Looking for some good humorous novels

[Bright Moments]

another vote for wodehouse & evanovich.

Try Tim Dorsey "Orange Crush" - very funny

oh and Roald Dahl's "adult" books like "My Uncle Oswald" ' "Switch Bitch" & "Kiss Kiss."

[BruceH]

Any collection of Wodehouse's golf stories is pure gold, but especially the omnibus containing all of them.

(The Mulliner stories are quite good too.)

[ejp626]

Another shout out for The Thought Gang. Really amusing stuff. I am, however, wondering if he cribbed anything from the Depardieu movies of the 1970s.

Another author to check out is Eric Kraft, who wrote about a fictional New England seaside community. His first 10 novellas were collected into Little Follies. I liked the next two full novels, but it kind of trailed off after that.

[1ngram]

Spike Milligan's "Puckoon" is the funniest novel I have ever read. I read it again recently after his death and it was still hilarious. If you haven't already read it you are missing a treat.

[Spontooneous]

Flann O'Brien, "At Swim-Two-Birds"

Parts of William Faulkner's "The Hamlet" are among the very funniest stuff ever written in English.

An absurd masterpiece is Flaubert's unfinished, maybe unfinishable, "Bouvard and Pecuchet."

[frank m]

Laurence Sterne "Tristram Shandy"

anything by Peter Devries (these are really tragedies, but you'll find yourself laughing)

and you can add my vote for "Sotweed Factor"

[ejp626]

I forgot James Wilcox. I think his earlier works are better - Modern Baptists and Polite Sex. I really hated his last work Plain and Normal.

Michael Malone, especially Handling Sin and Foolscap.

[Big Al]

Picked up P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and the Mating Season" audio book. Listening to this book, as opposed to reading it, has been revelatory. I tried reading a P.G. book, and I'll be honest: the heavily-British vernacular was having trouble filtering itself thru the Texan-twang of the voice in my head that reads the words to me. But hearing an actual BRIT read this stuff is nothing short of heavenly! Been LMAO!!! Hope there's more where this came from!

[BruceH]

Picked up P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and the Mating Season" audio book. Listening to this book, as opposed to reading it, has been revelatory. I tried reading a P.G. book, and I'll be honest: the heavily-British vernacular was having trouble filtering itself thru the Texan-twang of the voice in my head that reads the words to me. But hearing an actual BRIT read this stuff is nothing short of heavenly! Been LMAO!!! Hope there's more where this came from!

There's LOTS more!

Wodehouse wrote over 90 books. About 30-odd are top-drawer. Check out "Code of the Woosters."

[jazzbo]

I'm reading "Berg" by Ann Quin. Pretty funny!

[Big Al]

Picked up P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and the Mating Season" audio book. Listening to this book, as opposed to reading it, has been revelatory. I tried reading a P.G. book, and I'll be honest: the heavily-British vernacular was having trouble filtering itself thru the Texan-twang of the voice in my head that reads the words to me. But hearing an actual BRIT read this stuff is nothing short of heavenly! Been LMAO!!! Hope there's more where this came from!

There's LOTS more!

Wodehouse wrote over 90 books. About 30-odd are top-drawer. Check out "Code of the Woosters."

Oh yes, I know of Wodehouse's polific pen (that's the problem listening to the audio version, now I'm starting to TALK like him!); what I was wondering is are there more audio versions of the Wodehouse books!

[billyboy]

I highly recommend Frederick Exley's A FAN'S NOTES. This book had me crying with laughter on the subway, which makes you feel like a big dork, but it's that funny. The other two books in the 'trilogy', NOTES FROM A COLD ISLAND and LAST NOTES FROM HOME, are kind of a let-down after the brilliance of the first one.

[medjuck]

Donald Westlake. Any of the Dortmuller books or Dancing Aztecs. Also the first couple of Fletch books by Gregory MacDonald. (Fletch One and Fletch Too are not the first ones. Chgeck out the order of publication.)

[billyboy]

Not everybody thought it was funny, but I thought Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS was freakin' hilarious. Almost everyone I talked to who read it didn't see the humor in it and thought it was too depressing, but I think it's one of the funniest (and best) books I've read.

[Christiern]

Read this one 48 years ago and I bet it's still every bit as funny.

• A brief summation from the blurb:
  
  The study starts with the dramatic date September 22, 1957, when at 5:35 in the morning (Eastern Daylight Time) the first child with a tail was born. With truly encyclopedic grasp of the subject, Mr. Smith then proceeds to survey this new phase in the evolution of the human race in all its manifold aspects.
  

...and I still highly recommend Patrick Dennis' "Little Me"

Don't take my word for it:

"Enormously funny...Mr. Dennis's dialogue is hilarious, his pages a riot of magnificent absurdities, sly puns, quips, and other verbal buffoonery."

--The New York Times

"A masterpiece of parody."

--The New Republic

"One of the most outlandish collections of narrative and photographic nonsense ever put between hard covers. Only Patrick Dennis of Auntie Mame could have done it."

--Chicago Tribune

[l p]

all charles bukowski short stories and novels

all john fante short stories and novels

and maybe you're ready for celine's journey to the end of night, and death on the installment plan.

[l p]

also, ethan coen of the coen brothers published a book of short stories several years ago.

[Chrome]

all charles bukowski short stories and novels

all john fante short stories and novels

and maybe you're ready for celine's journey to the end of night, and death on the installment plan.

You've got an interesting sense of humor ...

[Johnny E]

I know you don't want politics, but I hear the new Ari Fleisher book is hilarious.

[Big Al]

I know you don't want politics, but I hear the new Ari Fleisher book is hilarious.

I said humorous FICTION!!!

Hmmm.... cometothinkofit......

Well, anyway, fiction that makes me puke is definitely outta the question!

[Nate Dorward]

I'm reading "Berg" by Ann Quin. Pretty funny!

You must be pretty twisted!...... I suppose if you're looking for a stream-of-consciousness novel about a loser's pathetic efforts to kill his father then it is a pretty funny book....

I haven't read over the whole of this thread but if David Lodge's novels haven't yet been mentioned they should be.