Please help me laugh

[cbell]

Obnoxious Librarian from Hades.

I love this book and I laugh all the way through it. Blog at http://olfh.blogspot.com

Its a free download at http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/2658/

[Xenophon]

Run off to the Baen Free Library and grab books from two series
Pyramid Scheme
and
Rats, Bats and Vats and The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly.
All three books by Eric Flint and Dave Freer.
All are humorous, free, and have No DRM. What's not to like?

Xenophon

[chlorine]

From Pratchett, I found the Diggers/Truckers/Wings series much more funnier than the first Discworld books, so I'd have a look at them if I were you.

One book that is not comic per se but that actually made me laugh out loud is Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. If by any chance you saw and enjoyed the movie, run and go read the book (it's written with the scottish accent transcribed phonetically so it's strange, but I managed to read it even though English is not my mothertongue, by reading the beginning out loud to get a feel of how it sounded).

[Cinnabar]

Someone mentioned Thurber's "The Night the Bed Fell In." This is part of a story collection called _My Life and Hard Times_, all very funny (most of what he's written is). Also, Farley Mowat _The Dog Who Wouldn't Be_.

[nohmi2]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned Bill Bryson's *Notes from a Small Island*. Whenever I feel that I need a bit of a giggle, this is the book I turn to.

I have it as a pbook.

Cheers.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by dadioflex

I was reading one of Durrell's books as a teenager and had my Dad burst into my bedroom shouting at me, because I was keeping the whole house up laughing. I don't think anything I've read since has had quite the same effect on me.

hilarious story !

(everyone, you've been warned, don't read these books late at night when people are trying to sleep !)

[Libby Cone]

This piece has been rolling around in my head since I downloaded a recipe from the NYTimes. Let me know if you think it's funny:
WITH MY FINGER ON THE SWISS CHARD PULSE

© 2009, Libby Cone

To:veggiedon@zmail.com
From:nytimes.com
Thank you for downloading the recipe “Swiss chard with garlic and pine nuts.”

Would you like to:

q see more recipes with “Swiss chard”?

q receive email notification about “Swiss chard” in the news?

q see other Web sites featuring “Swiss chard”?




To:veggiedon@zmail.com
From:nytimes.com
Subject: “Swiss chard” in the news

PYONGYANG-Dear Leader to import more Swiss Chard from Basel
In an heroic speech devoted to the well-being of his beloved workers, Our Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il quashed reports by capitalist dog journalists alleging he suffers from cancer. “You all know of the health-giving properties of Swiss chard,” he roared, needing no microphone to be heard in the bleachers of the People's Stadium, “I am proof of its slimming qualities and its strength-building vitamins.” The crowd spontaneously cheered as he went on to announce an increase in the People's vegetable ration, thanks to our wise diplomats' efforts with the People's Friend, Switzerland, to increase seed imports of the vegetable, also known as “The Workers' Rump Roast” and “Fragrant Green of the Songun Revolutionary Line.”



To:veggiedon@zmail.com
From:nytimes.com
Subject: “Swiss chard” in the news

LOWER JEROBOAM, KY-Jesus seen in Swiss chard leaf
“Praise the Lord, I almost boiled it!” cried Jewell Jo McReady, holding a large chard leaf (she had not detached its rib for separate sauteeing) up to the light. “My greens just did not grow well this year; I shoulda known it was God's plan. I bought that red Swiss chard up at the store; I ain't never tried it before, and then up pops Jesus.” She limned a shape with her fingertip, and this reporter could faintly descry a humanoid form emerging from the tracery of veins in the leaf of Beta vulgaris. “See His halo, and His little bleeding heart?”

To:veggiedon@zmail.com
From:nytimes.com
Subject: “Swiss chard” in the news

PYONGYANG-Condemn the anti-DPRK isolate-and-stifle plans of the Swiss capitalists!
It was reported today that the faithless Swiss, the enemies of the Songun Revolution, have stolen the vegetable Beta vulgaris ssp cicla from the heroic cooperative farmers of the Peoples Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran, its land of origin. Wave the banner of socialism as our Dear Leader rights this wrong, robustly swinging baskets of Persian chard seed to be sown for the People (but denied to the clumsy diplomats who tried, but failed, to prostitute the Party to the greedy watchmakers; they will eat rice chaff and moldy spinach until they have been re-educated), so soon his healthy physique will be emulated by all!

To:veggiedon@zmail.com
From:nytimes.com
Subject: “Swiss chard” in the news

“Jesus” on Swiss chard leaf fetches $150,00 on eBay. Click here for more details.

[wayspooled]

haha! Nice one Libby Cone. Made me laugh anyway :P

http://xkcd.com/612/ hehehehehe

[JSWolf]

Craig Shaw Gardner is funny. But these are not available as eBooks. But still worth the read in paperback.

