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Laugh out loud

Funny is hard to get right on the page, and it is a matter of taste, so this list mixes styles: comic fantasy, a diary, a Victorian boat trip, two sharp memoirs and a fairy tale with its tongue in its cheek. Pick the voice that makes you laugh first.

Books to start with

  • Good Omens

    Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

    An angel and a demon try to stop the apocalypse because they like Earth too much. Dry, silly and endlessly quotable.

  • Bridget Jones's Diary

    Helen Fielding

    A year in the life of a gloriously flawed single woman, in diary form. Painfully relatable and very funny.

  • Three Men in a Boat

    Jerome K. Jerome

    Three friends and a dog take a disastrous trip up the Thames. A Victorian comedy that still works.

  • Bossypants

    Tina Fey

    A comedy writer on her awkward youth, TV and being the boss. Smart, self-deprecating and quick.

  • Me Talk Pretty One Day

    David Sedaris

    Essays on family, odd jobs and learning French in Paris. Deadpan, and often laugh-out-loud funny.

  • The Princess Bride

    William Goldman

    Swordfights, true love and a giant, told by a narrator who keeps poking fun at the genre. Sweet and sharp.

How to choose

Humor is personal, so choose your style. Good Omens is irreverent, absurd comedy about an angel and a demon trying to stop the apocalypse. The Princess Bride parodies adventure stories and presents itself as an abridgment of an older book, with the narrator's asides adding to the fun. Three Men in a Boat, from 1889, wanders through comic mishaps and digressions, though a few sentimental passages interrupt the jokes.

Bridget Jones's Diary follows a single London woman through a year in diary form, loosely based on Pride and Prejudice. If you prefer real life, Bossypants is Tina Fey on her youth and her career in comedy and television, and Me Talk Pretty One Day is David Sedaris on his family and odd jobs, then on struggling to learn French after moving to France.

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