Oh yeah, my English teacher gave me a copy of "Side Effects" when I freshman in high school. I'd never read anything quite like it. Very funny!

Pure Drivel was hilarious in a very smart sort of way. Woody Allen's three collections of prose are also very smart and funny:

(in order of funniness)

Steve Martin's books "The Pleasure of My Company" and "Pure Drivel" and also his first book, "The Cruel Shoes".

Much of Mark Twain's work makes me laugh out loud as does Kurt Vonnegut's.

Bruce Campbell's biography, "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor" is pretty hilarious, too.

Ha!
::Takes a bow::

That was awesome....you're a riot miss Bunny Piaf!

i thought for sure you couldn't give an answer to that....I stand corrected. I am not worthy, I am not worthy.

Time machine accomplished.

The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat by Harlan Ellison. Ellison is a very funny dude, and he is quite visceral about things he dislikes. He hates TV.

These two books are a collection of essays and reviews of TV shows.

Well Bunny....I simply insist that you go back and undo the thievery of my mouth's words. I really don't think that is too much to ask.

Well unless and until somebody invents a time machine ain't much I can do to change the past. So rather than regretting I learn and forge on. A quote I love (apologies to those who have seen it before) -

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." Emerson.

the road to perdition is paved with je ne regrette riens

Je ne regrette rien.

Bunny stole the words right out of my mouth.....now go repent you thief!

If you like Hiaason, check out
Island by Thomas Perry if you can find a copy. Its out of print. Mostly Perry writes thrillery things some of which I like, but this one is a caper novel about con artists and its funny funny.

Carlie said Why on earth would saying Pickwick was funny be a negative comment on Dickens?

??? Yours, confusticated.

I agree.
Bunz.

Jackie, do yourself a favor and read any of Hiaasen's works they are all humerous, and he has a creatively sick mind, that keeps you laughing'

Peter David wrote two really funny pieces Sir Apropos of Nothing and its sequel Woad to Wuin had me in tears. In one of them there is a spoof on the Rings from Tolkien that is absolutely hilarious.

Back in the dark ages, I read a take off gangster book called The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight which was very funny at the time. By Jimmy Breslin I think.

As for Pickwick Papers it carries the humor of character that Dickens does so well in all his works to a different level as there are more comic characters in the book. I think it is a funny book but I don't see that as a negative comment on Dickens.

I haven't read his adult mysteries, but I found Hoot by Carl Hiaasen laugh out loud funny. I especially love all the creative sabotage at the future pancake house construction site, where the owls are living.

I'm glad you're liking Screwtape Carlie. I find it really funny and also full of insight. If you like it you might also try The Great Divorce also by CS Lewis, which isn't quite as funny but easily as insightful. The premise is that there's a bus that runs from hell to heaven and sometimes the damned in hell take day trips. They can stay in heaven if they choose, but generally they find some excuse to go back to hell instead. Oh sure they're gonna move to heaven later on of course they are, but right now they think they might have left the stove on, and they promised to help their friend move, and anyway their knee is a bit sore and they need to go home and put that leg up... A lot of wisdom in there about the human tendency to settle for even very bad situations because at least they are familiar.

I can't believe I forgot about already. I laughed throughout this whole book. It is TOOOOO funny. I hurt myself laughing.

Thanks a lot Bunny for the screwtape rec. I checked it out of my school library today. I haven't got to the lol parts yet but it's turning out to be less comedic and more of a conviction.
When I read the part about the demon making people who live together believe that the other person is purposefully doing the things that annoy them the most, I was truly convicted. I have already begun to change my comportment towards my hubby due to just that portion.
Lewis is a genius....there would have been no other way for me to see how illogical that belief was. Any other attempts besides satire to open my mind would have made me defensive.
This should be a must-read for all Christians.

Hunter S. Thompson makes me laugh, but mostly when read out loud by my guitarist, who has one of the best HST reading voices ever. He used to do whole chapters when we were touring. There's a chapter from Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 that was one of the funniest things I've ever heard, but when I went back to read it, I found it wasn't quite as funny (but still funny).

