NationStates Jolt Archive

I have only read two books that made me laugh out-loud: The Devil's Dictionary (http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/), by Ambrose Bierce and The Dying Earth series, by Jack Vance (quotes below).

Asm of eight-fangs: “Flee if you wish! I need the exercise."

Captain Baunt: “This is unreasonable! If he felt dejection, why not simply jump into the sea? Why suborn our valuable worm to his personal and private uses?”

Cugel: "I am not one to crouch passively with my hind-quarters raised, awaiting either the kick or the caress of destiny! I am Cugel! Fearless and indomitable, I confront every adversity!"

Bubach Angh: “A man I will kill for my eye! Do I toil thirty-one years for the benefit of a vagabond!”

Bunderwal: "I am a dignified citizen of the area, not a fox-faced vagabond in an over-fancy hat."

Chief Elder: “Though formerly a vagabond and a cut-throat, you are now a prince, a man of responsibility.”

Deodand: “I desire the one who has entered. I hunger for her flesh.”

Doulka: “Must your disgust be so blatant? True: we are anthropophages. True: we put strangers to succulent use. Is this truly good cause for hostility? The world is as it is and each of must hope to in some fashion to be of service to his fellows, even if only in the form of soup.”

Drofo: “After a hundred worms and ten-thousand leagues, then with justice you may say, 'I am wise!' or, to precisely the same effect: 'I am a worminger!'

Funambule: “Inconsequential claptrap!”

Fuscule: "I am a worminger, not a student of weird physiological mysteries.”

Guyal of Sfere: “My eye went to you like the nectar moth flits to jacynth.”

Iolo: “Surely you agree that this hole is half my property!”

Kindive the Golden: “Out of the room quickly! Mischief lurks somewhere and I must blast it with magic!”

Krasnark: " I suggest that Master Chernitz retract the term 'moral leaper' and Cugel his 'tree-weasel', and there let the matter rest."

Liane the Wayfarer: “I can suffocate you in pearls, blind you with diamonds.”

Lodermulch: “What have we here? I thought to detect knavery, and here is justification! Return my money on the instant!”

Morreion: ”To inflict but a pin prick upon a single one of my enemies I would have died by torture a hundred times!”

Mermalant: “Do you carry beer? We are beer-drinkers of nobles repute and show our bellies to all.”

Nisbet: “Two: hours of lose philosophizing will never tilt the scale against the worth of one sound belch.”

Duk Orbal: “…your exhibit seems somewhat makeshift and impromptu. Contrast, if you will, the precision of Zaraflam’s cockroaches!”

Pharesm: “Ah! Five hundred years I have toiled to entice this creature, despairing, doubting, brooding by night, yet never abandoning hope that my calculations were accurate and my great talisman cogent. Then, when it finally appears, you fall upon it for no other reason then to sate your repulsive gluttony...! I can define the gravity of your act in this manner: should I explode you on this instant into the most minute of your parts the atonement would measure one ten-millionth of your offense. A more stringent retribution becomes necessary.”

Peasant: “Notice: I drink wine, though I may not live to become drunk. Does this deter me? No! I reject the future; I drink now, I become drunk as circumstances dictate.”

Rhialto: “Pryffwyd, your vision is dim; you do not recognize me for Rhialto. I am working to place your eyes at the end of foot-long stalks. You will soon be able to see in all directions at one.”

Shierl: “You are not uncomely.”

Shilko: “What do you perceive? Goblins disguised as pick rats? Or centipedes dancing the kazatska?”

Slaye: “I will make you a grandee of the realm! You shall have a barge of carved ivory, and two hundred maidens shall serve your wants; your enemies shall be clamped into a rotating cauldron—only give me the amulet!”

T’Sain: “I know not know how to explain beauty. You seem to find joy in nothing. Does nothing give you satisfaction?”

T’Sais: “Only killing and destruction. So these must be beautiful.”

Varmous: "I am not apt for magic; weirdness makes me ery."

