Candide – Voltaire. Short Stories of Oscar Wilde. All have subtle humour.
carstanza on
oscar wilde.
RasThavas1214 on
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
serealll on
P.G. Wodehouse is great
Impossible_Willow927 on
For contemporary writers, I absolutely love Alain de Botton.
Also remember liking Nick Hornby’s humour.
Female writer: Eve Babitz – loved her semi-fictionalized memoirs
jazzynoise on
David Sedaris’ essays are quite funny. *Me Talk Pretty One Day* is a good place to start.
David Foster Wallace’s essays are also quite witty and funny, and will likely have you reaching for the dictionary a lot. *A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again* is a good collection, particularly the title essay about being on a cruise, and his essay on the Illinois State Fair.
Two of the greatest wits of all time are Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. Anything by them will be witty.
For novels, there’s John Kennedy Toole’s *A Confederacy of Dunces*.
Joseph Heller’s *Catch-22* for satire (although like more satires, the ending becomes less funny and more bitter, like Swift’s *Gulliver’s Travels*.)
Kurt Vonnegut’s novels have a dark, dry wit. *Slaughterhouse Five* is his best known. *God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater* is quite good, too.
And if you want to go into more absurd sci-fi style humor, Douglas Adam’s *Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*.
7 Comments
The complete Discworld by Terry Pratchett
He has puns hiding behind other puns
Candide – Voltaire. Short Stories of Oscar Wilde. All have subtle humour.
oscar wilde.
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
P.G. Wodehouse is great
For contemporary writers, I absolutely love Alain de Botton.
Also remember liking Nick Hornby’s humour.
Female writer: Eve Babitz – loved her semi-fictionalized memoirs
David Sedaris’ essays are quite funny. *Me Talk Pretty One Day* is a good place to start.
David Foster Wallace’s essays are also quite witty and funny, and will likely have you reaching for the dictionary a lot. *A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again* is a good collection, particularly the title essay about being on a cruise, and his essay on the Illinois State Fair.
Two of the greatest wits of all time are Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker. Anything by them will be witty.
For novels, there’s John Kennedy Toole’s *A Confederacy of Dunces*.
Joseph Heller’s *Catch-22* for satire (although like more satires, the ending becomes less funny and more bitter, like Swift’s *Gulliver’s Travels*.)
Kurt Vonnegut’s novels have a dark, dry wit. *Slaughterhouse Five* is his best known. *God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater* is quite good, too.
And if you want to go into more absurd sci-fi style humor, Douglas Adam’s *Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*.