the funniest book you've ever read
Circletj
would have to be "Help, I'm Being Held Prisoner" by Donald Westlake. One
of the few ever that has made me laugh out loud.
SCATMAN
jud...@worldaccess.nl (Judith Kunst) wrote:
>joh...@neves.com (SCATMAN) wrote:
>
>>In article <4a82g9$l...@skydiver.jaguNET.com>,
>> cal...@jagunet.com (Chris Alliey) wrote:
>>>ps...@aol.com (PSGEI) wrote:
>>>
>>>>Two of the funniest books I've ever read are "The Search for Signs of
>>>>Intelligent Life in the Universe" by Jane Wagner (it's a Lily Tomlin
>>>>one-woman show) and "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat.
>>>
>>>The funniest book I've ever read is the MicroSoft Windows Handbook!
>>>
>
>>Schindler's List
>
>Schindler's List FUNNY?????
>What is so FUNNY about it?
>
OK so it's not as funny as say, The Gulag Archipelago.
Dave Gerecke
_Five,Four,Three, Two, One-Pfftt_ by William C. Anderson.
Based on fact but the author has not let facts get in the way of a good
story.
Much like Pratchett.
If you can get past the background. I found the book ROFL even when
re-reading.
He has written quite a few mostly about the air force.
I have read as many as I can get my hands on but here in
Australia, they are hard to find.
David Mastroianni
so I could really get it. An incredible rant about a character's sexual
hangups.
Shepherd Ogden
I read as a pubescent boy) was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by
Hunter Thompson. (period)
Wink1000
Bondage" by Henry Alford had me rolling. The book is a collection of the
author's "anxiety producing adventures", or things you and I would never
do, and if we did, still wouldn't be as funny. It's a light, quick read,
but so funny it you will want to read it two or three times.
Morten Eriksen
I'll second that.
Morten
+------------------------------------------------------+
| "Ees a sad an' beatiful world" - Bob, _Down By Law_. |
| http://www.idt.unit.no/~mortene |
+------------------------------------------------------+
Josh Wolf
On 6 Jan 1996, Fratello66 wrote:
> THERAPY by David somebody.. also wrote Nice Work. The protagonist has al
> the hunmor and pathos of Holden Caulfield, but hes a middle aged boomer.
> rec.sport.football.college
>
>
dmax
Or, maybe, "The Bell Jar."
--
All the words float in sequence
No one knows what they mean
Everyone just ignores them -Eno-
Fratello66
Celtic Music
Egg Man
pretty damn funny!
-t
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George Leake
The Real Frank Zappa Book (his 1988 autobiography)
A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
Our Man In Havana, Graham Greene
Ginger Man, J.P.Donleavy
Candide, Voltaire
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
Piers Ploughman
(not really books, but still quite funny)
Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew--Shakespeare
--
George Leake 512-471-9117 tali...@mail.utexas.edu
"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."-George Washington
"For we are instinctively all too greedy for praise, and there is no sound or song that comes sweeter to our ears; praise, like Sirens' voices, is the kind of music that causes shipwreck to the man who does not stop his ears to its deceptive harmony."-B.Castiglione, "The Courtier"
PSchweitz
print but worth the search. A very funny tale of an immigrant's encounter
with the new world.
Peter Schweitzer
(Peter Schweitzer)
Ed Strnad
"The Optimist's/Pessimist's Guide to the Millennium," now in stores.
But I'm biased.
Sandra Marsh
CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. My copy has disappeared, and I can't remember
the author's name, (it was his only book), but it's "laugh outloud."
Any one else out there agree?
Sandra Marsh
Nick Nussbaum
Funniest Books
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. Still the definitive description of journalism.
The climax of the book made me put it down and laugh.
Blue Heaven by Joe Keenan. A modern attempt at a gay P.G. Wodehouse
story set in contemporary New York. Makes one realize how good Wodehouse
was; Add his 90 books to the list if you like.
There's a continuous strain of humor in the Patrick O Brian Napoleonic
War Sea stories but it's usually subtle. Now always; "Sir, you have
debauched my sloth!"
Shorter stuff; go back and read some S.J. Perelman;
Nicholas by Saki (H H Munro)
Why I live at the Post Office by Eudora Welty
Calvin Trillin's Tummy Trilogy "Alice, Lets Eat...)