Voynod (just before he gets killed): “Take care, you dunghill-cocks!”

I have also read the HHGG and Discworld series, which I enjoyed much, but did not literally laugh at. I have also read Mark Twain's stuff, which I found humorous, but I still did not laugh-out-loud.

So, you all have an idea of my sense of humor; please recommend me a book that will make me laugh.

$5 says that someone says "The Bible". I just have a feeling.

$5 says that someone says "The Bible". I just have a feeling.

what a feeling, do do do.
Oh definatly a dictionary, for all the swear words *giggles*.

$5 says that someone says "The Bible". I just have a feeling.

You just did.


Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neal Gaiman made me laugh out loud, in public no less.

Skepticism Inc. by Bo Fowler also made me laugh.

$5 says that someone says "The Bible". I just have a feeling.


I read it. I found Greek Mythology funnier. I loved that bit in The Iliad where Zeus declares his love for Hera by telling her that he loves her more than (insert woman he had affair with). And then adds affair to affair. He names a few dozen women, then says: "You are fairer then them all."

"The Hippopotamus" by Stephen Fry.

The Bible for sure.
The Da' Vinci Code (really awsome book, wrote by a nut case)
Keeping You A Secret.

The Barry Trotter series is excellent, not least because it's actually funny and well-written, unlike most satire.

$5 says that someone says "The Bible". I just have a feeling.

*pays*

I read it. I found Greek Mythology funnier. I loved that bit in The Iliad where Zeus declares his love for Hera by telling her that he loves her more than (insert woman he had affair with). And then adds affair to affair. He names a few dozen women, then says: "You are fairer then them all."

Zeus sounds like my dad. :p

I laugh easily, but the barry trotters were good. Bored of the rings and star warped were also ok.

Zeus sounds like my dad. :p

Lmao.

Lamb by Christopher Moore.

Anything by Dave Barry - esp. Dave Barry Does Japan and Boogers are my Beat.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

Neverwhere also by Gaiman. Not purposefully funny, but very much so nonetheless.

Any of the Callahans or Lady Sally books by Spider Robinson, esp. if you like puns.

Also, War with the Newts by Karel Capek

Anything by Douglas Adams

maybe you would like Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Zeus sounds like my dad. :p

Indeed?

And Jove said, "Juno, you can choose some other time for paying
your visit to Oceanus--for the present let us devote ourselves to
love and to the enjoyment of one another. Never yet have I been
so overpowered by passion neither for goddess nor mortal woman as
I am at this moment for yourself--not even when I was in love
with the wife of Ixion who bore me Pirithous, peer of gods in
counsel, nor yet with Danae the daintily-ancled daughter of
Acrisius, who bore me the famed hero Perseus. Then there was the
daughter of Phoenix, who bore me Minos and Rhadamanthus: there
was Semele, and Alcmena in Thebes by whom I begot my lion-hearted
son Hercules, while Semele became mother to Bacchus the comforter
of mankind. There was queen Ceres again, and lovely Leto, and
yourself--but with none of these was I ever so much enamoured as
I now am with you." -Samuel Butler's translation of The Iliad.

Several parts of The Catcher and the Rye made me laugh out loud.

The only book that my entire family laughed out loud at was "Winterdance" by Gary Paulsen. You have to get past the first forty or fifty pages where he's communing with nature and decides to run the Iditarod (sp?) and wait till he gets the dogs. It's beyond hilarious.

Oh! Last to See by Douglas Adams. Hitchhikers Guide is kind of obvious, but this slightly lesser known (though I don't think I know an Adams fan who hasn't read it) is well worth the read and hilarious.

The only book that my entire family laughed out loud at was "Winterdance" by Gary Paulsen. You have to get past the first forty or fifty pages where he's communing with nature and decides to run the Iditarod (sp?) and wait till he gets the dogs. It's beyond hilarious.

Hm. Some reviews say his style is like Jack London or Ernest Hemingway....

CToaN is a smart man to have recommended both Good Omens and Last Chance to See, both of which are simultaneously utterly hilarious and full of actual serious points.

I am America(and so can you) By Stephen T. Colbert
The Bible(only because Zilam said something)

Most of Pratchett. Some by Robert Rankin and Tom Holt. Parts of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Oh! Last to See by Douglas Adams. Hitchhikers Guide is kind of obvious, but this slightly lesser known (though I don't think I know an Adams fan who hasn't read it) is well worth the read and hilarious.

Also The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul

"Don Quixote" made me laugh like an idiot when I was a kid - it starts out silly and ends even sillier, two thousand pages later. :p It was one of the books that helped form my addiction to the classics. I mention it because not all of us like Sci-Fi, even if it *is* is the internet.

I am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

"Some of you may be asking yourselves, if I'm not a fan of books, why did I write one? Well, I didn't. I dictated it. I yelled into a phone and a typist at the other end wrote it. But like all dictaters, I value one thing above all others: my opinion. Mine. My own."

Anything by Ayn Rand.

American Psycho made me laugh so much. I don't know why. Just some of the things he thinks at the time he thinks them is hilarious.

I like Wodehouse. I used to laugh so much when I read them.

I have a feeling nobody reads Wodehouse these days.

Also The Long Dark Tea Time Of The Soul

And Dirk Gently's Detective Agency. Both well worth a read.

And yes, it's already been mentioned but I must reiterate the love for Good Omens. I love almost all of terry pratchett's work, but I have to say the Discworl amuses me greatly but rarely causes as many LOL moments (to use the abrieviation) that Good Omens does (but if you are going for comedy in Discworld, Guards! Guards!, Men At Arms, Jingo and Hogfather probably rank among my favorites for comedy, Night Watch is up their for all times favorites but it is a distincly darker humour).

Charlie Brooker's Dawn of the Dumb I personally foudn hillarious, but you may need to be british to appreciate it as it's a collection of essays/rants about UK pop culture.

Bill Bryson actually has always been a source of amusment for me, although I haven;t read any of his books recently, but is probably worth giving a go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molvan%C3%AEa

I've read Good Omens twice now and have found it to be singularly unimpressive. (I read it twice to see if maybe I was missing something the first time round but nope). I've always found Prachett tries too hard to be humorous and clever, filling his books with unnecessary puns more to make himself look clever and hide the thinness of the storyline than anything else.
Gaiman I find is more intellectually amusing and way more imaginative. I enjoyed Anasi Boys which I read recently. Also Coraline, but that wasn't really humour.

Jack Vance can write extremely amusing books, as OP already mentioned. I love his turns of phrases* and ridiculous situations he places his characters.

* eg. "If your business requires feats of physical prowess, I beg you to hire elsewhere. My janitor might satisfy your needs: an excellent chap who engages his spare time moving bar-bells from one elevation to another." (The many worlds of Magnus Ridolph)

Stephen Leacock and Ogden Nash are two great literary wits who always make me laugh.
One book I've found extremely funny is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Read Dave Barry. His books are like my laughter-therapy.

I like Wodehouse. I used to laugh so much when I read them.

I have a feeling nobody reads Wodehouse these days.

I totally read Wodehouse, and he's excellent. :)

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.

It’s a satirical, anti-war, anti-imperialist novel written after the First World War. It follow the exploits of Josef Švejk, a soldier and an idiot serving in the Austro-Hungarian army.

Fantastically funny, with a biting satirical edge. And it’s illustrated throughout by Josef Lada:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5518/svejk01hc6.png

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.

It’s a satirical, anti-war, anti-imperialist novel written after the First World War. It follow the exploits of Josef Švejk, a soldier and an idiot serving in the Austro-Hungarian army.

Fantastically funny, with a biting satirical edge. And it’s illustrated throughout by Josef Lada:

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/5518/svejk01hc6.png

Good call. The movie was pretty great too.

