Did you know January 24th was Global Belly Laugh Day? I didn’t either! But after the year we’ve had, I think a lot of us could use a laugh. So, here is a booklist to get some needed laughter into your life.
Bill Bryson has a decades-long career as a successful writer, and reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006) it’s easy to see why. With a loving and laugh-out-loud funny perspective, Bryson recreates his childhood in 1950s Iowa, as seen through the eyes of his superhero alter-ego, The Thunderbolt Kid. It’s easy to see how a kid with a rich fantasy life grew into an accomplished writer, as he describes a family life that’s both unfamiliar– in the sense that we weren’t there and don’t know these people– and beloved– in the sense that we come to feel what it was like to be there and know them. If you’re finding yourself nostalgic for an earlier time when things felt simpler, consider visiting the Bryson family in DesMoines, Iowa. It’ll be a short trip, as the book is only 270 paghes and the audiobook runs seven and a half hours. You can get it as a print book, ebook on OverDrive, or an audiobook CD.
If you’re in the mood to add pictures to your reading– and honestly, they help it go down smooth sometimes– try Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half (2013). Based on her blog of the same name, Brosh’s first book is composed of medium-length illustrated vignettes about her life. She has an informal, stream-of-consciousness tone that makes every story feel personal and relatable, even though many of them are absolutely ridiculous and would never happen to most people. The offbeat humor and the childish Microsoft Paint animation style combine to make a brightly-colored, quirky book that will make you nod along in agreement while you’re also wondering what will happen next. And, as the cover suggests, there are also dogs in this! You can read Hyperbole and a Half on OverDrive or in print. Her follow-up, which came out last summer, is also available on OverDrive and in print.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) reads with every ounce of the humor today that it had forty years ago. Author Douglas Adams constructs a universe that hinges on jokes and call-backs. The novel follows British everyman Arthur Dent, who is more or less abducted by aliens when the intergalactic zoning committee decides to demolish Earth so they can put a space freeway in. The title comes from a fictional travel guide, which the other main character, Arthur’s friend Ford Prefect, who is an alien in disguise. You can get the book on OverDrive or in print, and as an audiobook on Hoopla read by Stephen Fry and lasting just over five hours. If you’re so in love you’d like to read the whole series in one go, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy contains all five books and is available on OverDrive and in print. There’s also a tv series from the BBC on hoopla and a movie on DVD (though be warned, most fans consider the adaptation lacking.)
If your tastes run more toward classic literary humor than to space, might I recommend Cold Comfort Farm (1932) by Stella Gibbons? The best way I can find to describe this book is to imagine if one sensible person arrived in a Gothic novel (think Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre) and instead of participating in the secretive, melodramatic environment, set out to try to tidy up the lives of everyone around them. The titular cold Comfort Farm is the Sussex seat of the Starkadder family, headed by Aunt Ada Doom, confined to her room after seeing something nasty in the woodshed when she was young, and her “curst” descendants. Enter Flora Poste, a recently-orphaned distant relation who takes it upon herself to organize the family and solve their problems one by one. This is a brilliant satire but completely hilarious on its own feet– it frequently makes lists of funniest books ever written, and rightly so. The library has the book in print and a DVD of the (delightful) movie, which stars a young Kate Beckinsale as Flora amid a formidable ensemble cast.
It may not seem like depression and anxiety are fertile grounds for comedy, but that’s just because you haven’t read Jenny Lawson yet. Furiously Happy (2015) is, as its subtitle states “a funny book about horrible things.” Lawson’s lifelong struggles with mental illness and her joyful determination to survive provide ample material for her to work with, but it’s her unique way of putting things that will keep you hungry for her perspective and story. On her title, for example, she says “Some people might think that being ‘furiously happy’ is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he’s never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.” See? 329 pages of nonstop entertainment entertainment await you, in print or on OverDrive.
