Ah, you know who’s hilarious? Tom Robbins, author of “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” “Skinny Legs and All,” etc. The dude is pounding the floor, laugh until you pee funny, but there’s something poetic and eloquent about his stuff, too. He writes these intricate, epic style stories and it gets off the wall like an acid trip at times. Here’s a review I wrote for “Cowgirls:”

A young lady with fantastically large thumbs. An all female ranch. Roundabout routes to self-descovery, hitchiking and whooping cranes. The troublesome part about reading “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” is twofold. The first is that you cannot put it down. The second is, having subjected yourself to such a large dose of Robbins trippy, meandering style, you begin to think like him. Worse, you begin to talk the way he writes. One moment, you’re having a perfectly lucid conversation with the boss about deadlines, the next, you’re babbling incongruously about the average rectal temperature of the hummingbird.

The novel moves along with the crazy, fast-and-slow pace of an acid trip. As a reader, you bounce and groove along with the story as though you were clinging to the side of a raft in rough seas.

Robbins has mastery over his readers, and “Cowgirls” is the book that welcomed me into his twisted world. The uniqueness of his writing style is apparent from page one. You might advance to page three just out of some perverse curiosity about this strange, gushing style. After that Robbins owns you. Thumbelina owns you, as she hitches away around the country with those freakishly sexy thumbs.

That’s another thing about Robbins. Things that shouldn’t be funny are hilarious. Things that shouldn’t be sexy are… well. You get my point. Read the book.

I love Christopher Moore! Picked up his books in a charity shop thanks to the eye-catching, bright covers, and have loved him ever since.

When I’m looking for stories with a bit of well-written funny, I turn to Terry Pratchett or Jasper Fforde.

I gotta go with Carl Hiaasen. I remember reading Double Whammy many years back and laughing my ass off at the idea that he’d made up a professional bass fishing tour. Then I found out there really was one and went back and read it again, and it was even funnier. And yet, through all the laughs, you can sense his heartbreak over what’s happening to Florida – politcally, ecologically, socially. The old if-I-didn’t-laugh-I’d-cry angle. Very funny man, very good writer.

Dan

How do I write something funny…I don’t, I’m not funny and I am always surprised if people laugh at me. because it is a fluke

Anything by Terry Pratchett. Some are better than others, but everything he writes is packed with invention and asides. One of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud instead of smiling wryly.
“Three Men In A Boat (not forgetting the dog)” by Jerome K Jerome. There are some people you only have to say “pineapple chunks” to to get them chortling.

[...] the original: Funny Books? « Oscars 2012: 'Fantastic Flying Books' wins for animated short film … #2: [...]

What Dan said about Carl Hiaasen. And along that line, Dave Barry’s BIG TROUBLE. I remember it cracking me up. I also find a lot of Kurt Vonnegut funny and love how he blended humor, heart, and serious things.

As for how to write funny: farting dogs! Put one in anything you write and watch the yucks begin! (I’m only half kidding.) As far as writing funny, I think a writer has to play to their strengths. My first novel is a humorous coming-of-age story about a family traveling cross country in a possessed station wagon. Where I’ve been told I can be funny is in the way I can look back at even a shitty situation and see the humor in it all. A narrator looking back on a trip packed into a car for more than a week with family leans toward what I can pull off when it comes to humor. I’m not sure if I could ever pull of a more high brow thing, though.

Scanning my books shelves, I don’t have too many straight up humorous novels. If I went through my comic book boxes, I’d find a lot of humor. But things like the Giffen/deMatthias run on Justice League America, the Tick, Ambush Bug, and things like that don’t seem to transfer over to novels.

Mostly, my shelves are lined with books with humorous moments contained within. For me, it’s often something serious that’s juxtaposed with humor that works best. I love when a writer runs with the humor to be found in something as serious as a funeral, or when a writer gets me laughing and then BOOM! they drop a serious bomb on me that stops me in my tracks.

I like Hiaasen, Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore and Tom Robbins.
I love Confederacy of Dunces, but find it doesn’t affect people as much anymore, to their detriment.
Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask, is brutally funny. I recommend that book without question.
But most bestseller comedies, to me, dance with their slip showing. They try very hard to be broadly funny, and irk me.
James Blaylock is very funny. The Last Coin and All the Bells on Earth are two of my favorite… modern fantasies? He gets pegged as horror, and there are elements of it in both, but those books are just damn funny.