Ebenezum
1. A Malady of Magics (1985)
2. A Multitude of Monsters (1986)
3. A Night in the Netherhells (1987)

Wuntvor
1. A Difficulty with Dwarves (1987)
2. An Excess of Enchantments (1988)
3. A Disagreement with Death (1989)

Cineverse
1. Slaves of the Volcano God (1989)
2. Bride of the Slime Monster (1990)
3. Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies (1990)

Arabian Nights
1. The Other Sinbad (1991)
2. A Bad Day for Ali Baba (1991)
3. Scheherazade's Night Out (1992)
4. The Last Arabian Night (1993)

Also, I highly second the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Last night I finished the 15th book Lords and Ladies and was finding lots of groans and laugh-out-louds. The series is definitely going to make you groan and laugh.

[zelda_pinwheel]

since i've just recieved the latest mail (N° 49) from mil millington i thought i'd share it here so you could get a taste of his style :

How to Lose.

Here's one of the many things Margret has taught me: you might lose to a weaker opponent if they are faster; you might lose to a slower opponent if they are stronger; but you will *always* lose to an opponent who doesn't tell you the rules until after the game's over.

I was quietly sitting reading a book yesterday when Margret surged in, all insectoid with rapid, jerky, scanning movements and leaking urgency everywhere. She hissed with irritation, and then - brisk; insistent - said to me, "Have you seen the whatsit?"

This is obviously ludicrous.

There wasn't even a mime-clue to accompany the question. (The indicative waving of a foot, say, or that thing some people do where when they're asking for any object whatsoever they hold their hands apart to illustrate the general size of it - Mouth: "Have you got a stool I could borrow?"; Hands: "The top of a stool is about *this* big.") Now, it's hardly unusual for Margret to sweep into a room in the company of ludicrous, but I'm quick to see that the way she's done it here gives me the opportunity to Make a Point. So, at the speed of brain, I script the remainder in my imagination. This is how the whole exchange will play:
Margret: "Ssss... Have you seen the whatsit?"
Mil: "Yes."
Margret: "Yes?"
Mil: "Yes, but it's more impressive viewed from the air than when you're actually travelling across it."
Margret: "What?"
Mil: "Oh - I thought you meant the Øresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark. Were you asking about something else?"
Margret: "Ah, I see what you've done there. You've used the rhetorical device of a vastly unlikely assumption to wryly spotlight the preposterous lack of specificity in my question. Yes, indeed - that gentle arrow was well-aimed and much-deserved, Mil: you are brilliant, handsome and charismatic, and I will start doing some of the washing up from now on."

As I say, this is formulated and performed entirely in my mind, and so it takes only a flashing instant for me to view it, mentally. In Earth time, Margret's words have barely had chance to dissipate into the air and she's looking at me for a response. Thus, without any audible comma, I can begin the scene for real. It goes, *in its entirety*, like this:
Margret: "Ssss... Have you seen the whatsit?"
Mil: "Yes."
Margret: "No, not that." (She makes a geysering, 'You're useless, you are'-style sigh and strides out of the room.)

Pwned.

I defy you to come up with a way in which that makes any sense at all, other than as an exercise conceived *exclusively* to confuse, unsettle and defeat me for sport. And let's be unflinching about how utterly I was taken down here. Not only was my plan made to explode in the barrel, but I was *also* left completely baffled, *and* with A Point, now doomed to be Unmade, lying like a constricting weight on my chest, *and* I couldn't even carry on reading my book in peace as the words now no longer sank in; I read the page multiple times, but each time I got to the end I realised I hadn't absorbed a single thing I'd read as my head had actually been given over to repeatedly re-running our short scene and wondering, "Um... what just happened there?" Quite honestly, she might as well have simply marched into the room and tasered me.

Right, two quick announcements:

The paperback of 'Instructions for Living Someone Else's Life' is finally out in human-world bookshops or, postage-free, at
http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArg...m/l/?iflsel_pb
and you should probably buy it to avoid the gnawing regret of not doing so sabotaging all chance of your forming any lasting personal relationships between now and your lonely, squalid death.

Also, the Sexton Blake radio mini-series that Mr Nash and I have written starts on BBC Radio 2 at 9.15pm on Friday 31st of July. There's a video trailer at this link:
http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArg...t.com/l/?blake
Its comedy is distinguished; its adventure is thrilling; its plot is next to impenetrable.
(Caution: this is Excellent Humour of the kind Mr Nash and I enjoy baking at http://www.theweekly.co.uk or that's spiritually not unlike director Mr Maggs's other radio work - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dirk Gently, and so forth. Anyone tuning in expecting some manner of TMGAIHAA, contemporary rom-com-style shenanigans faces stun-eared bewilderment right from the off.)
Possibly each show will also briefly be available via Radio 2's Listen Again facility, for those of you who are unaccountably away from your wireless at a quarter past nine on six consecutive Friday evenings, but I'm not sure(1).

