I need to laugh. It’s as simple as that; the only sure means of sanity I know. I therefore demand little else if I am able to have a good laugh. Which is why these books (not exhaustive by any means, and somewhat infuriatingly, I keep thinking of foolish omissions—but what can you do?) have been faithful companions over the years.
You’re welcome.
5 Books: All time favourites
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1066 and All That by Sellar & Yeatman (1930): the first of its kind and never bettered, a long-time favourite of my grandfather’s. The original anti-history history text book (aeons before Horrible Histories and replete with exams ordering candidates ‘to write on both sides of the paper at once’ etc), this is the perfect summary of British history right up until the point where “America was thus clearly top nation, and History came to a .” That beats Fukuyama hands down.
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Tragically I was an only Twin: the Complete Peter Cook (2003): a compilation of his writing over a lifetime of ingenious bawdy whimsy and absurdity. The one-legged Tarzan sketch was written when only 18 – but the humour just poured out of him.
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The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Lynn & Jay (1993): a bit of a spin-off this from the pair’s original TV series of Yes Minister and Yes PM. The likes of Hawthorne, Eddington and Fowlds so inhabited the parts that it is a joy to read these literary adaptations. Political satire NEVER bettered.
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979): Adams started this with John Lloyd as a radio play but he was the one to make it soar astronomically into an unprecedented trilogy in 5 parts. Such sidesplittingly effortless invention (or so it seemed) but with occasionally serious purpose. Just wow.
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Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (1958): Greene is in my top 3 writers – his novels split between serious books and entertainments (of which this very much the latter). A brilliant take-down of the self-importance of British global power and its intelligence services, set in Cuba over a decade before it really was the setting of a nuclear confrontation.
5 Books: Comedy Classics
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Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749): I was introduced to this by the sublimely funny 1963 film with Albert Finney and was no disappointed. What a brilliant, pacey romp through 18thC English society. Who can ever forget the households of Allworthy or Western, especially the likes of Rev Thwackum or Mr Blifil. One of the real greats.
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The Diary of a Nobody by the Grossmiths (1892): we’re now in suburban London (although Holloway hardly feels like that these days). the brothers George and Weedon (weird name) Grossmith created their character bank clerk Charles Pooter for Punch Magazine and this diary accounts for 15 months of his absurdly self-important life and vexations. Just marvellous.
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Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932): ashamed to say I’m new to this (we discussed it in a Triptych episode) but it is now a firm favourite. Precociously young but opinionated and mildly terrifying Flora Poste descends on the fixed certainties of an English farming family and sorts everyone out. Promising material? In Stella Gibbons, it’s pure gold.
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Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (1934): the problem with Wodehouse is that he could quite easily have occupied all 25 slots on this list. And that’s just the Jeeves stories. I’ve tried to restrict authors to one mention each. But Wodehouse is the perfect antidote to all that is wrong in the world, as is his Jeeves. If only he offered his services to all and sundry. This book chosen for the sheer wonder of witnessing an inebriated Gussie Fink-Nottle giving out the prizes at Brinkley Court school.
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Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938): a simple case of mistaken identity—two journalists on the books by the name of Boot—results in William Boot, the most hopelessly unqualified man ever to be sent into a war zone, going instead of John Courtney Boot. But Lord Copper is pleased with his decisiveness and Boot (William) is tossed about on the fortunes of war. A perfect novel and IMHO Waugh’s best (closely followed perhaps by Decline and Fall).
5 Books: Hilarious Fiction
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The Tin Men by Michael Frayn (1965): Frayn is another whose titles could feature several times here. He’s still going in his 90s and is unfailingly hilarious. So here’s his debut novel, a wonderful take down of the British boffin world of PM Harold Wilson’s era of the ‘white heat of technology’ as the team nervously await an official visit from HM The Queen.
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A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1990): two school friends and their lives in the US East Coast. They’re not especially impressive of heroic – and yet there’s something about Owen Meany that John Wheelwright can never forget. This is such a surprising novel that touches on big issues of faith and determinism and hope while never losing its wonderful capacity of laugh-out-loud funnies.