My favorite crime novelists have dark senses of humor. Lawrence Block- funniest with his Burglar series- injects cynical humor into everything he does. Even Andrew Vachss, you’d be hardpressed to find harder boiled, is sly. His latest book about a bomb expert confined to a wheelchair is entitled… That’s How I Roll.
That still cracks me up. I’m a bad person.

In line with Hiaasen mentioned above is Tim Dorsey. He’s another writer of the wacky State of Florida. I just finished his latest novel “Pineapple Grenade.” All of his books follow pretty much the same story, but he’s so good at it that I can’t stop reading them. How can you go wrong with an acid-dropping nitwit playing duck,duck, goose with gun runners? Or killing a wife beater with giant soap bubbles and oscillating fans? And all those, who die bizarrely really deserve to die–it’s very cathartic.

And what is funny? Mark Twain said that humor is tragedy plus time. Maybe that’s it.

One of the fumiest books I’ve read was “Bored of the Rings” by Harvard Lampoon, though I did not enjoy from start to finish, just the bits where the mockery was thick. Direct parody like that is difficult in writing, and while it had moments, I don’t think it pulled it off all around.

However, Grunts by Mary Gently (who has the most misleading surname ever), is amazing. It’s the story of a group of orcs that come across an old Marine base, and there goals to take over everything. It is absolutely worth a read, and very entertaining.

The thing to me about writing comedy is that it can’t be constant. It works best is spurts, with the rest of the scene framing the joke. That’s a long way to go for one big payoff, but it’s like tension – build and release, build and release. Having it kind-of funny 100% (or even majorly) dilutes the overall effect.

For funny: Patrick McManus. P.G. Wodehouse. Tom Wolfe. Evelyn Waugh.

I’m trying to think of a female writer that I found laugh-out-loud funny, but I can’t. I have not yet read Tina Fey. However, reading Patrick McManus I have frequently cried from laughing.

It’s easier to write non-fiction humor than it is to write a funny novel, I think. Because making other people absurd doesn’t resonate as much as making yourself absurd?

Not a novel, but Chuck, if you ever published Search Term Bingo, I’d be laughing all the way to the buy button. Some of the funniest shit ever.

Pratchett was the obvious go-to guy.

No mention of Robert Asprin? His Myth books, particularly the early ones, were chock full of great humor. They got pretty hacky after a while, but there were always gems in there. I also love his Phule’s Company books (but only the first two, that he actually wrote).

I’ll also put out Neil Gaiman. Admittedly, his is much more “nuggets of humor embedded in serious tales”, but his nuggets are pure gold. “Good Omens” is, quite possibly, the perfect novel, and hilarious to boot. “Neverwhere” had some fantastic moments (particularly in the miniseries, where the actors really brought the dry humor to life). He just has that stereotypical British love of the absurd, and pulls it off flawlessly.

I think the single funniest novel I’ve ever read was The Gun Seller, by Hugh Laurie. Yeah, House. I have a theory there are, like, eleven people without any discernible talent wandering around in the world because Hugh Laurie got their rations, too. I also have an actual theory that the best satire is indistinguishable as such, and for that I refer to The Gun Seller. It’s a satire of noir that’s actually a nearly perfect noir novel (it flags a bit in the latter half. Structural issues).

Another is Nick Earls, though the caveat here is that I signed him and distribute his books digitally here in the US and in other territories. Nick’s Australian and often compared to Nick Hornby, but I think he focuses more on personal growth than personal relationships, and he mines that vein for his humor. His “Problems with a Girl and a Unicorn” is like Jorge Luis Borges doing stand-up comedy, if you can imagine that.

And of course the aforementioned Pratchett. I ended up stopping reading his books in public because they made me guffaw. Ditto Richard Kadrey.

Love Terry Pratchett, and in the genre of funny thrillers, I really liked Gary Marshall’s COFFIN DODGERS. For me, understated irony and unexpected observations in the telling of an otherwise straightforward tale make a funny novel. So you definitely need a good story, good characters, and everything else that makes a good novel. But you tell the story with a smile on your face, looking for the little quirks and absurdities of our world and human nature.

