Glenn R Miller

“What is the funniest book you’ve ever read?”

Book club members often ask me this question, given that my book falls within the literary humor category. And it’s a question I enjoy, because it’s a genre I love. I figure that a book that elicits any emotion – be it discomfort (suspense), dread (detective or mystery), or a smile (humor) – is a book that is, ultimately, entertaining its reader. It’s doing its intended job.

So when I get this question, I typically mention one – or several – of the following authors:

Anything by P. G. Wodehouse. He wrote hundreds of novels and short stories over the course of six decades. God, the man was a writing machine. And almost every single title (I hedge with the “almost” only because there has to be a clunker somewhere in his canon) is wonderfully amusing. Arguably, his peak was in the 1920s and ‘30s, but to say that is to imply there was a drop-off in writing quality in subsequent years. There wasn’t. Sidenote: there have been many Wodehouse sendups over the years, the most pitch-perfect of which, in my opinion, is Jonathan Ames’s Wake Up, Sir!

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. This title can be controversial. Not everybody is on board with its brilliance and hilarity. If ever I mention this title and someone says, “Hm, I didn’t think it was that funny,” I can’t help but look at them over the top of my glasses, cock an eyebrow, take a sip of my gin-and-tonic, and make a mental note to exclude them from my will. The world needs dividing lines and this is one of them.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), by Jerome K. Jerome. Oh, my goodness, this book. I’m going to bet, a gentlemen’s bet, of course, but I’m going to bet that no one reading this blog has partaken of this gem. No, no – I’ll go even further. I’m going to double that non-existent bet and say you’ve never even heard of this book. If you have, good on ya, I’m happy to have lost the bet. The title alone – parenthetically tossing the dog in there – makes me chuckle. And what’s with the author’s double name? Well, buckle yourself in. Classic British humor at its irreverent best.

Departing from the “G-rated, appropriate-for-family fare” and moving into the, perhaps, “R-rated” humor section, I’ll throw in Elmore Leonard books. ANY Elmore Leonard book. If you like your books hard-boiled, go with Richard Stark or Richard Price. If you like them hard-boiled AND funny, go with Leonard. Brilliant storylines only exceeded by brilliant-er dialogue. I’m working my way through his 40 titles and loving every minute. Worth noting: the aforementioned flinty Richard Stark was a pen name for the wonderfully entertaining Donald Westlake who DID write funny crime capers, a la Elmore Leonard. One truly needs a scorecard for all this.

More recent humor titles:

Big Swiss, by Jen Beagin. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that this title falls into a cult humor category. The protagonist is a woman living in upstate New York, serving as a psychiatrist’s transcriber. She becomes enamored with one of the patients, affectionately nicknamed Big Swiss.

My Search for Warren Harding, by Robert Plunket. If you like A Confederacy of Dunces, you’ll love this one. A clueless bumbling protagonist with an overinflated ego – the stuff of comedic legend.

Ride a Cockhorse, by Raymond Kennedy. Originally published and overlooked in the 1970s, NYRB thankfully republished it in 2012. A small-town home-loan manager has visions of grandeur in her small, but important, responsibility, and rises to great power. Kennedy’s writing is funny but he’s making a much broader statement about authority and domination in general, especially by the unqualified. Hm, perhaps not escapist fare.

I would love to hear your thoughts on humor writing.

And, finally, an announcement: My next novel, Rough Cuts, will be published by Koehler Books in September of 2026. It is intended to be funny.

#jenbeagin #pgwodehouse #robertplunket

#bigswiss #mysearchforwarrenharding

#humorwriting