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Comedy

    Funny Books for Kids, recommended by Elys Dolan

  • Read

    1

    Happy Magic Forest: Slug of Doom
    by Matty Long

  • Read

    2

    The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
    by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith

  • Read

    3

    Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
    by Mo Willems

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    4

    This Is Not My Hat
    by Jon Klassen

  • Read

    5

    Father Christmas Goes on Holiday
    by Raymond Briggs

Funny Books for Kids, recommended by Elys Dolan

Elys Dolan, author of Mr Bunny’s Chocolate Factory and rising star of the picture book world, on the funniest illustrated books for reading at bedtime—and why children’s characters needn’t always set good moral examples.

    Ruth Wisse recommends the best works of, or on, Jewish Humour

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    1

    The Big Book of Jewish Humour
    by William Novak and Moshe Waldoks

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    2

    Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories
    by Sholem Aleichem

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    3

    Herzog
    by Saul Bellow

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    4

    The Finkler Question
    by Howard Jacobson

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    5

    Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious
    by Sigmund Freud

Ruth Wisse recommends the best works of, or on, Jewish Humour

The Harvard professor and author of No Joke: Making Jewish Humour identifies Tevye the Dairyman as the first standup comic and Sigmund Freud as Jewish humour’s greatest analyst.

    The best books on Comedy, recommended by Maz Jobrani

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    1

    I’m Dying Up Here
    by William Knoedelseder

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    2

    The Comedy Bible
    by Judy Carter

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    3

    Me Talk Pretty One Day
    by David Sedaris

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    4

    Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea
    by Chelsea Handler

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    5

    Too Fat to Fish
    by Artie Lange

The best books on Comedy, recommended by Maz Jobrani

Actor and comic chooses five books on comedy. One choice is The Comedy Bible, which explains that every comedian is either saying, “It is hard to…” or, “I love being…” – and you need to fill in the blanks.

    The best books on The Comic Novel, recommended by Allen MacDuffie

  • Read

    1

    The Irresponsible Self
    by James Wood

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    2

    The Code of the Woosters
    by P. G. Wodehouse

  • Read

    3

    Diary of a Nobody
    by George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith

  • Read

    4

    Three Men in a Boat
    by Jerome K. Jerome

  • Read

    5

    Murphy
    by Samuel Beckett

The best books on The Comic Novel, recommended by Allen MacDuffie

Literature teacher from the University of Texas says the intelligence behind the confusion in comic novels must be essentially benign – like being tickled.

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We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

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