Incidentally, Gary Marshall has said that he found it impossible to sell his funny novel to publishers, so he went the Amazon route. Readers seem to like it, it’s Top 100 on the UK Kindle store!

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz is hilarious and intelligent (for me the two go hand in hand) and more recently Where’d you go Bernadette by Maria Semple.
Funny is an unexpected turn of phrase something that pulls your brain back from the route it thought it was going down to, that shocks your brain in marking a new groove. Same reason why puns and jokes are funny methinks!

Well, first I have to plug my own work, of course. Sorry, but No Small Bills (http://tinyurl.com/6lbumo9) is a funny, funny book–at least, that’s what people tell me. Hey, it’s about a duck-headed man’s hapless galactic road trip/quest to save the universe, very much in the style of Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. Don’t believe me? Go take a look.

So, what funny novels have I read and why were they funny? Hitchhikers Guide, Pratchett’s books, Good Omens, those top the list. Also, Ron Goulart’s books, and Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series. They were funny because they didn’t take themselves too seriously, they had fun, they threw off expectations and hit you with the ridiculous–all that and more. All of them had good characters, and I’d say all of them told good stories, though certainly the asides would violate some people’s ideas of good storytelling.

The question of what’s funny and how do you write it is harder, of course. But as I said, often humor is challenging expectations–you think you’re going to get a monster coming around the corner and instead you get a giant bunny rabbit with a bow tie, or a monster wearing bunny slippers, that’s funny. Snark and sarcasm are funny because they’re not the responses you expect in a situation, or not delivered the way you expect them. Being silly is funniest when it’s unexpected. But timing is everything–it’s only funny at the right moment, and only when it lasts the right length of time. It’s really tough to do right.

Joe Lansdale’s novels have a nasty sense of humor in them. From the Hap and Leonard series to his standalones. His characters east Texas smart ass comments to each other and in the face of adversity.

Looking at my bookshelves…

I have both “Confederacy of Dunces” (don’t encourage him) and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” and loved them both.

Something no one else will mention is “Fludd” by Hilary Mantel. There’s a discussion about getting a nun from one place to another, but they cannot walk alone, so the one nun accompanies the other to her destination, but then she can’t walk back alone, so the other one has to come with, and then the other one cannot return alone, so the other one must come with…

I can write very funny, but it sort of pops out unbidden.

How has Catch-22 not been mentioned yet? That was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. The deadpan, ridiculous dialogue is hysterical.

Chris Moore is hilarious and Lamb, I think, is one of his better ones. I read You Suck awhile ago and wasn’t really impressed with it but I loved A Dirty Job.

I write funny stuff. (Try this: http://littlefrigginginthewold.blogspot.com/).

What I have learnt that funny is all about timing, on the page as much as it is anywhere else, stand-up, comedy TV, film and so on. You have to get the funny bit in exactly the right place for it to work.

Also some words are funny than others: weasels and badgers are funny, wolves and foxes aren’t, for example.

In short, it is all about precision – just see how the greatest ever funny writer P.G. Wodehouse uses exact language, precise language.

I suppose it is more akin to poetry than prose. The right word in the right place, rhythm, they matter as much in funny as they do in poetry.

I found the Dexter novels (that the Showtime series is based on) by Jeff Lindsay very funny. It’s a dark, dry humor, instead of laugh out loud, but sometimes I prefer that.

And, it’s not a novel, but I laughed my ass off reading Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. I’ve never before laughed so hard while at the same time learning so much.

“I have no doubt that you could have flung bricks by the hour in England’s most densely populated districts without endangering the safety of a single girl capable of becoming Mrs. Augustus Fink-Nottle without an anaesthetic. “

-What Ho, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse

I think, in a lot of cases, for me humor breaks down thusly. The order from most to least importance:

-Language (how the situation, characters, etc are described)
-Situation (how bizarre or unusual is it?)
-Plot (how does one situation snowball or mutate into another?)
-Characters

I’ve found that I usually don’t care about the characters if a book is funny (Terry Pratchett being the exception, in some cases. I love Vimes and Susan to death, but I could take or leave Rincewind and the witches. I feel conflicted about Moist.). To take your making-a-sandwich example – a perfectly ordinary guy could make a perfectly ordinary sandwich, but if the process was described in the right way I could end up rolling on the floor with laughter. On the other hand, bizarre protagonist could make an equally eccentric sandwich, and I would be uneffected if it wasn’t described or presented properly.

Oh, how I wish Bill Bryson and Sarah Vowell wrote humor novels. I’d devour them. A novel by David Sedaris, too.

But since they don’t, Carl Hiaasen is my favorite. I re-read Star Island recently and it was as fantastically on-the-mark as I remembered from when I read it the first time.

Oh, and google “The Unrest Cure” or “Esme” by Saki (pen name of H. H. Munro). He’s the master of hilariously twisted short stories.

I scrolled through the responses, ready to drop Hugh Laurie’s “The Gun Seller” and cement my reputation as a cool-hunter, only to see Will Entrekin scoop me. Everything Will says above is correct. Laurie’s only written one novel (that I’m aware of) and “The Gun Seller” is so good, it’s as though he said, “Alright, I’ve mastered that art form. Nothing left to do there.”

There are definitely third-act structural problems, but anyone who’s a fan of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” shouldn’t be surprised that Laurie is a superb writer. Much of Laurie’s comedy is grounded in wordplay and love of language. Let loose to write a novel, he delivers one of the best noir send-ups of all time. Reading “The Gun Seller” will humble any writer.

Will, with your bona fides established by that Laurie recommendation, I will immediately add Nick Earls to my Wish List.

I also have to go with P.G Wodehouse as being the funniest but can I also get an amen for Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole books? Also a favourite is the Jilly Cooper series beginning with Riders. And Susan Juby’s ‘Alice, I think’ books.

How did I forget Lynne Truss (“Eats Shoots & Leaves”)?

She did a collection of novellas, and one was very clever. Something about a writer who carried around cupcakes, an actress, a Gabor lookalike, a rabbit who liked eating the cupcake wrappers, and a young man who dug up daffodil bulbs to “see how they were doing.” It was zany and delightful.

She’s sort of hit and miss, though. TRYING to be funny is hard. She seems to write best when the endorphins are a-pumping… I resemble that remark.

The funniest book I can remember is ‘Missing Links’ by Rick Reilly. It’s a sports novel so if you golf or have ever golfed, it makes it a little more relate-able but the characters are great and the story is fun.

This is also the only book I’ve ever read and literally laughed out loud.

A friend gave me a book called “Ass Goblins of Auschwitz” by Cameron Pierce, saying it was the most hilarious and fucked up piece of work he’d ever read.

By no stretch of the imagination could you call that book funny. Fucked up? Yes, a thousand times yes. A billion times yes. A jabillionty times yes.

Ass Goblins make apple cider from fermented children’s flesh and they make bicycles and sex toys out of the body parts of dead children. I can laugh at that sentence, it sounds like it has the potential to be funny; too bad it was written like an amateur Marquis De Sade. Sloppy, diluted shit that tries too hard.

I have no idea why I’m talking about the Ass Goblins. Fuck the Ass Goblins. Don’t look that shit up. (Look it up.)

Anyway. On Topic.

I picked up a book called “The Soddit” by A.R.R.R. Roberts (Adam Roberts). A parody of The Hobbit, I thought it’d read something like Bored of the Rings… Boy was I surprised. First off, the writing is fantastic, it draws you in straight away and it’s easy to read.

What set The Soddit apart from other parodies was the fact that as you read on, the story moves further and further away from the story it’s supposed to parodying until it gets so ridiculous all you can do is say “WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK HAHAAA WHAT’S HAPPENING OH MY JESUS HAHAHAAAAAA” as you go.

I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I laughed so hard I cried. The absurdity is what gets me. Absurdity, when DONE PROPERLY GOD-FUCK-IT, is my laugh sauce. I can’t recommend it enough for people who like things weird and out there and all over the place like a madwoman’s shit.

I’m gonna take it back to a classic, and throw Daniel Pinkwater into the ring. His books have held up over time, and were definitely some of the funniest books I read as a kid. (They’re still funny to me as an adult!)

For Me…Shelly Laurenston/G.A. Aiken makes me laugh until I cry. Every book. Though her humor is subjective (and often violent and bloody)

The first few Stephenie Plum Novels by Evanovich. But only the first 8 or so.

I’ve only ever actually laughed out loud at a Christopher Moore book. Other funny authors that I like are A. Lee Martinez, Jim C. Hines, John Scalzi.

