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We love books. Tell us about your favourite books and authors, and why they are so good. And while you're at it - having dined out for years on the time I threw Dan Brown out of a train window - tell us who to avoid.
( , Thu 5 Jan 2012, 13:40)
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part 8
Fairly short as most "humourous" books are just not funny. Tom Sharpe sold tons and it's as funny as bowel cancer if you ask me.
Sellars and Yeatman- 1066 and All That.
or
A Memorable History of England,
comprising all the parts you can remember,
including 103 Good Things,
5 Bad Kings, and
2 Genuine Dates
Hunter Thompson- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
How can you resist a book that starts like this
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?” Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.
P.G Wodehouse- read any of them. Already had a shout so I won't dwell
Spine Millingtune of course although the stuff towards the end gets a bit woolly and lazy the early war biographies are spiffing
Terry Pratchett has already at a shout so again I'll pass over quickly. Makes me laugh though.
Franz Kafka
Not usually noted as a humourist but for my money that's usually his critics fault. There's a lot of very black comedy in there if you read it with that idea in mind
Not including plays as they are performances, the book is just the framework, but if I were then Stoppard, Beckett, Ionescu and Ben Johnson, to name but a few, would get a shout. Not many yucks in Beckett's novels apart from Murphy and I don't really love it that much.
Passing mentions of Tom Holt and Robert Rankin who both have their moments, Douglas Adams but it was better on the radio and that's about it
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 13:39, 21 replies)
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...how many times have I said THAT* to myself!
* well, with certain local and cultural substitutions
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 13:48, closed)
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( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 14:09, closed)
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( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 14:15, closed)
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( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 14:30, closed)
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ooh! i hope part 9 is 'agrarian monarchy in the late 12th century'!
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 14:36, closed)
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Well tough shit on those of you who don't read very much. I have to read all the crap from other qotws where I have very little to input as I won't just make up some old bollocks. (Also I don't get out much)
Favourites and why was the question so that's what you are getting. This is just a bare sampling, if I listed every book I ever read we'd be here till next Christmas.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 15:18, closed)
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I could post my masters dissertation but that does seem a bit outside the scope of the question.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 15:21, closed)
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Oh dude. You really should have kept your keyboard closed.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 15:40, closed)
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i read an inordinate amount. for example, i've just started 'the kindly ones' as recommended by someone here this week. but hey, nobody really cares about that but me, right?
oh, but thanks for taking the opportunity to point out that you have a master's degree.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 15:57, closed)
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Not much more now in any case, Some non-fiction, biographies, maybe some SF although that's been pretty well covered already and what academics condescendingly label ephemeral fiction.
All this attention, however, may go to my head and we can do sports books, underground comics, science, history and many more.
(Probably not though)
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 17:16, closed)
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When the question was Tell us about your favourite books and authors, and why they are so good.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 17:47, closed)
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If you are so deeply uninterested in hearing about the which and the why of other folks bibliophila then how is it you have taken a recommendation on that basis?
Logically inconsistent?
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 20:04, closed)
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without doing 'my literary thoughts, part the 8th'
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 22:36, closed)
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Does Flann O'Brien/ Myles na Gopaleen/Brian O'Nolan not count as 'humorous'? 'Cos he wrote some cracking stuff.
( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 15:38, closed)
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( , Tue 10 Jan 2012, 17:44, closed)
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