I have also read the HHGG and Discworld series, which I enjoyed much, but did not literally laugh at.

If you didn't laugh at anything in any of the Discworld books, or the Hitchhiker's Guide series then I have absolutely nothing that I can recommend to you, other than a sense-of-humour transplant.

The Anne of Green Gables series.

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons Series.

Anything by Victoria Wood.

The Bad Mother's Handbook.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neal Gaiman made me laugh out loud, in public no less.

I just bought this, and I am enjoying it immensely. The sucker is funny from the first page.

I like Wodehouse. I used to laugh so much when I read them.

I have a feeling nobody reads Wodehouse these days.

My Dad owns all the Blandings series in hard-cover.

Anything by Terry Pratchett, especially if you appreciate satire... "Night Watch" may be his best, "Jingo" is a great one that makes fun of nationalism, too...

Real Ultimate Power: The Ninja Sourcebook by Robert Hamburger is totally hilarious!

You just did.


Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neal Gaiman made me laugh out loud, in public no less.

Skepticism Inc. by Bo Fowler also made me laugh.

PTerry's always good for a laugh. I enjoy Douglas Adams too.

A lesser known book I found hilarious was The Thought Gang, by Tibor Fischer.

Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore. Best graphic novel ever involving people resembling actual people.

Or, as Neil Gaiman put it: "What most people know about love, sex and relations with other people could fill a book. Strangers in Paradise is that book."



For a more basic guffaw, try Illegal Aliens by Phil Foglio and Nick Pollotta.

'Are you Dave Gorman?' and 'Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure' by Dave Gorman are fantastically funny books ....and they're all true!

Three Men on a Boat or Three Men on a Bummel by Jerome k Jerome
or Just Willliam

"Is it just me or is everything Shit?" Volumes one and two.

A Confederacy of Dunces

I am saddened that nobody mentioned Dilbert author Scott Adams...

So, you all have an idea of my sense of humor; please recommend me a book that will make me laugh.Try Bimbos of the Death Sun (http://www.amazon.com/Bimbos-Death-Sun-Sharyn-Mccrumb/dp/0345483022/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204489328&sr=1-1), by Sharyn McCrumb. It's about a murder at a gamer's convention, which, if you've played computer games or D&D before, you'll be able to relate to. It's incredibly absurd while still eerily realistic.

Bear V. Shark by Chris Bachelder is hilarious.

Or another really good book is "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. Irreverent and hilarious.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. His first couple of books are OK, but a few books in it really picks up and becomes an amazing and entertaining read.

I totally forgot. Everything is illuminated. It's utterly hilarious. Alex's use of words are premium!

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Anything by Dave Barry

America: The Book. A citizens guide to democracy inaction.
By Jon Stewart. Or Our Dumb Century by the Onion or Our Dumb World.
Not exactly literary greatness, but books that will make you laugh out loud anyway.

Anything by Max Barry

Fixed.

:p

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift made me laugh out loud, especially the part where he compares politicians to poop-flinging monkeys, although he wrote it in a more refined way than that.

I just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde last night and that made me laugh too, although it also has it's sad parts. Oscar Wilde in general makes me laugh.

As You Like It and The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare literally made me laugh out loud.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen made me laugh.

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift made me laugh out loud, especially the part where he compares politicians to poop-flinging monkeys, although he wrote it in a more refined way than that.

I read it. Good.

I just finished The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde last night and that made me laugh too, although it also has it's sad parts. Oscar Wilde in general makes me laugh.

I read that also. Witty.

As You Like It and The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare literally made me laugh out loud.

Sorry, I am still recuperating from A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen made me laugh.

:confused:

Sorry, I am still recuperating from A Midsummer's Night Dream.


Try King Lear. I thought it was much better than ...that.. play.

As for Rangerville's mention of Pride and Prejudice... maybe it had its hilarious moments.. but so do computer manuals.

Fixed.

