I don't have much reference to provide here. Most books I read are total bummers.
I have read two funny books ever. First one is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy whose humour I appreciated. The second one is Good Soldier Svejk which I thought was alright.
Any thoughts? Thank you.
Here for Pratchett. The Discworld series is a treasure.
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Pick a path from the left and enjoy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Discworld_Reading_Order_Guide_3.0_%28cropped%29.jpg
Gotta second Pratchett for sure. Minimum Wage Magic is cyberpunk fantasy with a great female protagonist written by a woman. It's silly and pulpy but I love it, and it has a nice amount of class consciousness.
Also an ancient dragon protects a unified Korea and is the (human) protagonists adoptive father, though for the most part it takes place in the Detroit Free Zone, an autonomous sanctuary for magical people and others loosely protected by some sort of anarchist earth deity.
Another vote for Pratchett. The Sam Vimes books are essentially crime thrillers, Rincewind books like Colour of Magic are a whistlestop tour of high fantasy tropes, the Witches series explores various ideas of feminism and storytelling, and then Susan Sto Helit and Moist Von Lipwig are used to examine various real world events, such the postal system or invention of the printing press. Equal Rites, Mort, Guards! Guards!, or Monstrous Regiment would be my recommended places to start - The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are the first written, but are noticeably rougher than the later books.
Also, the humour is very dark and British a lot of the time, but I found Robert Rankin hilarious. It's mostly kind of near future/alternate past weird fiction that often deals in apocalypses and moleskine. The (increasingly inaccurately named) Brentford Trilogy starts with The Antipope and is probably my favourite of his very loosely bound series.
Discworld or Good Omens? Those are the two I see on Wikipedia right now.
Both are great. Start with Good Omens maybe as it is a stand alone book
I was just about to say Hitchhikers Guide hahaha.
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett is pretty fun
the rest of the hitchhikers guide series if you haven't already, and/or dirk gently
if you're okay with darker themes, but still funny, the works of kurt vonnegut, and jacob heller's catch-22 are good
if you can get into the older stuff, maybe some mark twain? idk
Love Vonnegut, and his stuff usually is pretty funny, but I hardly think much of it qualifies as "not a bummer" lol.
yeah I added a caveat for that reason. wasnt sure if OP was open to darker humor or not, since he didnt specify
Confederacy of Dunces is VERY funny and CW; VERY offensive, written in the 60s but reads like something written this decade
otherwise as other people has said go with Terry Pratchett, dozens of funny fantasy novels
I remember Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan being pretty funny. It's basically about a slacker stumbling through an increasingly absurd plot, which I always enjoy.
I feel like the modern funny vibes are in the small publisher and independent works lately. Just as an industry trend you know. Nebula prize nominee Chuck Tingle writes some genuinely clever ones but they are romance based. "Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus" is legitimately better than a Harry Potter book.
Is that a real author? I thought those book covers that go viral from time to time were just memes.
Yeah, he's real, if I remember rightly he's extremely autistic and best expresses himself through, uh, satirical erotic literature. His niece or daughter is the one who introduced it to the wider world, he mostly secludes himself and Chuck Tingle is a pseudonym.
Oh, also, I just devoured The Murderbot series. Pretty enjoyable, had some funny bits to it.
Thing about the Red Dwarf books is that they're way darker than the show ever was.
Do you like mysteries? I used to love Joan Hess novels when I worked at the library, and though I haven't revisited them in decades, I remember them being very funny.
They might be problematic in places because they were written by a boomer from Arkansas, but nothing stuck out at me when I searched "Joan Hess controversy" so maybe they're okay. They're murder mysteries, so there's mention of violent acts, but nothing is gratuitous or graphic, it's all very matter-of-fact iirc.
Both the Claire Malloy series and the Maggody series are funny and good, but the Maggody ones would have me crying laughing while reading sometimes. She really nailed the absurdity of rural small town life.
Edit - also, this is a great question with great answers, thank you for making this thread 🙂
? Might suggest Breakfast of Champions