your type of humour but I found The Third Policeman by Flann O Brien to be hilarious. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller is also very funny. However, the humour is just so clever that its more an internal laugh.

Sergeant

Jude: Level 1 by Julian Gough.

dreamers75

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I've read a lot of books by Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and the like; they're funny, but they rarely make me laugh out loud, more smile quietly to myself.

Dunno about that "Ballistic Sausage" got me some strange looks on a Danish train before.

CaoimH_in

Anything by Julian Gough. The comic set-ups are amazingly constructed and they're pure candy as a read. SO, so, so good!

Toby Take a Bow

David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day
Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You Mr Rosewater
And I'd second A Confederacy of Dunces.

Morzadec wrote: »

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz

Must check out Fraction of the Whole if you're a John Kennedy Toole fan. I used to see it nearly every day in work, but never got around to picking it up.

Shryke

I always laugh out loud at some stage reading Pratchett. They're very smart stupid books, if ya follow me!

dr gonzo

I third (or fourth at this stage?) Confederacy of Dunces, hilarious character!

I also second Flashman. Probably my farourite series of books. Must re-read them actually...


As for laugh out loud funny, the last book I read that was that hilarious was undoubtedly Puckoon. I read it one sitting on a train to Mayo and i was audibly giggling the whole way. Utterly ridiculous and hilarious, highly recommended.

cynder

Read 3 of Karl Pilkingtons books I lol a Few times. Not on every page though.

de Faoite_girl

OP, you might want to check goodreads.com

There is a list for Best Humorous Books in the Listopia section.

I have always found myself laughing out loud while reading Bill Bryson's books. They are highly entertaining.

ConstantJoe

Dan O'Brien from the comedy website Cracked.com had an article about this the other day: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-itE28099s-impossible-to-find-funny-books/. The article itself is about how hard they are to find, but at the end he's put down a list of recommendations, and has asked the comments section for more suggestions.

Einhard

Skippy Dies had lots of guffaw inducing moments. I think my fellow commuters on the bus must think I'm a tad loony given the amount of times over the past two weeks that I've burst out laughing while reading it. It's also genuinely touching too. All in all, a great book.

Red Hand

Many of the discworld books by terry pratchett. Guards Guards! or Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic would be my favs. (Synopsis-it's a parody of fantasy literature/our world set on a giant flat world on the backs of 4 elephants who stand on a giant turtle)

The Jeeves and Wooster series by PG Wodehouse are very good.(Synopsis-Bertie Wooster is a rather thick yet very rich and idle young man who moves in equally rich and thick circles. Jeeves is his resourcful butler, who displays great intelligence in extricating Bertie and his friends from scrapes and the ire of dreaded relatives.)

Incompetence is a very funny novel written by Rob Grant. It's a spy novel set in a future European Union where, as from the title, incompetence and bureaucratic stupidity rule supreme.

snoreborewhore

If you're a woman then I'd definately recommend Caitlin Moran's "How to be a Woman"!

wilkie2006

It's been a while since I read it but I remember thinking Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov was very funny.

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hasek is fantastic, laugh-out-loud stuff.

tim_holsters

I'll stick to fiction, laugh out loud non-fiction books are probably too numerous to mention.

Mr. Phillips by John Lanchester

And Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris

Me Cheetah by James Lever

A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Death And The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

implausible

snoreborewhore wrote: »

If you're a woman then I'd definately recommend Caitlin Moran's "How to be a Woman"!

+1. I've woken himself up trying to laugh silently and shaking instead - some outrageously funny descriptions of being a teenager. A great book to break in my new kindle with.

Bodhidharma

I'd second anything by Woody Allen. I also found High Fidelity by Nick Hornby hilarious (probably identified with it a bit too much).

BrianJD

Read page 11-14 of this book. If you don't laugh out loud, check for pulse!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/56947287/In-a-Sunburned-Country-by-Bill-Bryson-Excerpt

texidub

Confederacy of Dunces
Tristram Shandy
Murphy (Beckett)
The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin
Against Nature

wilkie2006

Anthony Burgess's "Enderby" quartet is very, very funny too

Giruilla

'I Partridge, We need to talk about Alan' - Alan Partridge.
Its a lot better than his other book 'Bouncing Back'.

'When you are engulfed in flames' - David Sedaris.
Pretty much non stop humour throughout.

i71jskz5xu42pb

David Sedaris, very funny

Giruilla wrote: »

'When you are engulfed in flames' - David Sedaris.

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day

Bright__Eyes wrote: »

WHen You are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris.

Dades

Catch 22 make me laugh out loud a lot, I recall.

Ckmos

Roddy Doyle - hilarious stuff!!

Six of One

I'll 6th (?) Confederacy of Dunces. And anything from Bill Bryson is usually good for a laugh too. I think the Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid made me laugh the most.

tim_holsters

Next time I buy Confederacy of Dunces is top of the list. So many recommendations it's gotta be a good read.

Ninap

Einhard wrote: »

Skippy Dies had lots of guffaw inducing moments. I think my fellow commuters on the bus must think I'm a tad loony given the amount of times over the past two weeks that I've burst out laughing while reading it. It's also genuinely touching too. All in all, a great book.

seconded. Work of genius interspersed with laugh out load moments (eg, Ruprecht mentioning 'lab facilities' when being told by a girl that everything he needs in life is right in front of him). Evening of Long Goodbyes also some great moments.

Also loving I Partridge that someone mentioned above. Didn't think it would work as a book, but it's brilliantly judged.

(btw, for a lol movie check out Rob Brydon's Director's Commentary)

Ninap

Also The Ask and Homeland by Sam Lypsite.

Hoof_Hearted

Great suggestions here, thanks. I have to throw Spike Milligan's 'Puckoon' in, cried laughing!

ectoraige

Anything by Robert Rankin:

"The finest philosophy for life I ever read was printed on the back of a box of matches, it was 'Keep dry and away from children'."

I've attracted many a strange looks upon buses thanks to him.

“Omally, as ever, slept the sleep of the just, which was quite unjust of him, considering he had no right to do it."

The Princess Bride

Would recommend Mike Gayle's books-Turning 30, His'n' Hers, Mr. Commitment.....
Very very quick witted and easy to read.......light reading,but funny.