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Book Worm

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    #32
    Yillan
    Registered Users Posts: 932 ✭✭✭Yillan


    Before you read any of them, try the John Swartzwelder books. I think the first one is called the time machine did it. JS is responsible for the best Simpsons episodes you can think of as writer and consultant. Very private man. Some doubt he even exists and is just a name for a collaboration of multiple writers.

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    #33
    Roger Hassenforder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,555 ✭✭✭Roger Hassenforder


    IMO you get tired of Discworld. Funny, but a sense of horse flogging. I did anyway!

    One of the funniest Irish book ive read was McCarthys bar. Albeit author was English . AFAIR


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    #34
    Arghus
    Registered Users Posts: 14,356 ✭✭✭✭Arghus


    Anything by P. G. Wodehouse - pure comic brilliance.

    The Flashman Novels by George MacDonald Fraser - a truly amazing series of novels. The fake memoirs of an aristocratic Victorian gentleman, about his life and times during the pivotal moments in the history of the British Empire, where he was usually in the thick of the action, trying his best not to die and to have as much sex as possible.

    THESE NOVELS ARE EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD.

    I'm no fan of the British Empire, but I find it impossible not to love these novels. The central character is a complete bastard: cowardly, racist, misogynistic, self-centred. But he's also completely honest and extremely lucky. The level of historical research that went into the writing of these was first class, you'll actually learn something about the real life history contained in the adventutes. And George McDonald Fraser is, in my opinion, the most underrated prose writer of the last fifty years. He was a brilliant writer: his storytelling and pacing, his research, his gift for descriptive language, characterisation and dialouge - he was an absolute genius. And he manages to make it all so funny and decidedly un-PC. Unmissable stuff!


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    #35
    Roger Hassenforder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,555 ✭✭✭Roger Hassenforder


    +1 on Flashman


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    #36
    facehugger99
    Registered Users Posts: 7,225 ✭✭✭facehugger99


    Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis is very funny


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    #37
    ToddyDoody
    Registered Users Posts: 4,421 ✭✭✭ToddyDoody


    The Darwin Awards series can be quite funny.


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    #38
    decky1
    Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    GBX wrote: »
    The bible ?

    I just knew when i posted someone was going to say this.:D


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    #39
    decky1
    Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    JohnnyFlash wrote: »
    One moderately funny joke spread out over 400 pages. The most overrated book ever printed. It’s like you have to say it’s hilarious.

    The Flashman books are very funny. Loads of riding, cheating on cards, racism, drunkenness, cowardly behaviour, and being a rich cad in 1800’s London. Extremely politically incorrect, so not for sensitive types.

    think i'll try this one first. :eek:


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    #40
    decky1
    Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    decky1 wrote: »
    think i'll try this one first. :eek:

    just had a look for this book --sure there's a load of them:cool:


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    #41
    Relikk
    Registered Users Posts: 1,800 ✭✭✭Relikk


    Puckoon by Spike Milligan.


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    #42
    Conall Cernach
    Registered Users Posts: 1,927 ✭✭✭Conall Cernach


    decky1 wrote: »
    just had a look for this book --sure there's a load of them:cool:
    Yeah, he started writing them in the 60s and only stopped because he died in 2008. I would read them in the order they were released if I were you rather than chronologically.



    The conceit behind the books is that they are meant to be the memoirs of Harry Flashman that have been unearthed in an attic or something like that by the author. Flashman is the bully in Tom Brown's Schooldays and Thomas Hughes who wrote that pops up the odd time in the Flashman books.


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    #43
    Roger Hassenforder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,555 ✭✭✭Roger Hassenforder


    Relikk wrote: »
    Puckoon by Spike Milligan.

    Fantastic book!


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    #44
    mazwell
    Closed Accounts Posts: 150 ✭✭mazwell


    Any of Bill brysons travel books particularly a walk in the woods


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    #45
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    JohnnyFlash wrote: »
    The Flashman books are very funny. Loads of riding, cheating on cards, racism, drunkenness, cowardly behaviour, and being a rich cad in 1800’s London. Extremely politically incorrect, so not for sensitive types.

    They are great (and surprisingly historically accurate outside of the protagonists escapades) but there’s more than one way to read Flashman. It’s only pro empire at a superficial level.


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    #46
    Franz Von Peppercorn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,070 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn


    JohnnyFlash wrote: »
    War is terrible and I’ll pretend I’m mad. I don’t like most of those ‘great American novels’ written in the 60’s and early 70’s though.

    You’re right. None of them have aged well.


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    #47
    bazz26
    Registered Users Posts: 51,141 ✭✭✭✭bazz26


    The Satanic Verses, though a few didn't see the funny side of it.


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    #48
    Skatedude
    Registered Users Posts: 2,674 ✭✭✭Skatedude


    Who goes here by Bob Shaw


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    #49
    Ficheall
    Registered Users Posts: 9,018 ✭✭✭Ficheall


    Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman.


    Also The Madman by padraiggg.


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    #50
    decky1
    Registered Users Posts: 975 ✭✭✭decky1


    mazwell wrote: »
    Any of Bill brysons travel books particularly a walk in the woods

    great books , think i have them all , his last was a big disappointment i thought.:(


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