The Martian question

The Martian was great, I also found Ready Player One to be hugely entertaining, although if you didn't grow up in the '80s some of the references might be lost on you.

Most fun? Here is a quick to mind, top five:

Sellevision, A. Burroughs
Love Minus Eighty, Will McIntosh
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
Baa Choo, Sarah Weeks
Green Eggs and Ham, Dr. Suess

Definitely a fun readThe Ware Tetralogyand Ready Player One for sure. All the William Gibson books are fun reads, as are books by Neal Stephenson

Great story with a very compelling beginning. Badly in need of a good editor. It gets bogged down with way too much detail (even for the scientifically minded) but engaging nevertheless. The coming Mark Whalburg movie should be a hit.

For me in no particular order:
The Martian
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
A Man Called Ove
The Graveyard Book
Battle Royale (my heart was beating at 1000 beats per minute the whole time)
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Any book by Nick Hornby! His books are hilarious!
Also the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is really funny.

And a non-fiction laugh-out-loud book is Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

Will second Allie Brosh - Hyperbole and a half. The What If book by Munroe (or his XKCD collection) makes me smile. Hark a Vagrant is kind of lit/history more than science, but amusing. Let's Pretend this Never Happened is a year or two old by J. Lawson; I laughed out loud. Oh, I read Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes this year - that's sassy. C. Moore is a good recommendation. Hiassen's Bad Monkey (or any of his adult mysteries). Where'd You go Bernadette is pretty recent and funny. And finally, anything by James Morrow.

I loved it on audio and I've given the print book to several people who felt the same. We are all non-geeks but found it enthralling, inspiring and just plain funny.

I did enjoy The Martian A LOT but Flight of Silvers is the one I thought was the most fun of the books I've read in 2014.

HHGTTG, a trilogy of five (not a recent read though, but definitely most fun)

Ready Player One was the most fun I remember having reading a book

The Martian is fun. But the most fun I have had with a book is Woody Allen's, now ancient, Getting Even. After Getting Even, I think i would choose any one of the Flashman books, which are best read in the order they were published.

Your question brought two books came right to mind:
A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World by Rachel Cantor is a vastly underrated, weird, funny fascinating novel.

Huge by James Fuerst is madly funny adventure.

I think two of the funnest books I've ever read are Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch and How to Fall in Love.

I liked The Martian, especially the characters and the fact that the story went back and forth between them. However, the scientific details were really hard to get through and felt too technical. I also agree that the repetition annoyed me a little. It was fun, overall, but I've read funner.

Jason wrote: "Question:

What is the most FUN book you've read lately? I'm not looking for high literature, epic plotting or even excellent characters and writing. Which book was just really, really enjoyable?

..."
Just finished Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. Epic and hilarious. If you want a story that is simply not fun and downright DEPRESSING, then read Department of Speculation.

The Mad Scientist Club series is great. Witty, dated and hinted with a touch of childhood nostalgia. I've never not enjoyed them.

the book was awesome, right up there with Ready Player One imho! We had an opportunity to talk to Andy Weir about the book, you can hear it here http://bit.ly/1Hhp5Nn

Aside from The Martian and Ready Player One, I would veer in a completely different direction and vote for anything in the Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. They're fun little tongue-in-cheek romps that I use as palette cleansers between heaftier books. If you want another fun sci-fi read, grab Redshirts. Honorable mention goes to Steelheart for it's tight story and fun concept.

Hands down most fun book is The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time by Daniel Keys Moran. This one's out of print, though you can buy the author's series as ebooks in the modern world, and I do recommend it.

The Long Run is near-future Space Opera - though some of it is set in future New York City. Irreverent, witty pacifist thief protagonist with a penchant for old Looney Tunes running from the overreaching authorities on Earth and in space, always trying to strike back in ways that embarrass them.

I picked this up on a whim and was awestruck on both how written the book is and how realistic the situation and solutions. The detail at the very end of how he smelled to everyone else is just the type of detail most forget. What a great job.

The Martian is my pick as well. I read it twice this year.

Ready Player One, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Diary of a D-List Superhero, On a Pale Horse, and Ex-Heroes. As I read these books, I felt like the author was having fun writing and experiencing the book with me. While not the most high-minded books I've read, they are some of my favorites, flaws and all. The Martian, with it's nerd versus nature premise, was very rewarding for science geeks everywhere, plausible or not. I ignored the repetition, despite recognizing it, because the main character was like a fun drinking buddy getting himself out of a jam.

Andy Weir's The Martian is a fun book, no doubt, but my 2014 favorite thus far was John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation. It was delightful, had an amazing storyline (reminding me just a bit of the film "Avatar" by James Cameron). Very cool and followed RAH (Robert Heinlein)'s famous quote, "Kill all the lawyers!" Mr. Scalzi's writing style was spot-on to what I wanted to read at the time I read it. A fun ride, a great story told by a modern master!

Redshirts& This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It were my most fun reads of the year.

Great question! I'll be checking back here for suggestions, myself. Here are a few others that I've had fun reading, lately:

Ready Player One (as mentioned above, was A LOT of fun!)
Redshirts
Lock In

Fun Kidlit:
The Time Hunters

Fun Nonfiction:
Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

I enjoyed The Martian, except that I skimmed the science, the engineering, and the McGuyverisms. That made it a very short book. Most fun book I've read this year -- The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, and the members of my book club all agree.

What I got tired of was the sameness...

Gotaproblem, solveaproblem, gotanotherproblem, omg wecantsolvethisproblem!

Yes we can, and we do. Move on to...

Gotaproblem, solveaproblem, gotanotherproblem, and omg wecantsolvethisproblem!

But with ingenuity and the smarts of a thousand geniuses, we WILL SOLVE IT! And so we do.

Gotaproblem...

My problem? Too much of the same cycle, endlessly repeated.

I agree with Bagman, for me the narrative was grating at times and I looked forward to the situations back on Earth. There were fun moments but it often was overwhelmed with too many technical details which Weir was attempting to ground situations into believability. This came highly recommended by a co-worker and I'm a sucker for recommendations.

I agree, Jason, The Martian was probably my Most Fun 2014 pick. And you're right, the writing isn't great, but it works. I worry that Weir as a writer might not be able to repeat. What else could he do, unless he really polishes his skills...a LOT? I also enjoyed Afterparty, which also was kind of gimmicky but original enough with solid female characters, to make it a worthwhile read. I would recommend it to people who like a near-future sciency fiction thriller story.

I enjoyed the book, but I would have preferred a darker tale where maybe he doesn't get off the planet and goes slowly insane - I like horror stories. I also didn't understand most of the science/math so at times it was like a wall of text that I skimmed.

Most fun recently for me has been Undead Redhead by Jen Frankel. It's silly in all the right ways.

This book will soon be a ScienceFiction Classic.
I've read it twice and i am looking forward to future reads. From the first expletive to the final smile this is one great book to read. Allow yourself to be fascinated by how one man survives Mars.

Guess I have to disagree with the others that have already commented. I couldn’t wait to read this book. I thought that the plot was really unique (and still do) and that it had great potential as a page turner. What I got was an alternative to Nyquil. By the third, or forth chapter this book had turned into a episode of This Old House (on Mars). The only thing that held my interest (other than finishing a book that I had paid money to read) were the characters and conversations that were taking place on earth.