Are there really any genuine funny books out there to read?

Westindieman

'Mort' was my introduction to Pratchett and I would prolly list it as my favourite. Tom Sharpe is the once that does have me laughing out loud though.

Jim Di Griz

If you like Alan Partridge, the book will make you laugh a lot, pretty cheap too!

ukbootlegs

Agree with this, and I wasn't a fan of the show actually.


Also, I would recommend Mrs Fry's Diary by Stephen Fry.  A short book, 2-3hours read, but very LOL moments.  Even my wife was giggling at it.

DPinBucks

Probably the funniest writer of short pieces is (the unfortunately late) Alan Coren, eg The Sanity Inspector, Golfing for Cats, The Bulletins of Idi Amin, etc.

Other good stuff:
Molesworth
Adrian Mole (not connected with the above)
A J Wentworth
The Art of Coarse ... series by Michael Green

For longer novels, try PG Wodehouse, whom I love, but is definitely a Marmite author, though.

The funniest one-off books I have read are Lucky Jim and Billy Liar (both also made into great films).

Not forgetting Catch-22.

For humorous SF, try Eric Frank Russell or Fredric Brown.

Kailash

think its time i read a comedy, this wilt sounds good.
should i just start at the beginning (1976)

FZR400RRSP

'Through it all I've always laughed' by Count Arthur Strong is laugh out loud funny.
I also laugh a lot at Charlie Brooker books.

pbryd

I enjoyed some lol moments reading:

Stairlift to Heaven by Terry Ravenscroft

Stairlift to Heaven (The journal of an OAP.) Don’t miss this one whatever you do! Although Stairlift to Heaven is written by an old age pensioner, non-coffin dodgers should not be put off by this. Everyone will be old someday, if they’re lucky, and there are valuable lessons in coping with old age to be learned here.

Eltee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(novel)
This made me laugh out loud when I read it.
e (originally subtitled The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers) is a comic novel by Matt Beaumont first published in 2000. Written in the epistolary tradition, it consists entirely of e-mails written between the employees of an advertising agency and some of their business partners. Thus, the novel is a multiple-perspective narrative where events are seen through the eyes of various people working for the agency, from temp to CEO. e centres on corporate business structures, leadership, creativity, headhunting for and firing people to keep up appearances, work efficiency, business ethics, and all kinds of human weaknesses which stall progress by having employees waste their time and energy on unimportant things and which eventually prevent success.
Beaumont worked as a copywriter himself before embarking on a literary career, and e is his debut novel.

Billy Goodgun

'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', anyone (the 'trilogy of four')?  Surely?

Recently, 'Yellow Blue Tibia' by Adam Roberts really made me laugh (the narrator is bone-dry and acerbic, a great protagonist).

Also, 'Love, Nina' by Nina Stibbe.  It's a collection of (real-life) letters written home by a live-in nanny.  She lived with Mary-Kay Wilmers (ex-wife of director Stephen Frears) and her two sons, and Alan Bennett lived across the street and popped by for tea most days.  Her letters home to her sister are warm, astute, and very, very funny.

Apsilon

I don't think I can recall reading any book that's ever made me laugh out loud and I have tried a few. For some reason, humour or comedy simply doesn't work for me in written form. I need visual stimulus to go along with text and intended humour I always find disappointing. I would go as far as to say that the only stuff that I find funny to read are the stories on Reddit and even those I have to be in the mood for.