Thanks for the Comedy Rules by Jonathan Lynn recommendation. Very hard not to drink it straight down in one. Informative and consistently funny. Delightful.

Laurie Taylor's In The Underworld sees the respected sociologist introduced to various criminals by John McVicar, one of his students, then making a transition from armed robbery to journalism. The mismatch of the good-hearted if occasionally naive Professor and the hardman going straight would make a good sit com.

They had planned something more serious and sociological, fortunately the interviews with practitioners of various dark trades are peppered with mordant wit. There's quite a few hilarious stories in among the hard data.

Worth it (one P + postage Amazon)just for the details of an ingenious prank played on Frankie Vaughan, perpetrated by someone who had booked an on-stage table and was therefore able to spend the rest of the act gloating triumphantly.

Quote: Jonathan Whitelaw @ 21st April 2014, 10:38 PM BST

I agree with the above posters, a brilliant read.

I'd also recommend anything by Chris Brookmyer. Especially for those who like their comedy witha murderous edge.

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*Brookmyre

Douglas Lindsey - 'The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson'. Just read it!

Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton by Noel Fielding

David Nobbs's Reggie Perrin books are very funny. A little more depth and darkness to them than the sitcom (which is also superb). The part where he gives a speech to the British Fruit Association is much funnier in the book than in the sitcom. For some reason the presence of a practically silent Swedish professor gives it an edge.

Billy Liar is hilarious and full of pathos. Billy's a bit like a teenage Reggie Perrin really. Same sense of desperation. It's amazing how Woodhouse mixes up bits of garbled music hall routines, office banter, Yorkshire cliches in Billy's strange fantasy world. Terrible jokes too:
- I'm not having you gallivanting around at all hours.
- Why? Who are you having gallivanting around at all hours?

Nigel Williams's Wimbledon Poisoner was very funny, if a bit curmudgeonly at times ('You say "Can't you be more tender?" and I say "Search me squire"). There's a very good funeral address by Henry, which is a bit like the one Reggie Perrin gives to the fruit association. The follow-up books weren't half as funny.

And Cold Comfort Farm. Something nasty in the woodshed...

And Sue Townsend. One of my favourites of hers is Rebuilding Coventry, in which a woman called Coventry, who's bored with her life (husband the president of the local tortoise society), goes on the run after killing someone with an action man & ends up taking shelter with an eccentric academic couple ("Is that a Bensons? I've got a superb nose for a fag").

'This Gangster is One of Your Own'
It's a parody of one of those London criminal underworld autobiographies. Gets the self-delusion, twisted morality, ignorance, and the argot spot on. Some funny stuff about football, too. Plus, a satisfactorily high joke ratio.

And I'd second anyone who recommended Money, by Martin Amis.

I'd second Rebuilding Coventry, absolutely loved it. As a rule I don't tend to laugh out loud even at funny books, but that rule got broken as soon as I picked up Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. Genuinely tears-rolling-down-cheeks laugh-out-loud hilarious - for me, anyway!

I'm really surprised nobody else has posted on my Leslie Thomas thread.

Surely he's one of our greatest humourous writers of the late Twentieth Century. Extremeley prolific and consistent too he wrote on average a novel every year.

Did nobody else rate him?

As already mentioned Tom Sharpe and Robert Rankin. I think Tom Sharpe's books are maybe the only ones to make me laugh out loud.

I like Jerome K Jerome's 3 Men in/on .. boat/Bummel(wheels in America). The other books of his have very mild comedy which hasn't lasted so well.

Diaries - Adrien Mole, Bridget Jones.. also Christopher Matthew's various Simon Crisp diaries are very good if you don't know them: Diary of a Somebody, Loosely Engaged, Crisp Report, and I think two others.

The Great Time Machine Hoax, Keith Laumer - enormous fun. It's a rare book, but the complete text is online if you want to Google it.

Peter Tinniswood Carter Branden stories: so much better than the TV series: A Touch of Daniel is the first book, and there are three more.

Just William series by Richmal Crompton..

Quote: Chappers @ 5th June 2014, 7:55 PM BST

I'm really surprised nobody else has posted on my Leslie Thomas thread.

Surely he's one of our greatest humourous writers of the late Twentieth Century. Extremeley prolific and consistent too he wrote on average a novel every year.

Did nobody else rate him?

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I liked him a lot a few decades ago. A very good mainstream writer with some poignant touches, Well drawn characters, people worth caring about.

Quote: Marissa @ 27th June 2014, 12:03 AM BST

I liked him a lot a few decades ago. A very good mainstream writer with some poignant touches, Well drawn characters, people worth caring about.

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Leslie Thomas - sadly missed.

Along with my Otway DVD I bought myself a flip bbok of his performance on the Old Grey Whistle Test where he jumps on the speaker and falls off crushing his testicles.

Got a funny new satire website you may like as opposed to book? Www.shizz.me

For me the funniest book ever is Catch 22. Seriously laugh out loud funny. I believe he wrote it under the influence of amphetamines and you can tell because it starts and then runs full steam ahead to the end and you are dragged along.
Shame the rest of his stuff was terrible.

Quote: aningeniousname @ 14th November 2014, 4:24 PM GMT

For me the funniest book ever is Catch 22. Seriously laugh out loud funny. I believe he wrote it under the influence of amphetamines and you can tell because it starts and then runs full steam ahead to the end and you are dragged along.
Shame the rest of his stuff was terrible.

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I mentioned Catch 22 previously as my favourite and then I read Good as Gold and thought it was rubbish.