[chokipokilo]

Seems like any time I search for humor or comedy novels all I come up with is romantic comedy and absurdist comedies like Hitchhiker's Guide and the like.

I'm looking for recommendations for college/adult humor novels (crudeness preferred). I'm talking about the kind of laughs you get from watching Old School or Super Troopers, if it exists in writing. I don't mind a little romance, and would actually prefer if there were some serious undertones, but I'd like something where getting cheap laughs is one of the primary purposes of the novel.

Recommendations?

PS: Not that I didn't enjoy Hitchhikers.

[Aurian]

Simon R. Green's Hawk and Fisher series has a black humour about them (along with lots of violence and gore).

Check out Guards of Haven for an intro (3 stories in one book), or Blue Moon Rising for a book that turns the prince, princess, dragon, wizard cliches upside down.

[SLASH]

Carl Hiaasen's stuff is fun to read
Thrillers with strange sense of humour

[Randy M.]

Dave Barry's Big Trouble -- goofy thriller, supposedly based on the Hiaasen model. Runs out of steam near the end, but enjoyable fluff.

I haven't read much of Donald Westlake, but his Dortmunder series is much loved by many, many mystery readers and lots of non-mystery readers, as well: Dortmunder is a master thief who takes on the most improbable thefts, creates meticulous plans, and then has to deal with them falling apart.

Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping & The Stupidest Angel -- the first is a first novel and has some first novel problems, like tailing off near the end, but when it's working, I found it very funny. The second is a later novel and strong from beginning to end. Also very funny, and a good read for around the holidays.

For silly (if G-rated) humor, the early Harry Potter novels are pretty good, too.


Randy M.

[The Dark Truth]

I found Catch-22 by Joseph Heller to be very humorous. I strongly recommend it.

[Loerwyn]

The Soddit and Bored of the Rings? :P

[Onzlo]

Anything by Christopher Brookmyre.

Laugh out loud funny. All the books are based on Scottish characters so the dialogue can be a bit difficult to understand but generally they are fast paced, full of action and very funny.

Also Colin Bateman writes humorous novels. Not quite as full of belly laughs as Brookmyre but still lots of funny moments.

Finally the Barney Thomson novel by Douglas Lindsay are full of very black humour. They tell the story of an Hairdresser / Serial Killer.

[Window Bar]

Try The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. In fact, try anything by Bill Bryson, though most are more memoir than novel. Caveat: these are not novels, but as memoirs, they are rendered with a fair amount of poetic license.

[Ponerology]

The Harry Harrison books are SF but crazy and funny SF, particularly the Stainless Steel Rat series.

Also it's again more crazy in the Flann O'Brien style (who famously used to write to newspapers with raging complaints about the crude nature of the articles in there, which he himself had written) is Robert Rankin.

[JohnKurt]

I find James O Born's novels hilarious. They're politically incorrect and quite funny from time to time. Serious, for the most part, with good humor now and again. They're very guy-smak-talk humor though.

http://www.jamesoborn.com/