I like the Brendan O'Carroll series beginning with The Mammy.

One of the funniest books I have ever read is The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat. It's a reminiscence about a dog he had while growing up. I laughed myself silly throughout the book.

This depends on your sense of humour. I told my BF that I was crying-laughing while reading a book and she asked to see the page which had cracked me up. She read it and never smiled at all. I don't think she could visualise the situation which had so amused me.

Was reared to believe a sense of humor is essential, and mine is well-developed. Ann please tell me the name of the book that broke you up. Thanks for all suggestions.

Pink, it was one of the "Berry and Co" series by Dornford Yates. This happened over sixty years ago and the books would be OOP.
I wonder if the style and humour would be dated now and not seem funny at all!
I used to enjoy the genteel writing of authors such as Jerome K. Jerome and other Edwardians. Nothing crude, simply amusing situations.

Humor is most subjective. I have laughed myself into a puddle on the floor on one reading of a book, and then the next reading I have barely cracked a smile. Has the humor become too familiar or is it just that my mood has changed?

I recall Gwen Raverat's Period Piece being very funny. It's Raverat's memoir of growing up in Cambridge in the late 1800s as the daughter of an English don and an American mother. Raverat's father was the son of Charles Darwin. The Darwins were eccentric, to say the least. Their reactions to many things, including producing a musician/composer in the family -- Ralph Vaughn Williams, I think are delightfully amusing.

I think I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is funny, so much so that I'm surprised when other readers don't see or appreciate the humor. I still think it's funny after rereading it many times over fifty-plus years.

However, I didn't get Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons and its brand of satire until I read it with a group of RPers about ten years ago. Then its absurdity hit me, and I have found the phrase "something nasty in the woodshed" as being very useful!

I think Edith Wharton's short story 'Xingu' is hilarious. It punctures the pretensions of women's book groups. Book club-type readers who laugh while reading 'Xingu' are readers worth knowing, in my opinion. :-)

Of course Bill Bryson's books are always delightful.

A Walk In The Woods

Notes From A Small island

Neither Here Nor There

The Lost Continent

Down Under

I love to travel and found Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad very funny. A paraphrased example: "We went to see the center of the world and knew we were there because there was a sign that said so."

I rarely read 'funny' books usually because the writer tries too hard and/or the humour is very unsubtle. I just enjoy it when I find myself laughing at some small piece of writing which just knocks my funny-bone.
Frieda you introduced me to Raverate's 'Period Piece' which I very much enjoyed but I didn't find it funny, maybe because many of the family were so 'odd' eg the uncle who felt cold in church and as he couldn't wear his hat he put his gloves on top of his bald head.
English writers I considered humorous/amusing are Dickens, when not wallowing in sentiment, Jerome K Jerome, P G Wodehouse . . . probably the master of the casual throwaway line, Irish writer Molly Keane, Richmal Crompton who's children's books were originally aimed at adults . . . and many more that will come to me as soon as I press submit.

Well, pretty much anything by Erma Bombeck has me reaching for the Kleenex because I'm laughing to tears. Also Victor Borge if you like music...even if you don't...

Vee, I didn't remember that anecdote of the odd Darwin uncle putting his gloves on his bald head in church, but reading it now it strikes me funny. I see pragmatic method in his battiness. There ought to have been some sort of dispensation for bald men in cold churches, after all. I always supposed Raverat affectionately meant to convey the antics of her relatives as amusing. Maybe I've been reading her wrong all along, but writers of her time seemed to have treated people's fits and foibles with humor if they weren't too embarrassing that they had to be omitted.

What about George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody? That one has always tickled me, especially the name of the diarist, Charles Pooter, which brings to mind the uncouth idea of 'escaping air'. Poor Mr Pooter, as his name implies, walks around mostly deflated but still manages to function and worry about what people think of him. And his wife, long-suffering Carrie, and the son named Lupin are characters that to have been created in the 1860s remain as instantly recognizable today as they no doubt were back then, and is the continuing reason they are funny.