:p

I must confess, Jennifer Government had some excellent humor in it. John Nike constantly irritated by "the Pepsi kid" was a riot. And I really did have a belly laugh after I read the "McAssholes" paragraph. I will always remember John Nike as a throughly despicable villain who is utterly enjoyable to read about. I have a love/hate relationship with him. ;)

Try King Lear. I thought it was much better than ...that.. play.

King Lear is a fine piece of work, though Hamlet will always be my favorite.

As for Rangerville's mention of Pride and Prejudice... maybe it had its hilarious moments.. but so do computer manuals.

My thoughts.

I am saddened that nobody mentioned Dilbert author Scott Adams...

That might be because he's a one-joke writer, but some people dig that.

I read it. I found Greek Mythology funnier. I loved that bit in The Iliad where Zeus declares his love for Hera by telling her that he loves her more than (insert woman he had affair with). And then adds affair to affair. He names a few dozen women, then says: "You are fairer then them all."

I dont know but I find "your breasts are like towers" in the song of solomon to be exceptionally hilarious myself

Has anybody mentioned the bible yet?

1. Anything by Patrick F. McManus (How I Got This Way, The Grasshopper Trap, A Fine And Pleasant Misery and many others)

2. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

3. The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

4. any Pearls Before Swine cartoon collection by Stephan Pastis

*edit*
I like Wodehouse. I used to laugh so much when I read them.

I have a feeling nobody reads Wodehouse these days.

I've read a number of the Jeeves and Wooster stories. They're a bit of an acquired taste, and the humor wasn't laugh-out-loud, but they were enjoyable.

"The Alphabet of Manliness" by Maddox and "Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book" by Robert Hamburger.

I found Three men in a boat by Jerome Klapka Jerome pretty funny, but it is probably a bit too obscurely English to be universallly laugh out loud funny.

EDIT
Just saw Rhursbourg beat me to it. The sequel is good too.

By the time I was through reading this thread and ready to reply, I had multi-quoted an assload of posts saying "Good Omens" and "Last To See", so instead of cluttering the thread with all these posts I'll just repeat it here, because those books deserve it.

Another one that might resound with many people on here (even if they are not of the, uh, "target generation"; I'm rather younger and still enjoyed it immensely - AND I'm a woman) is Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs".

Please allow me to quote from the amazon website (http://www.amazon.com/Microserfs-Douglas-Coupland/dp/0060987049/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204540252&sr=8-3):

Microserfs is not about Microsoft--it's about programmers who are searching for lives. A hilarious but frighteningly real look at geek life in the '90's, Coupland's book manifests a peculiar sense of how technology affects the human race and how it will continue to affect all of us. Microserfs is the hilarious journal of Dan, an ex-Microsoft programmer who, with his coder comrades, is on a quest to find purpose in life.
[...]
examines the angst of the white-collar, under-30 set in this entertaining tale of computer techies who escape the serfdom of Bill Gates's Microsoft to found their own multimedia company. The story is told through the online journal of Danielu@microsoft.com, an affable, insomniac, 26-year-old aspiring code writer. Together with his girlfriend Karla, a mousy shiatsu expert with a penchant for Star Trekky aphorisms, and a tight clique of maladjusted, nose-to-the-grindstone housemates, he relocates to a Lego-adorned office in Palo Alto, Calif., to develop a product called Object Oriented Programming (Oop!), a form of virtual Lego. Much of the story concerns the the Oop! staff's efforts to raise capital and "have a life" amid 18-hour work days.

For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I feel this is a good environment to pimp the book in.

Any Tom Sharpe.

The Big Book of Bunny Suicides is always a good one. Not quite as in-depth as some of the suggestions, though...

Cheaper by the dozen. By Frank Gilbreth jr and his sister Ernestine somethingorother.

And the sequel, the dozen remains cheaper.

I can understand not everyone personally finding Pride and Prejudice funny, but i don't understand the question mark. Jane Austen had great wit, a lot of her work is funny. It wasn't funny throughout the whole book, but nothing i've read is.