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What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe (2014): a biting postmodern satire of the Thatcherite 1980s but it’s never heavy-handed or preachy. It contains all the ingredients of farce and evokes the old Carry-On films (the title comes from the 1961 Carry-on style film with Sid James and Kenneth Connor), while exposing deep fissures in contemporary society. A work of genius.
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Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer (2002): the author is a Brit born to Hungarian parents who fled the Soviet clampdown in 1956, and this novel fictionalises their experiences in a darkly comic way. A brilliant expose of the absurdities of totalitarianism but sustained by real joie de vivre.
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Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov (2002): Kurkov is a recent favourite writer – try to get everything he writes (especially now, after Russia’s insane invasion of his native Ukraine). This is set in the madness around the collapse of the USSR in which proto-oligarchs are dividing and conquering and our hapless protagonist finds himself given charge of a penguin when the Kyiv zoo is forced to shut down.
5 Books: You can’t believe it’s NOT Fiction.
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Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda (2005): This is sage advice from the actor who made his name in MASH and latterly The West Wing. An extraordinary life told in admirable self-deprecation and wit. Just loved it.
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Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (1995): Bryson has created an entire genre with this sublime, midlife retracing of his arrival in Britain as a penniless American student. He delights in the paradoxes and oddities of the country in which he subsequently spent most of his life. Unputdownable.
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Bossypants by Tina Fey (2014): I loved this even though I was not hugely familiar with her work (apart from 30 Rock). She’s got a brilliant turn of phrase and has worked with everybody in the business. Takes no prisoners, though. As the title might lead one to believe!
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Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks (1998): I made the mistake of reading this during a weekend when I did my back in and had to spend most of it lying on the floor. But I couldn’t help it. Once begun, couldn’t stop. An idle pub bet results in the comedian having to hitchhike the circumference of Ireland with, um, a fridge. Will he succeed? Only one way to find out.
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Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (2016): the South African comedy phenomenon is a megastar, but the person who shines in this book is his incredible mother! I don’t think I’ll ever forget Trevor’s account of being dragged round the various churches she was part of each Sunday in her clapped out VW Beetle. So great. Or who could fail to be charmed by his Soweto dance troupe’s visit to a posh Jewish girls’ school in Johannesburg? Quite a lot of people, as it happens!
5 Books: In a League of Their Own
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Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson (1990): OK I said I don’t like to include authors more than once on these lists. But I feel it’s ok if they’re in different genres. And this is Bryson’s popular history of the English language. And you would not believe how funny it can be… until you read this. And his chapter on English surnames is out of this world.
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Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (2003): And now for a book about English grammar; or to be more precise, punctuation. But never has the Oxford comma incited greater mirth or quirks of meaning been more entertaining. It’s a MUST.
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The Meaning of Liff by Adams & Lloyd (1983): the 2nd rule breaker of the list; Douglas Adams again, this time in a collaboration with John Lloyd that actually lasted. The premise was simple: there are all kinds of experiences for which there are no words. So they use meaningless placenames. At last we can now define aboynes, glasgows, belpers and bodmins.
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Molvanîa by Cliaruo, Gleisner & Sitch (2003): travel books (esp. those catering for student budges like The Rough Guides) are asking for lampooning and this Australian trio nailed it. Leading the unwary to ‘the land that dentistry forgot’, this ‘Jetlag Guide’ to the fake post-soviet state advises on life in the capital, Lutnblaag, and the like. Politically incorrect probably, but still fun as it mocks the travellers prejudices more than those they visit. Perhaps.
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The Timewaster Letters by Robin Cooper (2005): if you are in the habit of ranting against inbox spam and snail mail directmail then this is the book for you. Robin Cooper (aka comedian Robert Popper) gets his own back by engaging in extended correspondence with the customer relations departments of various organisations and corporations. Just for the hell of it. And the result is eye-wateringly funny as hapless employees get dragged deeper and deeper into pits of bureaucratic horror.