While She Knits ~ Mendacious Mentions

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

Taking theme again from the little hints about the next book,  today's book discussion...

In which a matched set of garnets as big as your thumb is mentioned mendaciously.

I don't know about you, but I immediately thought this conversation would be funny, and smiled.
Humor--if you don't read The Thief, etc. for the humor, I don't know why you *do* read them.



So, What Books Have a Sense of Humor You Just Love?

Is there a common thread? Do you like sharp reparte? Physical humor? Literary references?

What is the Funniest/Wittiest/Most Mendacious Book you have read?



(As is usual, you may praise the Queen's Thief books...but we assume we all know how brilliant and funny they are.)

Comments

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

I really liked Candide by Voltaire. It has a really dry, sarcastic sense of humor and basically the whole book is one huge joke.
I kept laughing while I was reading it and people said, What's so funny? And then I had to explain about the maid's inability to sit on a horse and the irony of piracy...
Awful, awful things happened in Candide. But in a funny way.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

The opera's pretty good too. ^.^

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at the humor the one time I picked it up. It was vaguely horrifying, though, so when I managed to put it down I never ventured to it again...

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

*snort*
Ah, I read that last english block... that was SO TERRIBLY FUNNY. One of those things where you just spend the whole time thinking, 'why in Hephestia's name is this so funny?'

[adalanne.livejournal.com]

What Books Have a Sense of Humor You Just Love?

Mm, basically all of them. *lol* My favorite books are like my favorite men: they have a great sense of humor. T/QoA/KoA are definitely good examples of that. Seriously, Gen, SO much love. ^_^

Other favorites:

1. Anything by Terry Pratchett. Some of his early work isn't exactly my favorite (though I'd say it's on par with Douglas Adams in his prime), but literally, anything he's published since 1990 is practically made of comedic gold.

2. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. Most fans agree that, while they love the covers, they don't do justice as to letting potential readers know about the sheer hilarity inside. Harry Dresden is top wizard when it comes to one-liners. This exchange kinda sums him up:
"Who the hell are you?" he growled.
"I the hell am Harry" I said.
"You always a wiseass?"
"No. Sometimes I'm asleep."
(And now I have to stop myself from listing off a whole bunch of freakin' awesome quotes; just read the books already!)

3. Jack D. Ferraiolo's The Big Splash. I'm a sucker for hard-boiled detective novels, so when you set one in middle school, where kids are taken out by waterguns full of cat pee and the drug trafficking is pixie sticks, there is no end to the fantastic hilarity. Totally looking forward to more by Ferraiolo.

Hm, 3 is a good number. I should probably stop there. ^_^

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to pick up the Dresden Files! Right, they're on my list now. That quote was too good.

[allthingevil123.livejournal.com]

I would have to agree with you on Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, they are pure gold. I'm currently desparately looking forward to Turn Coat coming out in May.
And I also agree with the comments about Terry Pratchett and Tamora Pierce.

Another author I would recommend is Catherine Webb, I really like her book, though I haven't read them for a while now (Though my copy of Mirror Dream is so worn pages are falling out O_o )

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Well, I adore Terry Pratchett's brand of humor... Meg Cabot as well. Tamora Pierce has her moments of comedy in her books.

Funniest book I read would probably have to be Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. It reminds me of Costis. <3

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

Pride and Prejudice. All Jane Austen, really. I feel like it matches up with my sense of humour almost 100%. It's almost to the point where, if someone really dislikes Jane Austen, I'm not sure if we could really be friends, because we probably wouldn't get each other.

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who thinks Austen's books are Regency-era soap operas.

Clearly, we are friends *despite* many differences in taste. This is just the most shocking to me...

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy for the dry, deprecating style it does as none other

The Blue Sword for sarcasm (and other Robin McKinley books)

The Bartimaeus Trilogy for being a runner up to a Gen-style deprecation-with-boasting MC and dark comedy

Anne of Green Gables and most of L. M. Montgomery's work for an eye on the foibles of humanity, and the humor of life's up and downs.

I'd like to mention some comics, too though:

Skip-Beat is so far my favorite manga for the sit-com style humor, and physical/drawn humor.
Unless we're talking comic strips, in which case I have to give it to Calvin & Hobbes, which you may not realize ranges over philosophy about humanity, to gender, to flat-out hilarious gag humor. Wit, and wickedness, and water balloons!