Funny can be really hard to write. I try to do it. Sometimes it’s successful and I’ll get some chuckles in a workshop; other times it bombs and I have to go back to the drawing board.

The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings. Part of this book are so funny, I love it as a humorous fantasy book. Poor Althalus!

Christopher Moore and Jim Hines never fail to crack me up at all the appropriate places in their writing, and also make me think while doing it – and enjoy the characters and plot, too.

Terry Pratchett is, of course, the godfather of hilarious, thoughtful, thought-provoking fantasy.

Scalzi’s AGENT TO THE STARS is right up there, too.

Leonard Richardson’s CONSTELLATION GAMES cracks me the hell up in a similar way – great plot, great characters, great writing, and it’s talking about a video game dev nerd who’s making first contact. Yeah. Total package.

I cannot read Wodehouse in public, for fear of laughing myself silly and being carted off to an institution.

One of the funniest books I’ve read lately is “How I Became a Famous Novelist” by Steve Hely. It’s about a guy who writes an Oprah-like bestseller by exploiting nearly every genre in Barnes and Nobles. It’s a biting parody of modern publishing, and a hilarious read for any writer or wannabe writer.

Will agree with prior posters about Carl Hiaasen. His recent stuff doesn’t have quite the same pop, but the early books were brilliant. I thought Sick Puppy was genius.

I’ve learned a lot from reading his work too.

Catch 22 is another one I remember tickling my funny bone in high school. Haven’t read it since though.

I’m glad Wordslinger1919 and David Kazzie up there mentioned Catch-22…I too was scandalized that it hadn’t yet been mentioned!

I only read A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore, but remember being surprised and delighted that somebody else in the world used the word “fucktard”.

David Sedaris is typically funny…Me Talk Pretty One Day is the funny book of his that I like the best.

In Non fiction, Stiff: the curious life of the human cadaver, by Mary Roach, was improbably funny at times.

And, to go completely mainstream, One for the Money by Janet Evanovich had me snickering several times. The subsequent books…well, I gave up. But the first one was pretty good.

Since children’s books came up:

Shel Silverstein, “A light in the attic” and “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

(I’m paraphrasing since my daughter has the actual book.) “Daddy is taking a nap on the couch. Daddy needs a haircut, but he spends all his money buying me oatmeal. Poor Daddy. Where is the scissors?”

Everyone has mentioned Robbins, Wodehouse, Sedaris and Hiassen already — they immediately sprung to mind. But, I’m currently reading WEST OF HERE by Jonathon Evison. I’m laughing my ass off, but its much more subtle than the already mentioned. Yet, I think it’s funny.

In modern novels, I thoroughly enjoyed “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, a great book by Connie Willis that is full of humor, while also being a great time-travelling science fiction/historic piece. Its companion, “Domesday Book”, is also excellent, but I don’t remember laughing as much while reading it.

For classics, I was surprised and pleased when I discovered that Charles Dickens is a master of humor. I heartily recommend “Great Expectations”. I found myself laughing almost every other page at his sometimes subtle, but always charming, wit.

It’s already been said, but it’s worth saying again, but Terry Pratchet is one hoopy frood, and a happening dood.

And funny as hell.

Another author that gets me to laugh is Robert Rankin. A friend of mine got me “The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse”, saying that the name had a humour to it that reminded him of me.

Other novels by Rankin are The Toyminator, The Brightonomicon, Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls, Raiders of the Lost Car Park… the list just goes on. And they’re all crazy, humourous stories about things that seem absurd on first blush, but they kind of grow on you…

Echoing everyone else who said Good Omens because, duh – Gaiman and Pratchett.

I also loved Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. It’s a detective novel, but the detectives are SHEEP, set out to solve the murder of their shepherd.

Here’s a little love to “Apathy and Other Small Victories” by Paul Neilan.

I’m reading The Three Musketeers right now and it’s hilarious. Tried to read it in high school (?) and didn’t get the jokes at all, mostly because they’re all making fun of the adolescent mindframe. I also thought Catch-22 was funny when I first read it, but now I’ve picked it up again and am feeling it’s more tragic than anything. :/ Perspective is important!

I find I’m most apt to enjoy humour in novels when it’s balanced with serious parts and the same qualities that would make me enjoy a non-funny novel: an absorbing plot, interesting characters, etc. For instance, when it comes to Pratchett, I’m not crazy about the earlier Discworld novels, which were pretty much nothing but humour. The later ones, which often tackle serious issues in a humourous context, appeal to me more.

