What Are You Reading? – Ben Blacker’s Funny Books List
Or books that are funny, how about that? Either way, here’s what Ben posted on my Facebook wall, and now I present it (with his permission) to you:
This was in response to my conversation with Kevin Seccia, where Kevin had mentioned how difficult it is to find a funny book that also holds up as a sustained narrative. I’d mentioned Sam Lipsyte’s Home Land and Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim as two good ones, but it was difficult to think of more in the moment. A huge thank you to Ben, who’s been a friend of the show from the start (and an actual friend in actual life), and also to Kevin, who’s just great. Now go listen to their episodes!
I think you need to add Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” to this list.
Barbara Pym’s Some Tame Gazelle + Jane and Prudence
I’d like to recommend Tomcat in Love by Tim O’Brien and The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter.
Tomcat in Love was the first e-book I ever read in my ipad kindle app. I checked it out from my library just to try it out, and it was the most lucky accidental discovery.
PS – I love your podcast.
Leslie,
Thank you for reading AND listening! I’m going to check out both of these books, as Tim O’Brien is someone I like quite a bit, and Jess Walter is someone I’ve been meaning to read. Love these suggestions!
Matt
In my opinion Don Quixote is a boring, mean, pointless book with nothing to offer a person currently alive, least of all humour, but take Pop’s word for it and fall down the same time suck that I did.
Ditto on Rachel Papers (Money is a hard fall from this) and Lucky Jim though to a lesser extent.
Pnin (my #3 ever).
I thought the The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby was very witty (my #4 ever).
Maybe Catch-22 if you want the same joke 50,000 times.