Girl Genius the steampunk webcomic is probably the one I'd recommend all Sounisians try, though. You may not have encountered it. You need to!
Mad science, politics gone awry, and the anti-Elf: Jagers with teeth the size of your fingers.
I love them...


Someone already mentioned Austen, but she is a genius--the layers of irony in Emma go so deep I can't stop finding them...

[seachild930.livejournal.com]

I would have to second The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Oh man. Those books are hysterical but simultaneously brooding and dark...my kind of book!

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

Austen as Regency-era soaps?? Oh my! No, no, she’s the inventor of the romantic comedy. We’ve just screwed it up in modern times and lost all the social satire. Anyway, love her humor!

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore was laugh out loud funny from beginning to end!

Bridget Jones’ Diary it also a total riot full of Austen obsession. Fielding is not the satirist that Austen was but the books are still hilarious.

Nick Hornby is usually good humor, too.

The Princess Bride abridged by William Goldman is great for a laugh, as is the movie. Suggestion, skip Goldman’s asides – they add nothing to the story and actually made me dislike him quite a lot.

I also enjoy Pratchett and, zumie, wasn’t the dedication in Guards! Guards! the best ever? What a riot!

And to everyone, thanks for the new book ideas…the TBR pile continues to grow!

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realized that... halfway though the book. After I already hated him. But the book itself is wonderful, marvelous, perfect. And I'm quoting the movie in an animation me and some friends are making.

[peanut13171.livejournal.com]

I love Martha Wells for her clever sarcastic dialogue (and great plots and fantastic worldbuilding and fab characters).

Most of Georgette Heyer's regencies have amusing bits in them. NOT her mysteries or her first works, which were dreadful IMO.

Jennifer Cruisie's books WRITTEN ALONE. Her last couple of books have been written w/Bob Mayer and IMO they were a mess.

Hilary McKay's Casson family series (starting w/Saffy's Angel). The family is wacky and unusual and make me smile.

[filkferengi]

Now you've done it! I've gone & ordered the first two Casson books, & it's all *your* fault!

;)

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

I second (or 3rd or 4th or whatever) Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. And someone did mention another genre...hardboiled detective novels about the character Spenser (as in Spenser for Hire, on TV) by Robert Parker are dry, sarcastic, and very intellectual. I know this because I don't get all the jokes while all the rest of my family does. I get enough to really really appreciate them though!

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

P. G. Wodehouse always makes me laugh out loud and, as others have said, Pratchett's Discworld books are funny to the point of me calling friends and family to say, "You gotta listen to this...".

The most deceptive book I've read? The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Chrisite.

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

Wodehouse!

I only read him every once in a while--too much and it palls. But man, when I do need a pick-me-up...

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... humor. Of course, we're skipping QT in all this, because we all know those are the best.

Even though they're very thought-provoking books, the humor in the Wind on Fire trilogy (The Wind Singer, Slaves of the Mastery, and Firesong) was well done. A sample:
(Bowman, by the way, can understand animals. The pigs are just... pigs)

"I can hear you," said Bowman. The pigs looked at each other.
"He says he can hear us"
"But we're not saying anything."
"We are now."
"We weren't when he spoke."
"Prehaps he meant we can hear him."
"I can't hear him. I'm not listening to him."
"Nor am I."
There followed a short silence.
"What if he's listening to us?"
"Listening to us not saying anything?"
"Listening to us not listening."

I'd copy down the rest of this part but it would take too long.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

"Listening to us not saying anything?"
"Listening to us not listening."

:D

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

Rex Zero and the end of the world by Tim Wynne-Jones

2nd page: ... and one of those clear plastic emergency rain caps that you can fold up to the size of a package of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. My mother has one of those caps in her purse, or she used to. One day when I had nothing to do -- and I never have anything to do these days -- I folded it up to half the size of a pack of gum and then, to make sure it stayed folded, I ironed it.

very clever, very understated. I laughed about something on just about every page. And besides all that, a good story.

[sclerotia.livejournal.com]

If you are re-reading stuff, you already know the plot, so you must be re-reading for some other reason; for me it is usually wit and character, both of which are so enticing in MWT's books. So here are some things that haven't been mentioned that I re-read for wit and characters:

Patricia Wrede's stuff, some of her earliest novels for adults are not as amusing, but almost all of her later stuff is pretty witty
Gerald Morris's stuff
A barrel of laughs, a vale of tears by Jules Feiffer--He also illustrated the Phantom Tollbooth which fits this category, as well
All of Bujold's Vokosigan and 5-gods books. I don't find her more recent series as amusing.
Diana Wynne Jones, and in particular Howl's Moving Castle, The Dark Lord of Derkholm, and Year of the Griffin
Have recently been re-reading some of Giovanni Guareschi books about Don Camillo (a priest in post-WWII Italy) and have been really enjoying them. I had forgotten how good they were.
There were some pretty amusing things in the first Firebirds anthology, including a short story by our dearly beloved author.


