What are the funniest novels you've read, or the best novels which also feature a lot of humour?
Funniest novels
Cold Comfort Farm
Lucky Jim
London Fields
HithHikers Guide to Galaxy. I've never read it but I assume it is because radio show is brilliant.
Quote: Gavin @ December 6 2009, 6:00 PM GMTHithHikers Guide to Galaxy. I've never read it but I assume it is because radio show is brilliant.
You assume correctly.
Quote: Griff @ December 6 2009, 6:05 PM GMTJ.P.Donleavy's The Ginger Man
Hunter S.Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas...Agree with the Cold Comfort Farm and Lucky Jim. The History Man is pretty good too.
I tried to read the Ginger Man once, but could not get into it.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Lucky Jim were books which I enjoyed when I read them, which I guess was at the right age, but I suspect they would annoy the hell out of me now.
I enjoyed the TV adaptations of Cold Comfort Farm and The History Man.
The prolific Tom Holt does not always deliver, but on form he is very good: The Portable Door is probably the best place to start with his fantasy oeuvre, and The Walled Orchard among the rather more bleakly humourous historical novels.
Oddities I recall enjoying are
Fup by Jim Dodge
The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman
Memoirs of Mipsie by Mary Dunn
W.G. Grace's Last Case by Willie Rushton
Very strongly agree with Griff on MacDonald Fraser and Pratchett.
Rankin's Brentford Trilogy is very good, but I would not recommend exploring his ouevre any further.
Catch 22 goes without saying, and I adored The Princess Bride.
Pratchett is brilliant, like a bit of Wodehouse too. Read Wilt by Tom Sharpe recently, enjoyed that.
Three Men in a Boat.
Catch-22.
1984. 
1984 is a romance you heather,
Hmm
Terry Pratchett; especially the Guards series and the later stuff like Monsterous Regiment.
Douglas Adams; the Hitchhikers first 3 only.
Graham Joyce, the Tooth Fairy
William Browning Spencer, Zodwallop
Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys.
Quote: Griff @ December 6 2009, 7:07 PM GMTThree Men In A Boat is a good call.
Slightly soiled by that awful TV show.
Down with skool, is ace. So much funnier than Jennings and all that shite.
What they did to Princess Paragon
Kiln' People.
A lot of people recommend 'Scoop' by Evelyn Waugh but I always found his first book 'Decline And Fall' much funnier. Jonathan Coe's 'Rotters Club' is great for those of us of a certain age - and I would recommend that any Reggie Perrin fan should look up the novels of David Nobbs - especially 'Second From Last In The Sack Race' and 'Pratt of the Argus'. Nobbs always talks of himself as a novelist who turned to sitcom rather than the other way round.
Aaagghhh how could I forget Tom Sharpe.
I have howled at; Vintage Stuff, Wilt, Blott on the Landscape and his South African novels.
Quote: Anorak @ December 6 2009, 7:26 PM GMTA lot of people recommend 'Scoop' by Evelyn Waugh but I always found his first book 'Decline And Fall' much funnier. Jonathan Coe's 'Rotters Club' is great for those of us of a certain age - and I would recommend that any Reggie Perrin fan should look up the novels of David Nobbs - especially 'Second From Last In The Sack Race' and 'Pratt of the Argus'. Nobbs always talks of himself as a novelist who turned to sitcom rather than the other way round.
The Rotter's Club and the sequel, The Closed Circle are very good. What A Carve Up! is pretty funny too.
Yeah, you big heather! 
Did you really find 1984 funny?
Animal Farm is quite funny in parts.
Spike Milligan's Puckoon was really funny, yet would appeal to me more than most as having made many visits there to see family, I could relate to the Irishness of the book.
Quote: Jack Massey @ December 6 2009, 8:10 PM GMTSpike Milligan's Puckoon was really funny, yet would appeal to me more than most as having made many visits there to see family, I could relate to the Irishness of the book.
I love his books about the second world war.