A sudden funny bit in an otherwise serious novel is much more likely to make me actually laugh out loud than a novel that’s funny all the way through. One writer I’ve discovered recently who does this very well is Ben Aaronovitch, author of Rivers of London/Midnight Riot (titled differently in the UK and North America for some odd reason) and Moon Over Soho. His books are mostly serious, suspenseful supernatural detective stories, but with occasional gems of hilarity sprinkled throughout. A couple of examples:

“Martin gave the body the ‘London once-over’ – a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress. The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered to be an extreme sport, like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling.”

“Inside, the mortuary was much the same as the rest of the hospital, but with fewer people complaining about the state of the NHS.”

Piers Anthony could write humorously. His Xanth novels would slap you around with silliness every now and then and sometimes the puns would get me cracking. I still chuckle when I think of the plot behind Crewel Lye.

I think like Adams’ Hitckhiker, the story and characters were already there and the humor was an organic part of the books.

John Green actually writes hilarious stuff when he isn’t being melodramatic. He’s a YA author, and I read his books for the funny element rather than for all the mopeyness he manages to throw in.

Sherman Alexie is another author whose work is at once profound and humorous. Unlike John Green, I think he manages to pull of the cross between funny and depressing. His voice is more authentic, whereas Green puts in lots of cerebral philosophizing about life and themes and shit. I like Green’s humor because it sounds more authentic than when he has teenaged guys go off on pages-long speeches about Leaves of Grass and the significance of life in order to explain the moral of the story before the book ends. It’s very heavy-handed — but his humor is natural, funny, and often laugh-out-loud. :/

Oh yeah, Dianna Wynne Jones (British YA fantasy author) is very funny, in her British way. So is Jane Austen. It is kind of sad how often I lol’d while reading Pride and Prejudice. Austen mercilessly observes and comments on people’s fallacies and quirks.

I have to agree with the Hugh Laurie novel suggestion, it’s the only time since I accidentally waved a Ben Elton novel at him that I have ever seen my dad finish a book.

Also, one of my personal favourites is Christopher Brookmyre. Often described both as “the Scottish Carl Hiaasen” and a pioneer of “Tartan Noir”, he is just discerningly honest about Scots; we’re all bat-shit crazy. He writes action and crime with a great sense of humour, and characters you just want to slap about, regardless how much you love them.

He got a complaint that he used too much Scots dialect in one of his novels, so wrote a glossary that you had to know even more Scots and Scottish culture to discern. You’ve got to love a guy like that.

Rather than re-suggest items already listed above, I’ll hit you with something nobody has suggested yet: Woody Allen.

Not a huge fan of his films, but when I was 17 somebody sat me down and made me read the collections of his short work and plays: Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects and Mere Anarchy.

So many solid recommendations – to the Kindle!

I devoured Jess Riley’s Driving Sideways during a series of flights and layovers, alternately snickering, giggling, snorting, and crying-from-laughter in public the entire time.

A narrator who can be witty (whether that’s dry or absurdist or somewhere in between) while things are going to shit around hir will get me every time.

First full disclosure: I have never been able to get into the books of Moore. Not that he is bad (heaven forbid) but it just always feels a bit stale to me, not really engaging. The same actually goes for the much beloved Good Omens. I guess Pratchett just doesn’t do it for me.
Funny books: often I find that the pun heavy and rather over the top strange of the Xanth books is quite good, Aspirin’s MythAdventures are much the same, if a bit less wildly based on bad puns. In both cases they have their weaknesses, but the characters feel solid and the plot makes sense. I do rate them as mostly just funny though.

Ultimately though I will have to point to a children’s author. Ever since I was young I have loved him and all I need to get a laugh and lighten my mood is one of his novels. Though admittedly they make me hungry, given how often he describes food. And yes his work is more than funny. I find it insightful, clever, I love the plots and for the most part the characters are great as well. Who is this wonder of writing you ask? Daniel Pinkwater. Alan Mendelsohn Boy From Mars, the Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and Young Adult Novel never fail to make me laugh and forget the world for a moment. On a smaller note I also have a love of the essays of Dave Barry.