Someone (here, I think) recommended Catherine Jink's Pagan series. I have read the first one and liked it very much. Then I read Evil Genius and liked it quite a bit, too.

[bookaddict88.livejournal.com]

I re-read for wit and character as well. In fact, I don't usually seek out witty books (though I do look for ones with great characters), but a good number of my favorite books are those that made me laugh.

Anyway, I also love Wrede's works, the Bujold Vorkosigan series (I've only read the first of the 5-gods books, and while I enjoyed it, I didn't find it as amusing) and Howl's Moving Castle.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of the most humorous books I have ever read would be "The Squire's Tales" series by Gerald Morris. They are full of caustic wit, and dry humor. There's something that makes you laugh about every three pages.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I love those, too. Funny to the point of slapstick, sometimes.

[inkasrain.livejournal.com]

I second the appreciation for the Bartimaeus trilogy. I didn't adore the ending, but they managed to be hilarious completely independent of the plot. (One of my favorite quotes now is "And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened." Just brilliant!)

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

Ack, so many good books! My life is going to explode!

Just have to give a shout out for Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It is certainly a brick, but a funny one.

(Reply to this)

[inkasrain.livejournal.com]

Ah, fantastic book, I should re-read it. I remember hauling the hardcover copy to high school and back the week it took me to read it... more than one strange look was focused in my direction, as I recall. More than worth it, though!

[readsintrees.livejournal.com]

I think the funniest books I have ever written were (*gasp*) non-fiction by Bill Bryson. He wrote "A Walk in the Woods" about trying to hike the Appalacian trail. He's written several other travel books, a book about returning to live in America after 20 years in England, and (my favorite) a book called, "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" about growing up in the 50's and 60's. That book had to laughing to hard that I had tears rolling down my face.

As for fiction, obviously MWT's books come to mind. In fiction, I tend to like more subtle humor, or even the humor that arises from blunt sentences, like in "Ella Enchanted". I'm not really a fan of Terry Pratchett (sorry!!), because that kind of chatty narrator, slapstick, snide comment humor isn't really my thing. I like when a single sentence provokes an amusing image that makes me smile. Favorite funny line from The Thief? "I could be a convenient sort of milemarker, I thought, Get to the thief and you know you're halfway to Methana."

Going younger, books by Roald Dahl were always fun. The Chrestomanci books were amusing in that subtle way. I still love Louis Sacher's Wayside School books. James Howe's "Bunnicula" books are fun. Oo! Another author that I always found amusing for younger readers, but who never got much acclaim was Ellen Conford. She wrote several of those grades 4-6 books by Apple Scholastics that just sort of got ignored. I remember reading a a book of hers called "Dreams of Victory" about a girl with a wicked imagination, who always went off on these silly asides in her imagination. The other book by Conford that I remember was called, "The Revenge of the Incredible Dr. Rancid and His Youthful Assistant, Jeffrey". Wait! What about the Romona Quimbley books?! What about Anastasia Krupnik!

There are so many funny kids' books that I can't event think about adult books right now...

[pigrescuer.livejournal.com]

Ah, Bill Bryson! His nuclear toilet seats! ^_^

My favourite Bryson is either Notes on a Small Island (travelling around the UK) or Notes on a Big Country. Or Australian one. It's all the little amusing anecdotes. :D

[etv13.livejournal.com]

I've recently gotten hooked on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books. They're funny in all kinds of ways: friends teasing each other, mix-and-match proverbial expressions, crazy plot devices (e.g., a Napoleonic-era naval captain escaping from the French disguised as a bear), puns (some of them really stupid), subtle humor that arises out of characters behaving in characteristic ways . . . while in some ways they're not at all like Terry Pratchett, whom I also love, they are in the tremendous range and variety of the humor, and also in the underlying seriousness of at least the middle-to-late Pratchett.

[filkferengi]

Gerald Durrell, both fiction and non- [usually involving animals, zoos, etc.]. The adaptation of _My Family And Other Animals_ was particularly well done.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Yes!