--
All opinions expressed herein are my own.
P.O. Box 4738 Seattle, WA 98104
Georg A. Donde
A. & B. Strugatski: Monday Begins On Saturday,
Tale of the Troika
Jaroslaw Hasek: Brave Soldier Svejk
Italo Calvino: Cosmicomics and t Zero
Also Capek, Fraser, Stephenson.
"Earth Is the Cradle Of Humanity,
But We Cannot Spend All Our Life In the Cradle"
---Tsiolkovsky
"Pray that there is intelligent life somewhere up in space
cos there's bugger all down here on Earth"
---Monty Python
shawnh
of articles Republican Party Reptile a short piece called "Just One of
Those Days"
Shawnh
Derek McMillan
Guide to the Galaxy" series by Douglas Adams. However, I
was probably influenced by the radio series - I always
felt I could hear Peter Jones' voice reading it.
Jayaram Ramanathan
Men and a Bummel") is, in my opinion, the funniest book out there.
Close behind is John Kennedy Toole's "Confederacy of Dunces".
This is a great thread. I'd be very interested in hearing about other
great fun books.
Presently I'm reading Paul Theroux's "The Happy Isles of Oceania". Though
a travel book, it's extremely funny.
-jay
--
---
Jay Ramanathan I "Life is what happens to you when
Toronto, Ontario I you are busy making other plans."
bv...@torfree.net I - John Lennon
four....@argonet.co.uk
Durrell. I also found Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum extremely
funny, she has a most unusual way of looking at people and things. As this was
her first novel I hope she writes more.
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Mamievd
JanM
JanM
Wanda Cronauer
Close To A Naked Man". It is really a very funny book.
gr...@mail.io.com
I haven't heard the radio series, and this was still the first book that
leapt to mind! _Hitchhiker's Guide_ was definitely better than the
sequels (none of them had falling whales).
van minnebruggen hugo
made me laugh aloud, sitting alone in a room, or in a company. He is my
most favourite American ( for the fiction/detectives/adventure field)
If you can relate to him, please contact me again, so that we can explore
other writers who might seduce us in dreaming on.
For your information: I don't read the heavy stuff, don't go very much
farther than a Norman Mailer or a John Irving, but am most thrilled by a
superb written detective, with a lot of emotions in it.
Elliott Hammett
: Anything by P.J. O'Rourke. Especially in his first "book" or collection
: Those Days"
: Shawnh
Anything by Peter DeVries, especially 'Comfort Me With Apples'
Aimee LaBrie
There's a scene near the end of the book about a beauty pageant that nearly
caused me to be institutionalized, because I was reading it on the bus and I
couldn't stop laughing.
I keep waiting for her to write something else. I really enjoy her novels.
Wanda
Ludlum & LeCarre'
LaCarre' is more philosophy & psycology (sp?) but immensley
readable.
Wanda
Wanda
"You are not what you think they think you are." - Unknown
Sunnys mom
great! One thing, though--it would be really wonderful if people would add
a couple of lines of what the book is about. Thanks to all the posters!
Gail Campbell
in the U.S. He writes comic crime capers from the criminal's point of
view. The John Dortmunder series is great.
Jeck3
I re-read every year or so when I need cheering up. It's Victorian
(written in the late 1880s as I recall) and is a short little book about
him and two friends who go up the Thames. It's absolutely delightful.
cence
Buckley (William's son), and second, "Skin Tight" by Carl Hiaason.
"...Smoking" is a very satirical look at the world of politics and
lobbyists and is hysterical. "Skin Tight" goes one step beyond Elmore
Leonard in its characters and situations -- it's got a TV tabloid
journalist patterned after Geraldo named Reynaldo Flemm -- that should be
enough to pique your interest.
Good reading!
laura cence
William T. Smith
Saki targets the same culture as Wodehouse, but is acerbic and
scathing where P.J. is good-natured and whimsicle.
________________________________________
_Plummet Airlines |___|__\_ Bill Smith
0000000000000|o|0000 000000 -- _ bsm...@westnet.com
________ |_| _)
________>________________________________ --
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||
________|| "Robert, we...can't talk about pricing."--Howard Putnam, President
Braniff International
Jaimes Alsop
Books, I'm sure it's long out of print, I still see the occasional copy in used book stores.
