Funniest Books in the English Language

This blog is primarily a space where I offer cultural critique, but today I thought I would offer a short list of the funniest books I have ever read in the English language. These would probably be on most lists, but I know a lot of people that have never read one or more of them – so here they are . . .

1) Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole): this brilliant book, post-humous winner of the Pulitzer, follows the travails of chubby, ne’er do well Ignatius T. Reilly and a wonderfully eccentric collection of characters in New Orleans. A movie adaptation has been in the works for years, but seems eternally cursed.
2) Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis): one of the best books ever written on the absurdly esoteric and petty world of academia and another ne’er do well falling in love with the wrong women.
3) Catch-22 (Joseph Heller): an absurdist tale of World War II that deals with some very profound questions underneath; and through the travails of Captain Yossarian added Catch-22 to the American lexicon. The Nichols film doesn’t quiet capture the magic of the novel, but is still worth a view. This was Heller’s one great novel.
4) Vile Bodies (Evelyn Waugh): a brilliant satire of the senseless decadence of the British upper class in the period between World War I and II. Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley both considered Waugh one of the greatest satirists of his epoch. A film adaptation, Bright Young Things (2003), does a decent job of capturing the epic humor of the book.
5) The Russian Debutate’s Handbook (Gary Shtenygart): a wonderfully inventive tale of assimilation in America and Prague in the early 90s, this book (like his second Absurdistan) is brilliantly rendered with rich characters and

A few others that I think fit the bill include Vonnegut, The Cat’s Cradle, Jonathon Safran Froer Everything is Illuminated (movie sucked), Douglas Adams A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Richard Russo Empire Falls (with very serious undertones), David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty Some Day, Bernard Malamud’s The Natural (very funny, unlike the movie) and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy.