# Reccomend a humorous book!



## InnerFlame00 (Aug 28, 2015)

My last thread got me to thinking: We need a recommendation thread for funny books! I'm always looking for more funny books to read because when the husband and I go on road trips the laughter keeps up from thinking about how numb our butts are.

Anyway! Recommend a book, or books. Include a summary and a quote from the book so we can see what type of humor to expect! I would love it if this thread exploded with activity because books with great humor are sometimes difficult to find.

I'll start with the one I most recently read (and is currently my fave):

*The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex: *A story about a young girl, Gratuity "Tip" Tucci (her mother is Italian and thought the word meant something else) whose mother is kidnapped by the invading aliens, the Boov, as a 'tutor' (someone who teaches them the human languages and so forth). So she is all alone when the Boov give up trying to coexist with the humans (it had been a mere six months) and decide that they are going to move every human in America to Florida. Instead of taking the provided rocket pods Tip decides to drive to Florida on her own. Along the way she meets J.Lo (who also thought his human name meant something else) a maintenance Boov who has made a terrible mistake and is on the run so he fixes her car (which she had wrecked) into a hover vehicle in exchange for a ride. From there the book goes on as a sort of buddy comedy as the two get to know each other, the differences in their cultures causing some problems along the way. There is also action and adventure and social commentary as well (the Boov decide they want to keep Florida because they really like oranges so they change their minds and send the human to Arizona even though Florida had been a "forever promise of land to the humans")



> The Boov frowned. "Everybodies always is wanting to make a clone for to  doing their work. If you are not wanting to do your work, why would a  clone of you want to do your work?”
> 
> ~*~
> 
> ...



You can read an excerpt of the story here

Yes, it's a mid-grade novel. But I'm an adult (supposedly) and I really liked it. Some of the humor and references would go over a kids head but had me laughing. It's also quite long: the audio book was ten hours and the narrator was HILARIOUS. Her alien voices were spot on. The book also includes "photos" of their trip and comics illustrating certain parts of the book.

Also, the author made a puppet show as a "Boov instruction video for the noble human savages" that I thought was fairly funny:


[video=youtube;WxkjIjxa2-Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxkjIjxa2-Q[/video]


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## MzSnowleopard (Aug 28, 2015)

Whoopi Goldberg's "Is it Just Me? Or is it nuts out there?" The cover shows a pic of her sitting on a bathroom stall toilet. The book is about her reflections of truism on society and the crazy BS going on. It is hilarious!


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## Schrody (Aug 28, 2015)

With authors like Swartzwelder, Adams, Kishon and Pratchett you can't go wrong.


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## ShadowEyes (Aug 28, 2015)

_Goblin Quest_ by Jim Hines. It's basically a DnD game from the perspective of a goblin.

_Snow Crash_ by Neal Stephenson. Semi-dystopia cyberpunk book about hackers and culture. It's a fun read from the get-go.

If you're into manga, I'd recommend _Yotsuba&! _Slice-of-life story about a 5-year-old girl who moves to a new neighborhood during summer vacation, etc. The book(s) show the simplicity of being a child combined with quirky situations.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Aug 28, 2015)

If you're into the classics, I'd recommend Candide by Voltaire. Also you can't go wrong with Kurt Vonnegut.


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## Bloggsworth (Aug 28, 2015)

mrmustard615 said:


> If you're into the classics, I'd recommend Candide by Voltaire. Also you can't go wrong with Kurt Vonnegut.



Beg to differ. I have never been more disappointed by a book.


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## Bloggsworth (Aug 28, 2015)

Books which one once found hilarious can fail to repeat. I started to re-read _1066 And All That_ and after a few pages wondered why I ever thought it funny. Wodehouse, however, seldom fails to amuse. Clive James' autobiographies are a delight; _Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England_ etc. But written humour is probably more subjective than any other form; when watching a live show, television or a film, the laughter of others can be infectious; not so when reading.


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## PiP (Aug 28, 2015)

One of the funniest books I've read is A Year In The Merde by Stephen Clarke


> Stephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing. His first novel, A Year in the Merde, originally became a word-of-mouth hit in 2004,



I can't copy an excerpt from the book but you can read more here.

I read it in 2005 and thought it was brilliant. I've recently interviewed Stephen and his humour is totally off the wall.


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## InnerFlame00 (Aug 29, 2015)

Some great suggestions so far! Some I've already added to my list, and now I've got some new ones added too . I know I like Pratchett, but my library doesn't carry many of the audiobooks so I'm gonna have to slowly work my way through it through audbile.


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