Well, I'm afraid that's about - oh, the 'short stories 'inspired' by Smiths songs' book I contributed to is out now, if I haven't mentioned that before
http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArg....com/l/?paintp

Well, I'm afraid that's about it for this Mail, my delightfuls. However, may I suggest that you don't risk the unhealthy jarring shock of leaping back into work immediately? Medical experts (homeopaths, aromatherapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, qualified Reiki practitioners, etc.) would surely provide rigorously scientific anecdotal evidence that such an action could result in spiritual misalignment, energy depletion, or possibly even the vague feeling that those people said they liked that wine you brought the other evening but they didn't really; they thought you'd just bought the cheapest bottle in the shop, when you actually made a point of buying the third cheapest - which is a whole one pound fifty extra you could have kept in your wallet and like anyone can really taste one pound fifty's difference anyway and even if you'd bought the most expensive one there I bet they'd have all given you that look exactly the same just because you forgot to take off the sticker that said "Special Offer" and "Netto". So, I'd advise a period of 'staring unfocused into the distance' for fifteen to forty minutes, to safely ease the otherwise gear-clashingly dangerous re-adoption of paid labour. Your health comes first, right?

Mil.

(1) Incidentally, Mr Nash and I would like to initiate a rattling cheer for the manly and terrific http://www.sextonblake.co.uk - an invaluable, and also a valuable, source of reference on the Blake canon's 116 years of freewheeling chaos and contradiction.

--
All possible queries about all possible things are dealt with here:
http://ThingsMyGirlfriendAndIHaveArg...ll_the_answers

[LDBoblo]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations.

Though I may have gleaned some ideas from this thread so far, I'm not sure how many (if any) of the recommendations I'll actually check out.

(quote and comment deleted, since it broke the spoiler farther down).

I'm reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde now, and it has its cute parts and some creative wit, but I can't really call it "funny" by my definition. None of the Discworld novels I've read so far are especially funny, though I do enjoy reading them still. "Another Fine Myth" by Asprin was enjoyable (and I hope to come across more like that--Aahz was a good character), but not really funny. The thing is, these are all in the sort of genre I am most interested in, but the humor is quite tamed in most forms.

Modern novelists offering situational irony and observational humor, especially in essays like Sedaris can be good, but I really am more into slightly more unified narratives. It's a nice, and sometimes effective style of humorist writing, but leaves me feeling empty.

I think Pratchett has a lot of good stuff in it, but the humor is fairly contained. Often since there's a lot going on with different characters, it's hard to implement a lot of silly arbitrary humor. From Christopher Moore's Lamb:

Spoiler:

Our training went on for two years before I saw the sign that called us home. Life was slow, but pleasant there by the sea. Joshua became more efficient at multiplying food, and while he insisted on living an austere lifestyle so he could remain unattached to the material world, I was able to get a little money ahead. In addition to paying for my lessons, I was able to decorate my nook (just some erotic drawings, curtains, some silk cushions) and buy a few personal items such as a new satchel, an ink stone and a set of brushes, and an elephant.

Perhaps it doesn't have a tremendous amount of subtlety, but the random craziness that crops up just keeps me laughing. It does something to interrupt the linear narrative for a laugh without completely derailing it.

I better keep looking. I hope people keep contributing to this thread. It'd be great to see why you find something humorous, rather than the fact you find it humorous. Since we won't all laugh at the same things, it's nice to know what the recommendations come from.

Thanks again everyone!

[BlackVoid]

I just found out that a few books of my all-time favorite author are available in English. The author is Jeno Rejto, a Hungarian, who wrote his books in the 30s and 40s. The books are now in the public domain.
His books are very funny and the stories just flow. Very easy to read, lots of humor - but it is not by any means shallow.
He is still immensely popular in Hungary, his books never go out of print.

Here is the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jen%C5%91_Rejt%C5%91

At the bottom, there are 3 links which point to the books.

I particularly recommend The 14-Carat Roadster.

Here is how it starts:
"Ivan Gorchev, sailor on the freight ship ‘Rangoon’, was not yet twenty-one when he won the Nobel Prize in physics. To win a scientific award at such a romantically young age is unprecedented, though some people might consider the means by which it was achieved a flaw. For Ivan Gorchev won the Nobel Prize in physics in a card game, called macao, from a Professor Bertinus, on whom the honour had been bestowed in Stockholm by the King of Sweden a few days earlier. But those who are always finding fault don’t like to face facts, and the fact of the matter is that Ivan Gorchev did win the Nobel Prize at the age of twenty-one."

[Mnementh]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Piers Anthonys' Xanth series yet

Very easy to read and full of puns and humorous situations definitely recommended.

[dreams]

Originally Posted by BlackVoid

I particularly recommend The 14-Carat Roadster.

Here is how it starts:
"Ivan Gorchev, sailor on the freight ship ‘Rangoon’, was not yet twenty-one when he won the Nobel Prize in physics. To win a scientific award at such a romantically young age is unprecedented, though some people might consider the means by which it was achieved a flaw. For Ivan Gorchev won the Nobel Prize in physics in a card game, called macao, from a Professor Bertinus, on whom the honour had been bestowed in Stockholm by the King of Sweden a few days earlier. But those who are always finding fault don’t like to face facts, and the fact of the matter is that Ivan Gorchev did win the Nobel Prize at the age of twenty-one."

I did a quick search and found it offered for free at manybooks. http://manybooks.net/titles/rejtojot..._roadster.html