An open-house viewing turned hostage situation doesn’t sound like it would be the perfect setting for a comedy, but Backman’s novel is nothing if not laugh-out-loud funny. With Evelyn Waugh, readers are spoilt for choice, because his novels Vile Bodies, Black Mischief, The Loved One and Decline and Fall (jestful from the opening page) all fizz with waggish genius.

Best Humorous Books (4213 books) - Goodreads Best Humorous Books (4213 books) - Goodreads

This is a charming, light read for those times when you’re willing to suspend belief and just go along for the ride.Anne Tyler’s modern retelling of the Taming of the Shrew brings us Kate Battista, a 20-something who is stuck at home and in a dead-end job.

Joke Book for Adults: Funny Clean Jokes and Puns for Clean Joke Book for Adults: Funny Clean Jokes and Puns for

Doyle has also written highly amusing children’s books, incidentally, especially The Giggler Treatment. The premise here is that Bliss followed Martin around while the comedian remembered stories from his long career in entertainment and made those moments into art. With her dogged optimism aNadita wrote: "I read this the first time sitting on a mattress on the floor in a small room in La Paz, Bolivia at a time when I needed a little joy in my life. The humour of talented female authors was often underplayed in the 20th century but one book was acknowledged by contemporaries as a comedy classic - Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm. But the parties are also the sites of miracles, healings and other phenomena Ted can’t quite understand.