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Funniest Books- agree? Or what would you suggest...

edited February 2014 in - Reading
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/funniest-books.shtml

Not sure if I'd agree with all of the top 10 though... :-/

Comments

  • I don't agree with any of them...

    My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

    The one about England by Bill Bryson

    The Lucia trilogy by E F Benson

    Hmmm....

  • The only one I agree with is Wilt.
  • I haven't read that one, OLG (which just goes to show, I shouldn't have been so sweeping). What is it about?
  • One of the funniest things I ever read was in one of the James Herriot books where, to revive pedigree pooch, Tricki Woo (or something like that), he held fast onto her front paws and spun her round and round above his head. I couldn't see the words for tears streaming down my face.
  • I don't think that happened to Tricki Woo - that was the dog of someone who was psychic and they said that they had been flying through the air - Tricki Woo was the flop-bot dog. Yes all those books made me laugh... i read them over and over...
  • 'Hitchhikers' is my all-time favourite. Of Tom Sharpe's stuff, I'd place Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue before Wilt. P.G Wodehouse is hilarious if you picture his characters. Certainly all in my top ten.
  • The only one I agree with is Wilt.
    Used to be one of my favourite books :)

    Tend not to read humorous books right now, too busy reading for my BA

  • Douglas Adams, Bill Bryson, David Sedaris - all wonderfully funny. I read Tom Sharpe many years ago, but he didn't really do it for me. I've never read PG Wodehouse. James Herriot was a good chuckle when I read him years ago. :)
  • Certainly agree about 'Blott on the Landscape'.

    'Lucky Jim' is amusing, and the 'Hitchikers' book. :)
  • edited February 2014
    I have read Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson which was funny. One of the funniest books I have read was An Auctioneers Lot by Phillip Serrell who appears on Flog It and Bargain Hunt.
  • I have read Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson which was funny. One of the funniest books I have read was An Auctioneers Lot by Phillip Serrell who appears on Flog It and Bargain Hunt.
  • I wish I could stop repeating myself. :(
  • Have read six of Tom Sharpe- all vey funny.
    Just finished Nigel Williams Unfaithfully Yours unusual format for a story and also very funny.
  • Wilt is about a college lecturer (Henry Wilt) who hates his job teaching day-release students and is hen pecked by a domineering wife. He is arrested for murdering her and her lover and exasperates the police by constantly making flippant comments because he knows that they are alive and have gone away for a weekend.

    I saw the film before I read the book and was disappointed that two of my favourite scenes were written especially for the film. Mel Smith played the policeman and Griff Rhys-Jones played Wilt. The inspector has been reading some of Wilt's writing in which he is very critical of the police.

    "You're inferring that we're all thick."

    "No, I'm implying that you're all thick. You're inferring from what I've written that I think you're all thick."

    At one point the inspector gets extremely exasperated with Wilt for being flippant while on a charge of murder.

    "You appear to be completely disinterested in the gravity of the charges before you."

    "No, no, no, no. A judge is disinterested: impartial to both sides. I am completely uninterested in the gravity of the charges before me."

    As those scenes did not appear in the book, it's possible Tom Sharpe didn't write them, but it's still a very funny book.
  • Hmmm, well, I laughed at the description! Looks like I'll have to get it!

    But - Chambers and Oxford both have disinterested as also meaning uninterested, something which really irritates me.
  • Michael Frederick Green; "The Art Of Coarse Sailing" and similar "how to (not)" books. [Possibly too old for you 'young ones' to be considered in present ratings.]
    Alf White's pseusdonym, James Herriot, reminsce of a veterinarian profession.
    Franc Roddam's creation "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet".

    All particularly hilarious, perhaps, due to association with personal experiences.
  • Well said Jan! I'd forgotten the "Coarse" books. The only one I've read is Coarse Golf, but I have Coarse Sailing on the bedside table waiting for me to find time to read it.

    I also have The Deeper Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. A "Marmite" book: some find it hilarious, others think it ludicrous. I'm one of the former.
  • edited February 2014
    I remember back in the eighties, 'The Meaning of Liff' was doing the rounds and one of my colleagues on our project team christened me 'Clixby'.

    'Politely rude, briskly vague, firmly uninformative'.

    I've always rather cherished this description of myself, and I think 'Politely rude' still applies.

    It's a gift, you know.
  • Don't have to go much further than Jeeves I think..... (Wooster too of course!)
  • edited May 2014
    My first husband collected every Wodehouse book going, and we both read them all. The kind of books you can read once a year and still find funny.

    My current 'funny favourite' is Terry Pratchett - he is so very clever with words and he also bears repeated reading.

    I didn't like Wilt or the others much, and Hitchhiker was funnier on TV than in the book (Sorry - I know that's blasphemous!).
  • edited May 2014

    The one about England by Bill Bryson



    This had me laughing aloud too
    I think it's called 'Notes on a Small Island'
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