Writing funny? That’s hard actually. I love wordplay and rapid fire wit and dry humour and those are often tricky to pull off in the written word. I guess puns can be used but are often overdone, and besides we already have two entire series of books based on the idea. There is that whole thing of setup of and reversal of expectation that underlies a lot of humor but I’m not even sure that works in written fiction. I will give an example of well written funny that I love, though, to perhaps work from.

In the Alan Mendelsohn Boy From Mars the two main characters find that they have psychic powers that can influence the actions of people. After quickly tiring of pranks they learn from a martian biker that a translation dictionary not only contains the clues on how to use these powers but has another code that shows how to move to other dimensions. The whole thing is absurd on the face of it, especially when we learn that green chili is actually a dish from Atlantis. But these two boys just roll with it and go on a vacation to another world. In Fat Men from Space no one really questions why fat space pirates want ten thousand calorie snacks served in backpacks, they just make the snacks. Absurd situations, mostly normal characters and unusual food fixations seem to be a winning combination here.

I just read Warren Ellis’ novel, Crooked Little Vein, and I laughed so hard that my sphincter almost let go. His graphic novels are pretty awesome too if you like Hunter S. Thompson style absurdity.

I don’t see it yet, so I have to put up Spider Robinson’s Callahan Place books. Just be ready for a serious amount of pun-ishment.

I’ve read Boomsday by Christopher Buckley and thought it was hilarious. His writing is so smooth is like cutting butter (at room temperature that is.) I also like Nick Hornby. He is more subtle but his characters just have this dry sense of humor and self-deprecating qualities that can be very funny. I think you have to be extra smart to pull off funny. Right timing is a must—a quality that I’m yet to develop.

It’s been mentioned a few times before in previous replies but, A Confederacy Of Dunces is possibly one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. It was a favorite of mine even before I moved to New Orleans three years ago. Now that I know the landscape down here, I re-read it recently and loved it even more!
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is also brilliantly funny…

I haven’t seen it yet, so I’d have to recommend Spider Robinson’s Callahan Place books. Just as long as you’re ready for some serious pun-ishment.

Douglas Adams is the only flat-out humor novelist that comes to mind, other than Christopher Moore. But even Moore isn’t quite the off-the-wall humor Adams was. Adams casts such a huge shadow that it almost seems to have scared writers off from doing the comedy for fear of the unavoidable comparisons. There’s quite a bit of humor in Nick Hornby’s stuff. Vonegut, of course. Not the same, though.

My personal favorite for humor is Terry Pratchett. He is the funniest man alive, in my opinion, and his books are awesome–excepting the first two Discworld novels, which I am not the biggest fan of…they just feel slow and flat compared to his later ones.

TICK TOCK by Dean Koontz is a very funny book–I enjoy the rapid-fire banter of the main characters. Koontz did say he was inspired by the comedic stylings of Abbot and Costello and the Marx Brothers in that book, and it shows.

I also have a particular soft spot in my heart for the Iron Druid Chronicles–a fairly recent series published by Kevin Hearne. Occasionally the humor feels a bit forced, like he felt that it’d been too long since he’d had a humorous bit and needed to shoehorn something in, but all in all, the observations are hilarious and the banter is great. Two ancient characters getting into a Shakespearean quote off during a high speed pursuit by an angry god on a highway? Equal parts dramatic/tense/comedic gold.

To me, funny books are good, but if the humor is there helping enrich a fantastic plot and/or the relationships of strong, likeable characters, then I am head over heels for such books. Pratchett always delivers this, Hearne does pretty well. Adams is, of course, a classic. Gaiman does pretty well in this regard as well. I only wish I could write like these fellows.

Being a sick, twisted, dark bastard, I tend to gravitate toward books with protags who are sick, twisted, dark bastards, which is why I love Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos series. Vlad’s dialogue with his little dragon-like familiar just slays me every single time, and he’s got a really quick, rapid-fire wit. The running gags are great once you get addicted to the series (which can be read out of order without screwing anything up).

The other sick bastard I love is Glen Cook, for his Black Company trilogies. People who surround themselves with death and destruction have to develop a gallows humor real quick. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read any of these books. They rock.

The projects I’m working on involve some quick-witted characters (especially the pirates) but they have pretty dry humor and tend to prefer sarcasm and sly innuendos. I can’t imagine why.

