I wrote about my surprisingly tepid response to re-reading Straight Man for my book club back in 2022. I still think it's a very funny novel, but I had a different perspective on the humor than I did when I read it when it was first published. https://biblioracle.substack.com/p/rethinking-the-wmfun-white-male-f
I was delighted to see A Gate at the Stairs on your list and a bit surprised not to see on either list A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole or Don DeLillo's White Noise.
And after some more thought, I would also add Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated.
I've got Confederacy in the Honorable Mentions. Could have definitely included White Noise, but I was working from the bookshelf I could see from my desk out of expediency, and my copy lives elsewhere.
I need to read True Grit, but I just finished Jennifer Belle’s Swanna in Love (which uses a line from True Grit as an epigraph). It’s not precisely funny—or rather it’s not only funny—but the funny bits are very good.
Do they have to be new? Because I would put Barchester Towers (Trollope), The Hamlet (Faulkner), After Leaving Mr McKenzie (Rhys) and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (Sterne).
You are so nice about my over-hasty plug for my favorites. Then since Catch-22, Murphy's Romance by Max Schott, and A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean.
Sophomoric is exactly right. I'm sort of fascinated about how it does manage to hold up despite shifting attitudes and mores. I've always thought that the third person chapters are Bogus writing about himself and using third person as a distancing device from his own shame. I sort of wonder if there's something about that technique that works on that front.
A Short History of a Small Place by T. R. Pearson. I read it many years ago, but it really stuck with me. Maybe because I grew up in NC. I should revisit it.
I found parts of Me Talk Pretty by David Sedaris so laugh out loud funny that I still think about it 5 years after I read it- I didn't find all the stories uniformly funny but his descriptions of his struggles to learn French were hilarious- and I can relate as I am trying to relearn French 40 years after my dismal French classes in high school.
Thank you for mentioning Douglas Adams! All of his books have that wonderful (what I think of as) British humor, as do the episodes he wrote for Dr Who. Another author whose humor I like is Steven Rowley, like in The Guncle. It comes with a little heart as well
Carl Hiassen is always reliably funny. The Dick Gibson show is another great pull. I read it randomly when I was browsing a used bookstore and was taken by the title and cover. Lots of Elkin really holds up well, IMO.
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris had me in stitches when I read it 10+ years ago. A Confederacy of Dunces is top of my list. Also thought Dear Committee Members had some funny moments.
I’ll nominate ‘The Anthologist’ by Nicholson Baker. ‘The Good Lord Bird’ by James McBride isn’t just a funny book, but the funny parts are pretty hilarious.
I've also had an experience of laughing so hard at a book while on a plane that I got stares (I think it was The Dart League King--back when I actually made some attempt to read books for the Tournament of Books). For the sake of full disclosure I should admit that I did the same once while reading the Skymall magazine and laughing at the absurd products for sale. I think there's something about being at altitude that makes things funnier.
I'm not sure what my funniest book is but I'll nominate High Fidelity.
Elect Mr Robinson For a Better World by Donald Antrim (any of his first 3 novels really)
Good call! Should've had one of Antrim's at least in the honorable mentions. I'm partial to The Hundred Brothers.
"Straight Man" by Richard Russo is the funniest novel I have ever read.
Now that you mention it, Russo seems like a real omission. Straight Man for sure but also The Risk Pool and Nobody's Fool.
I wrote about my surprisingly tepid response to re-reading Straight Man for my book club back in 2022. I still think it's a very funny novel, but I had a different perspective on the humor than I did when I read it when it was first published. https://biblioracle.substack.com/p/rethinking-the-wmfun-white-male-f
It is still *my* funniest book (and has remained so through multiple rereadings). But the beauty of books is we all get to like what we like.
I was delighted to see A Gate at the Stairs on your list and a bit surprised not to see on either list A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole or Don DeLillo's White Noise.
And after some more thought, I would also add Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated.
I've got Confederacy in the Honorable Mentions. Could have definitely included White Noise, but I was working from the bookshelf I could see from my desk out of expediency, and my copy lives elsewhere.
Sorry! I missed the list of honorable mentions.
Written in the late ‘50s, but not available in English till the ‘70s as far as I can tell : “The Fish Can Sing” by Halldór Laxness.
I need to read True Grit, but I just finished Jennifer Belle’s Swanna in Love (which uses a line from True Grit as an epigraph). It’s not precisely funny—or rather it’s not only funny—but the funny bits are very good.
I have two books for you: Jonathan Coe's *What a Carve Up* and John Lanchester's *Debt to Pleasure.*
And I'm so glad someone else liked *When the Bear Came Over the Mountain.* I was the only person in my book group who liked it.
Do they have to be new? Because I would put Barchester Towers (Trollope), The Hamlet (Faulkner), After Leaving Mr McKenzie (Rhys) and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (Sterne).
All funny book recommendations are appreciated, but the conceit of the Times article was 22 books since Catch-22, so that would mean since 1961.
You are so nice about my over-hasty plug for my favorites. Then since Catch-22, Murphy's Romance by Max Schott, and A River Runs Through it by Norman Maclean.
The Water Method Man is an all-time fave and one of the few sophomoric novels I loved as an adolescent that I think holds up now.
Sophomoric is exactly right. I'm sort of fascinated about how it does manage to hold up despite shifting attitudes and mores. I've always thought that the third person chapters are Bogus writing about himself and using third person as a distancing device from his own shame. I sort of wonder if there's something about that technique that works on that front.
A Short History of a Small Place by T. R. Pearson. I read it many years ago, but it really stuck with me. Maybe because I grew up in NC. I should revisit it.
"Lamb : The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal", by Christopher Moore and "The President's Hat", by Antoine Laurain.
Actually, I could recommend most books by either of those authors, but these are my favorites.
Lamb is absolutely LOL. Another one I would've listed if I hadn't been too lazy to look at anything other than the shelf in my office.
I was going to recommend The Relic Master.
I found parts of Me Talk Pretty by David Sedaris so laugh out loud funny that I still think about it 5 years after I read it- I didn't find all the stories uniformly funny but his descriptions of his struggles to learn French were hilarious- and I can relate as I am trying to relearn French 40 years after my dismal French classes in high school.
Thank you for mentioning Douglas Adams! All of his books have that wonderful (what I think of as) British humor, as do the episodes he wrote for Dr Who. Another author whose humor I like is Steven Rowley, like in The Guncle. It comes with a little heart as well
The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh
Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket
A Journey to Matecumbe by Robert Lewis Taylor
The Dick Gibson Show by Stanley Elkin
The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle
The Player by Michael Tolkin
Carl Hiassen is always reliably funny. The Dick Gibson show is another great pull. I read it randomly when I was browsing a used bookstore and was taken by the title and cover. Lots of Elkin really holds up well, IMO.
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris had me in stitches when I read it 10+ years ago. A Confederacy of Dunces is top of my list. Also thought Dear Committee Members had some funny moments.
I’ll nominate ‘The Anthologist’ by Nicholson Baker. ‘The Good Lord Bird’ by James McBride isn’t just a funny book, but the funny parts are pretty hilarious.
Agreed about The Good Lord Bird in the funny parts it's downright comic. It's true of McBride's new one too. His mix of tones is always interesting.
I've also had an experience of laughing so hard at a book while on a plane that I got stares (I think it was The Dart League King--back when I actually made some attempt to read books for the Tournament of Books). For the sake of full disclosure I should admit that I did the same once while reading the Skymall magazine and laughing at the absurd products for sale. I think there's something about being at altitude that makes things funnier.
I'm not sure what my funniest book is but I'll nominate High Fidelity.