--
Jaimes Alsop
The Poetry & Literature Page
http://www.hooked.net/users/jalsop/
Robin
"Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole: Won the Pulitzer
Prize years after the author committed suicide.
"Masters of Atlantis" by Charles Portis: The birth, rise and
decline of an absurd fraternal order.
"Moo" by Jane Smiley: Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes
on a college campus will laugh at this story.
"Crazy in Alabama" by Mark Childress: The story of a boy who
lives in a funeral home and his aunt who flees to Hollywood with
her husband's head in a hat box. Morbidly funny.
"Flashman" by George Macdonald Fraser: Series of historical
novels based in the Victorian era. Wait, there's more. Follows
the adventures of an English officer and not a gentleman.
Flashman is a scoundrel and a coward and he's hilarious.
***********rob...@hooked.net***************************
I work at Book Passage, an independent bookstore in the Bay
Area. Check out our new web site: www.bookpassage.com
Haida
>"No Time for Sargents" comes to mind. I can't remember the
>author's name.
>
Good book! (Also can't remember author) Movie starred andy griffith.
Have you read catch 22 ?
Haida
Like Carl Hiaasen as well. Try Snow Falling on Cedars by David
Guterson. Not a detective story, but it is a murder trial/unrequited
love story, and it's very well written (the second best first novel I
have ever read).
Keith Turner
On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, William T. Smith wrote:
> The book I'm currently reading, The Complete Saki, is laugh at loud.
> Saki targets the same culture as Wodehouse, but is acerbic and
> scathing where P.J. is good-natured and whimsicle.
Would you say that the cat story is the ultimate "cat story" (I'm not
going to describe it further so as to avoid a possible spoiler.) except
for perhaps "The cat who walks alone" by Kipling?
Just curious.
Keith Turner
Marti Vigil
books mentioned.
Marti
In article <4g1ti1$v...@merlin.iguide.com>, ha...@mci.newscorp.com
says...
Tammy Everts
like the movie, I promise. I read it long before the movie came out, and I
laughed out loud by myself in a laundromat while reading it (causing
everyone to stare at me apprehensively). Sadly, if you've had the
misfortune of seeing the movie before reading the book, I cannot promise
that your reading will be untainted. I went to see the movie on the first
night it was released, and when the shock wore off, I fumed for days about
how Hollywood can schmaltz up an excellent book.
Tammy
Tammy Everts
Thompson's *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas* is at the top of my list. I
recently re-read it and it STILL makes me laugh my pants off.
Tammy
Sue
>Tammy
Try 'Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It has to be the
most hysterical book I have ever read. I have recommended it to all
my friends who have disparate tastes in reading material and they all
enjoyed it tremendously. I actually *giggled* while reading the
darned thing.
If you have a warped sense of humour and like things a little twisted,
try it, you'll like it..
---
Sue
*** Carpe Diem, mes enfants!
**** What may be may not be. Scottish Proverb
***** Conform and be dull. J. Frank Dobie
C. Clark
should be mentioned here.
Edmund Marshall
Birthday present problems for a few years now. He has to be read alone.
It annoys folk when you start to scream with laughter.
Edmund
MELANIE SAMANTHA JAYNE DENT
> Whoops! I forgot to add in my last post in this thread that Hunter S.
> Thompson's *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas* is at the top of my list. I
> recently re-read it and it STILL makes me laugh my pants off.
>
> Tammy
>
The funniest book I ever read was by an evangelical Christian author
called Adrian Plass and it was called "The Horizontal Epistles of
Andromeda Veal." It's about an 8 year old girl who is in traction in
hospital with a broken leg and she's lonely (her father is absent and her
mum is a Christian feminist camping out at RAF GReenham Common) The book
is of letters which she writes and receives, including babyish writing
and spelling errors. I couldn't stop laughing for ages afterward.>
LitiGraph
Fat Idiot" by Al Franken. I was laughing out loud in the store, hard,
even though I tried not to. This book would not be so funny to someone
who likes Limbaugh, however (da!).
Joani
Frankg
That's easy. Handling Sin by Michael Malone.
On Monday, February 12, 1996, cence wrote...