I was a lit junkie in college and loved 3 Musketeers and Catch 22, but one of the most unlikely places I found great humor was in a random bookstore treasure called “The Art of Hanging.” Yes, that’s exactly what it’s about, and the gallows humor couldn’t be any sharper…even though it actually is a very informative treatise on how England handled executions, back in the day. Gotta love a book that starts out with “Chapter One: When the Boiling Stopped”.

Most of mine are already taken, but I’ll add Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. It’s dark, dark stuff, but at the end, there’s a head on a skateboard with legs and etc.

Hmm – lots to consider. I like Terry Pratchett, his Disc World series are clever. As is Jasper Fforde.
Right now I’m more old school – reading Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, by Stephen Leacock.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be funny, but I laughed a lot while reading Lullabies for Little Criminals. It was just great. And dark. And funny. *shrugs* I may be crazy, but it comes with the territory.

I haven’t read anything of his in a while, Maxx Barry is quite funny. Specifically Syrup and Jennifer Government. I’m not prone to laughing out loud, but both of these had several moments where I needed to pause to laugh and earn a weird look from my wife. Well worth you time.

What makes them funny is not the language, but the situations the characters get in and the odd ways they get out of them. It’s almost like watching a really good sit com.

1) Solar by Ian McEwan
2) Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
3) The Bonfire Of The Vanities by Tom Wolfe
4) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
5) Scoop/Black Mischief/Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
6) Money (A Suicide Note) by Martin Amis

Your disciples may have read all of the above, but if not they are all well worth reading. And yes, they are all FUNNY.

Christopher Moore truly is one of the best and is great about responding to e-mails. Lamb is what made me want to write fiction (even though it’s taken nearly 10 years from the time I read it to move from sportswriting to fiction). Gaiman’s and Pratchett’s Good Omens is one of the best novels I’ve read in a very long time and obviously, Douglas Adams. Hitchhiker’s Guide is still my desert island book. Finally, Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris can write stories & essays that will have you laughing hysterically one moment and sobbing the next. Burroughs’ Dry was a great example of that.

Obviously you’ve all been waiting for my response, since I am the expert on humor and all things funny-related. It says so on my bidness cards.
I guess we should separate fiction from non-fiction; some of the funniest books I’ve ever read were the textbooks for my engineering classes. Maybe you had to be there, or maybe I was really high.
I like Hiaassen, even though he needs to change how he spells his name. I love Dorsey–I LOL all over the place reading his books.
And I love Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum. I hope to Christ they don’t fuck up the movie. Addams–of course Addams.
The thing about humor is–you can’t try to hard. HG2G *feels* like Douglas Addams made it up entirely as he went, by the seat of pants. You can’t go back and edit and MAKE something funny. You have to start with funny, then go back and edit and make it grammatical.
Or at least give it the allusion of grammatical.

Confederacy of Dunces, hands down. No others need apply.

Of course, Christopher Moore is amazing. I read Fool anytime I’m depressed and need to laugh so hard I nearly wet myself. I also read The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie. I was impressed. Terry Pratchett is amazing, but that really goes without saying.

Douglas Adams was a genius. If u havent read his Dirk Gently novels as well, you are missing some good shit. no mention of Roald Dahl… maybe not laugh out loud funny, but I think he was a master of looking at the world from the most absurd point of view.

I have to agree with Lynne re: Terry Pratchett. He is easily my favourite author because on top of being side-splittingly hillarious, his books have real depth. You find yourself caring about the characters and their troubles in a real way.

If I had to pin it down to two things which make his comedy outstanding, one would be how he observes and portrays actual human behaviour and his sense of comedic timing; the jokes are always exactly where you need them to be, there’s always the right amount of space between the set up and the finish.

Go Lor for mentioning Christopher brookmyre. Funnier than Carl hiassen, for me, with a cracking crime story as well. Quite Ugly One Morning is one of the funniest modern books I’ve read. Pratchett, Adams and woodhouse, of course. Kerry greenwood, who writes historical and modern cosies isn’t usually laugh out loud, but very amusing.

Kurt Weichert is my newest favorite author. His latest book “SportsFan Chronicles,” had me laughing so hard throughout the entire book – ENTOURAGE MEETS ANIMAL HOUSE kind of books- LOL
http://www.sportsfanchronicles.com