Seven days without laughter makes one weak.
The nights have drawn in, it's cold, summer's a distant memory, there's a bitter chill in the wind - the best thing to do is laugh. And you can with these 10 novels that have made us laugh. From the curiously absurd to the classically wry to the best book set in Russia about penguins and the mafia, this list is guaranteed to warm your cockles with hearty laughs and paroxysms of guffaws.
Funny Books
Seven days without laughter makes one weak.
The nights have drawn in, it's cold, summer's a distant memory, there's a bitter chill in the wind - the best thing to do is laugh. And you can with these 10 novels that have made us laugh. From the curiously absurd to the classically wry to the best book set in Russia about penguins and the mafia, this list is guaranteed to warm your cockles with hearty laughs and paroxysms of guffaws.
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Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy
PanThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is officially one of the funniest books ever written. -
The Rotters' Club
PenguinJonathan Coe's warm and heartening look back at the 1970s and its fashions and tastes is a zesty comedy full of acute observations about growing up and being an awkward teenager at school. -
Bridget Jones' Diary
PicadorBridget Jones wants to have it all - and once she's given up smoking and got down to 8st 7 she will. -
The Collector Collector
VintageTibor Fischer's The Collector Collector is a bizarre anecdotal curio of laugh-out-loud absurdity and ridiculousness. -
High Fidelity
PenguinEach character is drawn so lovingly and with enough one-liners to floor a novel-sized elephant, making the book a masterstroke of modern-day humour. -
Blue Heaven
Arrow BooksWritten by one of the head writers of Frasier, this novel relocates Wodehouse/Evelyn Waugh-style hijinks to upper-class Manhattan homes, featuring an ebullient cast of loud and proud characters all scheming and scamming to get what they want. -
Death and the Penguin
The Harvill PressSet in post-Soviet Ukraine, this little gem of a novel follows the fortunes of Viktor, an aspiring short story writer, and his pet penguin Misha. -
A Confederacy of Dunces
PenguinIgnatius is a testament to sloth, rage and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern, a horrible man, a noble crusader against a world of dunces. -
Sag Harbor
Harvill SeckerSag Harbor is a warm and funny piece of literary comedy that is laidback like the summer it depicts and staunchly proud of its identity.
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