The Humor We Need
Funny novels can be great distractions.
Back in the day (you know, like, 3 weeks ago?), one of our regulars came in and said, “I need something funny and totally distracting. What can you recommend?” I had just finished reading Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. So that was an easy recommendation. It won the 2015 Thurber Prize for American Humor and is a wonderful send-up of academia, composed of letters of recommendation from a writing professor at a small college.
Here are some more humorous novels, and a couple of nonfiction books, to take your mind completely away from more serious or anxiety-producing real world events:
Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton
Nancy Olson was the founder and former owner of Quail Ridge Books; and she was also a dear friend. Nancy and I shared a love for funny books. She's the one who put this one into my hands. A wine snob living in the Tuscan hills has his world turned upside down when a woman with ties to Soviet mafia moves in next door. Spoofs oenophiles, literary pretensions, cooking enthusiasts and so much more. I'm so glad Europa reissued this last year.
Another book Nancy and I both loved is The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger, told in letters between Joey, growing up fatherless in the Bronx in the 40s, and his idol, New York Giants slugger Charlie Banks. No lie is too farfetched for Joey. Baseball lovers will particularly appreciate this but you don't have to care about baseball to be thoroughly sucked in.
I haven't yet read The World's Largest Man: A Memoir by Harrison Scott Key, but it's on my list. Lisa Poole, booklover and current Quail Ridge Books owner, along with several of our customers, has told me how good it is. The publisher describes it as: “The riotous, tender story of a bookish Mississippi boy and his flawed, Bunyanesque father, told with the comic verve of David Sedaris and the deft satire of Mark Twain or Roy Blount, Jr. “ It won the Thurber Prize in 2016.
Speaking of David Sedaris and the Thurber Prize, Me Talk Pretty One Day won in 2001, but he just gets better and better. So anything by Sedaris would be a sure bet, including his latest in paperback, Calypso.
Trevor Noah's Born a Crime was the 2017 winner of the Thurber Prize and a book I didn't want to end. He's as good - and funny - a writer as he is a comedian and host; and he has a compelling story of growing up in South Africa.
While I'm on a nonfiction kick, I can't think of a book by Bill Bryson that I didn't love. From his breakout A Walk in the Woods to his current book, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, you will laugh out loud while you learn.
Plus two more novels:
Where'd you go Bernadette by Maria Semple and Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner are both fun. Bernadette has more West-Coast-tech-fun and Fleishman has lots of sex if you need to pick just one.
I'd love to hear from you if you have funny recommendations to pass along! You can email me at sarah@quailridgebooks.com.