Vee, I like those humorous lines that crop up in otherwise serious books. Sometimes they are the most memorable parts, perhaps inserted for comic relief. Of course presently I can't think of a good example, but I've run across many.

I think it must be difficult to write a deliberately humorous book.
I wrote quite a lot of short articles for newspapers etc. and based them on amusing and often true situations but would never attempt a book.
My idol was a writer in a UK daily paper who went under the name of "Beachcomber" back in the 1950s. He may have been several writers even but I enjoyed this style. Prestigious "Punch" magazine was another place for comedy writers. I cherished my cheque from them for a piece I sent in and hardly wanted to cash it!
These days I look for humour in the genre of the light cosy mysteries. A puzzle combined with quite a few chuckles as well...

The Diary of a Nobody is a wonderful look at the snobbishness of the English, although things have changed somewhat since Victorian times.
George Weedon worked for the D'Oyly Carte company and sang all the well-known 'patter songs' in the G and S operettas. "I am the very model of a modern major general" etc.
Pooter is a man who's place would have fitted in with the song sung by the members of the House of Peers in Iolanthe "Bow bow you lower middle classes, bow bow you tradesmen and you masses . . ."
Frieda do you know Augustus Carp Esquire The Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Sir Henry H Bashford? It is available at Amazon. Very funny. See below

Augustus Carp

Ah! Vee, thanks for that. It's right up my alley, humor-wise. I will savor it at leisure, along with listening to some G and S.

But I don't know if we are pushing any of the right buttons for Pink. Humor is such a broad topic

I've always enjoyed Garrison Keillor's "Lake Wobegon" series, but I live in a small town and can see where he's coming from ;-)

Read the suggested "The Mammy" and, although I'm not a fan of the language, got many hearty laughs.

Brendan O'Carroll's TV series shown on the BBC from RTE is very popular over here.
To see clips go to youtube and 'Mrs Brown's Boys'.
Be warned . . .the language and content might be rather strong for Americans!

Hi, everyone - I am visiting from the Quilting forum; also an avid reader.

It sounds like many of you are in the UK (or at least enjoy British writing). I found "A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle very humorous! A tour guide in Provence mentioned it when we were there several years ago and I listened to it when we got home.

I really enjoy Sophie Kinsella's books, too (Confessions of a Shopaholic is one).

Donna

I just finished "The Rosie Project", by Graeme Simsion, after DD told me how she enjoyed it; It was different from my usual reading fare, but a fun read.

Hi all

Surprised that no-one has mentioned Jerome K Jerome. Three Men in a Boat is just genius, and The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is also very funny. My mother still talks about reading TMIAB - the bit about the cheese - and laughing out loud on a train journey, and causing everyone to stare at her.

Martin, both Vee and I mentioned JKJ, both of us being English, how could we not?
Again, humour is a personal thing, I lent an Aussie BiL my copy of "Three Men in a Boat" as he asked if I had anything funny for him to read while he was staying with us. He said he didn't find it amusing at all.

Oops. So you did. I simply missed in on the first run through. My apologies.

Went to our library with a list of 12 books from this thread, and they had not one of them! Already have some on waiting list, and felt I couldn't add more. Disappointed.

Pink, perhaps you could try Betterworld books. They have a lot of current and OOP books which are usually cheap, offer free postage and donate a book to a good cause for every one bought.

I use them regularly and get a laugh from the grateful email sent by the book of my choice...

Following suggestions the best I can, but usually have to have books secured by my library from another library - so much waiting. Read "The Mammy" as mentioned, have read one of Erma Bombeck's , also "The Dog Who Wouldn't Be," "Neither Here Nor There," "A Walk in the Woods," "Three Men in a Boat," and "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt" so far. Really appreciate all suggestions as I love to laugh! Thank you.