I love that cover thing! That's so cool!

Sally is sending me her extra copy of Confederacy whenever we get the TC cd exchange accomplished. Yay! I can't wait to read it again. It was definitely a hoot. I don't remember laughing that much at .

There are passages in both Confederacy of Dunces and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that make me laugh every single time.

Maybe I'll read them in the bath tonight.

Oh, a whole new world has been opened.

*high fives Jim*

(See, we can do that with one hand!)

Hey I just heard a tree fall in a forest in Belarus. This is fun.

We're online, O Transcendent One (I mean Three.Fourteen)! We can do ANYTHING!

*clapping one hand now*

(Hear it?)

Aw man, Kathrynn, I gotta start doing the add as a cover option b/c that just looks cool!

So if we started a group titled Socialphobes Anonymous would anyone show up?

Only if we did it online!

Can the group have activities like clapping one hand, and listening for trees falling in faraway forests?

"Tall, Dark and Cajun" by Sandra Hill had me laughing--out loud--numerous times. Most of the books that I've read by her have been funny. A few stinkers though.

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss had me chuckling throughout it also. Enjoyed the author's sense of humor.

So if we started a group titled Socialphobes Anonymous would anyone show up?

Yeah, Jim, online is EASY for socialphobes!

I love when nouns become verbs.

Well, in the game, the adjectives that you collect are not necessarily meant to describe you, so the fun is in seeing if they actually fit. The ones I collected above were all of the things that I have been called since my surprisingly public name change two days ago. I feel like Prince, honestly.
But if you want to adjectivize yourself, go ahead :)

ps "Adjectivize" appears to be the noun "adjective", transformed into a verb.

I would have never thought of you as shy, that is why it is so hard to make judgements on people from the very little that you get to see them online.

Are we supposed to describe ourselves or let someone else do it? If I'm doing myself (based on my own experience and the observations of friends): OCD, eclectic, shy, brainy, freaky, compassionate.

What do you mean "could" get a reputation?

Have any of you ever played the board game "Apples to Apples"? My friends like to make everybody display their collected green-card-adjectives at the end and see how they match up with the actual person. That's what this reminds me of...I'm well-rounded, irrational, transcendent, and binary, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Somebody else's turn :)

Remember the Binars from TNG?! *squee*

You are also irrational and transcendent. What can I say?

So now I'm binary? A girl could get a reputation.

Oh Sarah 11.00100100001111110110, that was funnny!!

(That's pi in binary, since I was letting my SF geek self out for a moment)

Thanks Mindy

Once my exhusband and I got exactly the same fortune in our fortune cookies. *oooo-weee-oooo*

See on the upper right-hand corner of the comment box, Carlie? There a link for "add book/author." Click on that and type in the book you want to add.

How did you guys get your books to be listed in the "Books mentioned in this topic" tab?

That reminds me of a story in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction a few years ago about a guy whose fortune cookie message leads him to discover the factory where an alien is attempting to drive humanity mad little by little. I don't remember all of his techniques, but they involved stuff like making lettuce wilt too quickly, and planting fake horoscopes and fortune cookie messages, and using up the last toilet paper.
Anyhow, maybe the demon and the alien could team up.

Ah...yes.

Oh humbug...it's not available for free online. I'm in a financial bind so only free online books for me for now. Too lazy to go to my second home "the library" but I may just have to overcome that little laziness to get it today.

SOmething about reading books online though just doesn't sit well. I miss holding the thing and flipping the pages. Clicking just does not even come close. Oh and the smell of books, especially old ones...not the moldy smell but the well loved well perused smell.
There's nothing so lovely a picture as a woman sitting in an alcove, propped on a decorative pillow, her head slightly cocked towards the window resting on a lace curtain, her legs covered with the softest blanket, an open book in her hand, a soft smile on her face, and a soft light falling upon the scene. Ah!

A Confederacy of Dunces is about the funniest.