Lists

100 Must-Read Hilarious Books

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Susie Rodarme

Staff Writer

Susie Rodarme is obsessed with small press literary fiction and tea. Other notable skills: chainmaille weaving, using Photoshop semi-correctly, and drinking gin.

This post is sponsored by Penguin Teen.

SpontaneousMara Carlyle’s senior year is going as normally as could be expected, until—wa-bam!—fellow senior Katelyn Ogden explodes during third period pre-calc. Katelyn is the first, but she won’t be the last teenager to blow up without warning or explanation. As the seniors continue to pop like balloons, smart and hilarious Mara narrates the end of their world as she knows it. But within an explosive year punctuated by romance, quarantine, lifelong friendship, and the hope of making it to graduation lies a funny, super honest, and truly moving story of being a teenager and the heartache of saying goodbye.


 

There’s almost nothing I love more than a well-written comedy. If you, like me, enjoy both a great book and a deep belly-laugh, I’ve compiled a list of must-read books just for us (in no particular order because they’re all hilarious).

I know you’ll have feels about this list, because all book lovers have feels about book lists, am I right? Let me know what I missed, what you think I got wrong, and what you think I got right.

1. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

2. Has Anyone Seen My Pants by Sarah Colonna

3. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris

4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz – This one has both hilarity and poignancy, so it’s a bit more mixed than some other titles on this list.

Crazy Rich Asians5. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

6. A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson

7. Heartburn by Nora Ephron

8. Varamo by César Aira – Translated from Spanish, it’s got a bit of Monty Python-esque shtick hidden in gorgeous prose.

9. My Man Jeeves (Jeeves #1) by P.G. Wodehouse

10. Gil’s All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

11. How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston

12. Senselessness by Horatio Castellanos Moya

13. Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters by Mallory Ortberg and Madeline Gobbo

See You Next Tuesday14. See You Next Tuesday by Jane Mai

15. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

16. Bossypants by Tina Fey

17. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

18. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

19. Go the Fuck To Sleep by Adam Mansbach

20. To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Connie Willis

21. Misconceptions by Blu Daniels

22. Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman

23. The Broke Diaries: The Completely True and Hilarious Misadventures of a Good Girl Gone Broke by Angela Nissel

24. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

25. A Bad Idea I’m About to Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure by Chris Gethard

the eyre affair by jasper Fforde26. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (a whole awesome series!)

27. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

28. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks

29. How to Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

30. Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt

31. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

32. Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

33. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Lamb34. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore – The only Jesus comedy I know that is beloved by nonbelievers and Christians alike.

35. The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage – This book honestly had me in stitches. If you liked A Confederacy of Dunces, read this one.

36. Company by Max Barry

37. You Can’t Touch My Hair And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson

38. The Colour of Magic (Discworld #1) by Terry Pratchett (You don’t actually have to start at #1 in Discworld; I think I started with #33 and it was highly enjoyable. There’s a graphic here that outlines the different sub-series and their first books, in case you want to jump around.)

39. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

40. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

41. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Such A Pretty Fat42. Such A Pretty Fat: One Narcissist’s Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie is Not the Answer by Jen Lancaster

43. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

44. Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

45. Typical American by Gish Jen

46. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

47. I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

48. Autobiography of a Fat Bride: True Tales of a Pretend Adulthood by Laurie Notaro

49. The Regional Office Is Under Attack! by Manuel Gonzales

50. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari

Adulthood Is A Myth51. Adulthood Is a Myth: A “Sarah’s Scribbles” Collection by Sarah Andersen

52. What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

53. Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood by Drew Magary

54. The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine by Krissy Kneen

55. Killing Auntie by Andrzej Bursa

56. I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett

57. Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

58. The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck

59. Shrill by Lindy West

60. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

61. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

62. The Internet Is A Playground by David Thorne (side-splittingly funny)

63. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (SHAKESPEARE IS HILARE)

64. Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett

65. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

I Hate Fairyland66. I Hate Fairyland by Skottie Young

67. Mother, Can You Not? by Kate Siegel

68. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

69. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

70. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

71. It Gets Worse by Shane Dawson

72. Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran (fave webcomic ever . . . maybe fave comic ever)

73. Redshirts by John Scalzi

74. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

75. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

76. Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

77. Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed by Lance Carbuncle

78. The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

79. Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan

80. I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

Dora A Headcase81. Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch

82. The Room by Jonas Karlsson

83. Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey

84. An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington by Karl Pilkington

85. The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie

86. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

87. I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi

88. Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen

89. The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Clown Girl90. Clown Girl by Monica Drake

91. This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

92. Oreo by Fran Ross

93. The Sugar Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner

94. Black Hole Blues by Patrick Wensink

95. The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle

96. The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernandez

97. A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

98. Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein

99. Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn

100. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart