Ten Great Books strong on Humour

11th April 2023

From laugh out loud, to those generating a wry smile, there are over 250 titles in the TripFiction database where humour is the essence of the book. Ten Great Books that are strong on Humour. They cheer up our day.

Here are ten of our absolute favourite books from the Humour genre

Dashboard Elvis is Dead by David F Ross – GLASGOW, UNITED STATES

A failed writer connects the murder of an American journalist, a drowned 80s musician and a Scottish politician’s resignation, in a heart-wrenching novel about ordinary people living in extraordinary times.

Renowned photo-journalist Jude Montgomery arrives in Glasgow in 2014, in the wake of the failed Scottish independence referendum, and it’s clear that she’s searching for someone.

Is it Anna Mason, who will go on to lead the country as First Minister? Jamie Hewitt, guitarist from eighties one-hit wonders The Hyptones? Or is it Rabbit – Jude’s estranged foster sister, now a world-famous artist?

Three apparently unconnected people, who share a devastating secret, whose lives were forever changed by one traumatic night in Phoenix, forty years earlier…

Taking us back to a school shooting in her Texas hometown, and a 1980s road trip across the American West – to San Francisco and on to New York – Jude’s search ends in Glasgow, and a final, shocking event that only one person can fully explain…

Dennis Bisskit and the Man from Paris with the Very Large Head by Stephen Ainley – BIRMINGHAM, DUDLEY

1969 – Man is about to set foot upon the moon. Meanwhile, momentous events are also taking place in the West Midlands. Weddings, funerals, hereditary hair loss, M. J. K. Smith’s cricket bat, a missing masterpiece; dastardly deeds are taking place, above and below the streets of Birmingham. The police are baffled. This looks like a job for Dudley’s finest, Bisskit and Blackshaw – private investigators. Yes, the boys are back. Older, but none the wiser in Dennis Bisskit and the Man from Paris with the Very Large Head.

Harbour Views by Philip Chatting – HONG KONG

Norwegian expatriate Jakob Odergaard rules his successful furniture corporation with a ruthlessness and egotism that draws comment even in the merciless cut and thrust of the Hong Kong business world. His baleful influence warps the lives of all around him: his imperiously bitter wife Dagmar, his estranged hippyish daughter Sigrid, and his sexually frustrated administrator, Mrs Tung, among them. Not even the blithely laddish Anil Patel, a company courier, is immune. In this jet-black comedy, lives are as tangled, messy, and precarious as the back streets of Kowloon. In a world where ambition collides with passion, tradition with modernity, East with West, no one comes away unscathed. Only the city itself – from the hyper-commercial Central District to semi-rural Sai Kung, and from ramshackle apartment blocks to sea-washed temples – endures.

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff – UTTAR PRADESH

For Geeta, life as a widow is more peaceful than life as a wife…

Until the other women in her village decide they want to be widows, too.

Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband – a rumour she hasn’t bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India. But when she’s approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village….

The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar – ALGERIA, PARIS

In Algeria in the 1930s, a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and gains the ability to speak. To his master’s consternation, the cat immediately begins to tell lies (the first being that he didn’t eat the parrot). The rabbi vows to educate him in the ways of the Torah, while the cat insists on studying the kabbalah and having a Bar Mitzvah. They consult the rabbi’s rabbi, who maintains that a cat can’t be Jewish — but the cat, as always, knows better.

Zlabya falls in love with a dashing young rabbi from Paris, and soon master and cat, having overcome their shared self-pity and jealousy, are accompanying the newlyweds to France to meet Zlabya’s cosmopolitan in-laws. Full of drama and adventure, their trip invites countless opportunities for the rabbi and his cat to grapple with all the important — and trivial — details of life.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Cemetery by Carl Muller – SRI LANKA

To begin this chronicle of the funny things that have happened to him, Muller goes back to his days as a recruit in the Royal Ceylon Navy when the Queen of England came a-visiting: the saucy sailors decide to tip her a wink! The second story takes us back to Muller’s childhood in Anuradhapura where two visiting rat snakes turn out to be a railway linesman’s grandparents. There are further hilarious adventures in the Navy, encounters with more snakes of different sizes and lineage, graphic descriptions of jam-making factories, and hazardous days in the Gulf. Effortlessly, Muller creates caricatures that leave you helpless with laughter as they highlight the follies and foibles of the human race

A Visit from Voltaire by Dinah Lee Kueng – SWITZERLAND

When an American mother-of-three finds herself overwhelmed in her new home in Switzerland, a visitor pops up offering to cure her son’s asthma, her husband’s growing indifference, and her own resentment of life. Is he the village nutter or – as he claims to be – the greatest mind of the eighteenth century? This talkative character wearing kneebreeches and wig is the last straw. Though she begs him to go home, he unpacks his mouldy trunk instead. Slowly V. becomes her warmest friend as they laugh and quarrel, and he teaches her the best lesson of all: how to live life to its fullest.

Catch Me If You Cannes by Lisa Dickenson – CANNES

Jess has decided it’s time to get out of her comfort zone and live a little. So when her best friend Bryony, a journalist on a gossip magazine, is sent to cover the Cannes Film Festival, Jess decides to seize the day and go along for the ride. Two weeks of glitz, glamour and exclusive entry into celeb-filled parties is just the kind of adventure Jess needs.

Reality soon bites though when Jess and Bryony find they’re staying in a dingy hotel far away from all the action and Bryony’s expenses budget barely covers a glass of local wine. Undeterred, the two women are determined to live like the elite and enjoy one fancy night out to begin their holiday. So what if they have to tell a few white lies along the way? It’s just this once. No harm done . . . right?

Full of hilarious one-liners, sparkling blue seas and plenty of romantic moments, Catch Me If You Cannes is the story of two friends, a few white lies and one extremely delicious man. WARNING: reading Catch Me If You Cannes may result in embarrassing outbursts of belly-aching laughter on public transport.

Coconuts and Wonderbras by Lynda Renham – CAMBODIA

Literary agent Libby Holmes is desperate for her boyfriend, Toby, to propose to her and will do anything for him and if that means dieting for England then she’ll have a go. However, when Libby’s boss introduces her to her new client, Alex Bryant, her life is turned upside down. Alex Bryant, ex-SAS officer and British hero, insists Libby accompany him to Cambodia for a book fair. What she hadn’t bargained for was a country in revolt. Libby finds herself in the middle of an uprising with only Alex Bryant to protect her, that is, until Toby flies out to win back her affections. Come with Libby on her romantic comedy adventure to see if love blossoms in the warm Cambodian sunshine or if, in the heat of the day, emotions get just too hot to handle.

Going Green by Nick Spalding – ENGLAND

From the bestselling author of Dumped, Actually comes a laugh-out-loud story about saving your job…and maybe saving the planet in the process.

Meet Ellie Cooke. When it comes to all things environmental she’s, well, a bit ‘green’. It’s not that she doesn’t care about things like climate change and plastic pollution, it’s just that life has always got in the way of that sort of thing.

But when the PR firm Ellie works for is taken over by keen environmentalist Nolan Reece, it’s clear that if she wants to save her job, she’s going to have to get serious about being green—or face being recycled.

Going green is no walk in the park, though. It involves a lot of big changes, tough choices…and at least one case of accidentally showing your knickers off to your boss.

Can Ellie do enough to save her job, and maybe do her bit to help save the planet while she’s at it? And what will Nolan think of her, now that she can’t stop thinking about him…?

Enjoy your Ten Great Books strong on Humour!

Tony for the TripFiction team

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