Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
Pure satirical wizardry
There are 41 novels in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and you could pick any one of them to put on this list. But you’ll never forget your first wander into Pratchett’s antic imagination. It’s like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia, but with better jokes and crappier sanitation.
Men at Arms was my gateway book and it’s a superb place to start, a high-fantasy parody of community policing and gun control. That’s Pratchett’s singular gift: gleefully silly books about mightily serious things. Astute social parodies. With trolls. – Beejay Silcox
I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron
Romcom grandmum
Nora Ephron’s wit has aged like good balsamic vinegar. The writer whose husband would have “sex with a venetian blind” (Heartburn) and who elevated fake orgasms with “I’ll have what she’s having” (When Harry Met Sally) gave us these funny-profound essays about being a woman.
Ephron is now gone but her wry tales of growing older and living in New York have perennial appeal. She’ll help you think about your wrinkles as laugh lines, while recommending you wear a scarf. – Susan Wyndham
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Hilarious and angry
It’s rare that a book brims with both hilarity and fury, but Patricia Lockwood is a master of nuance. This incredibly funny memoir is also angry, wise and moving, tracing a childhood growing up with a minister father who loves bad guitar music and guns.
It’s rapid-fire laughs until the mood shifts in the final third and the book becomes a beautiful, painful exploration of identity and self within a rigid religious or family structure. You’ll laugh out loud – then cry. – Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
Raw, hysterical page-turner
The diary of a junior doctor was always going to be full of surprises. Laugh-out-loud retells of patient maladies, absurd stories from obstetrics and gynaecology, and mishaps in the emergency department sit alongside galling evidence of how hard it can be to work in the NHS.
While the story is now known better as the BBC series starring Ben Whishaw, the book is a day-in-the-life that will make you cackle and cry all in one read. – Maddie Thomas
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Unforgettable family epic
Funny in the way life is funny (dosed liberally with embarrassment, cruelty, tenderness and despair), Paul Murray’s Booker-shortlisted family saga is joyfully deranged and life-affirming.
The Barnes family are in trouble. Dad’s car business is on shaky ground, teenager Cassie is binge drinking her way to academic failure, son PJ is making some very dodgy online friends, and mum’s an emotional, embittered wreck. When did it go wrong? What, if anything, is left to salvage? Murray takes the individual perspectives of this relatable family and weaves a vision of apocalyptic wonder, probing the past to face the future. Sublime. – Tim Byrne
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby
Funny, sad essays
When it comes to funny personal essays, I love the two Davids – Sedaris and Rakoff – as much as everyone else. But Samantha Irby is just as sharp, on topics as varied as her love for trashy television (particularly The Bachelor) and having bad sex, to living with Crohn’s disease and what it was like growing up with a disabled mother.
I first read this in a pub alone and I laughed enough that two complete strangers separately asked me what it was about. – Sian Cain
Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh
Whimsy with teeth
Julie Koh is a literary imp. An ink-hearted Willy Wonka. Her debut collection, Portable Curiosities, is the kind of book you find yourself reading aloud because it’s too delicious to keep to yourself. (There’s a story called The Fantastic Breasts which is worth the price of entry on its own.)
Quirk is volatile stuff, it curdles easily. But Koh knows exactly what she’s doing and how to lace her fanciful tales with a sharp little dose of truth. – Beejay Silcox
Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton
Ultimate queer roadtrip
In 1987, there were 206 lesbian bars in the United States. In 2021, there were 20. Why? Krista Burton attempts to find out by visiting those left standing. Moby Dyke is a queer travelogue; a charmingly funny examination of nightlife confessions, history and gossip.
Written in a post-lockdown hunger for connection, Burton details the queer community-building taking place in Sapphic spaces and captures the sweet and mortifying experience of starting to socialise again – from dancefloors in New York to dildo races in Texas. – Cassie Tongue
An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life by Paul Dalla Rosa
Australia’s Ottessa Moshfegh
Over 10 short stories, this Melbourne author dives into the psyches of desperate characters, many unaware how their actions betray insecurities or immature desires – until it’s too late, that is. Dalla Rosa paints his scenes with great empathy, laughing with – and never at – his characters, who misguidedly strive for meaning in vacuous jobs and relationships. Particularly cringeworthy chapters follow an 18-year-old life coach and a high-end fashion label retail worker. These stories are trimmed to precision and leave a wonderful sting. – Jared Richards
Down Under by Bill Bryson
An American’s take on Oz
There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than a window into how outsiders view the Australian way of life. And there is no author that has more expertly mastered the travel writing genre than Bill Bryson. The combination? Bliss.
To Bryson, our far-flung island is a place where a prime minister can go missing on a swim and we name a pool after him. It’s a place where nearly every moving creature can kill you and the laconic phrase “how are you going” doesn’t require a genuine answer. Bryson will have you laughing out loud and falling in love with the land down under all over again. – Caitlin Cassidy
Emma by Jane Austen
Glorious snarky masterpiece
Let’s be clear, Emma Wodehouse is awful. She’s manipulative, smug, impatient, petulant and the very worst of snobs. She’s an inveterate meddler, a noxious friend and as oblivious as a house brick.
But the more we judge her, the more we fall into Jane Austen’s wicked little trap. For there’s a part of Emma in all of us, and – deep down – we know it. That’s what makes this novel so quietly brilliant. Emma is a funhouse mirror and Austen is a comic genius. – Beejay Silcox
Bream Gives Me Hiccups by Jesse Eisenberg
Neurotic, scabrous stories
Jesse Eisenberg is the George Clooney of people who have their analysts on speed dial – and this short story collection proves it. The Oscar-nominated actor is better known for playing all manner of twitchy little freaks (Mark Zuckerberg, Lex Luthor, a magician); it’s a knack he brings to these impressively neurotic tales mostly centred around precocious tweens chafing against the mysteries of adulthood.
A choice story title, par exemple: “An Email Exchange with My First Girlfriend, which at a Certain Point is Taken Over by My Older Sister, a College Student Studying the Bosnian Genocide.” – Michael Sun
Right Ho, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
Whimsy, capers, farce
Wodehouse’s stories – about bumbling Bertie Wooster and his unflappable manservant Jeeves quietly cleaning up his messes – are a reliable treat, even if you’ve read them before. Right Ho, Jeeves, the second in the series (after Thank You, Jeeves), is a good place to start. It’s a tightly plotted farce set at a country house, featuring a broken engagement, a secret debt, an irascible cook, a school prize-giving and a costume party.
Wodehouse sets so many plates spinning you can’t help but be thrilled when – despite Wooster’s interventions – Jeeves catches them all from falling with his typical panache. – Elle Hunt
Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
WFH horror-comedy
Struggling to clock off? So is Gerald, a PR worker who somehow finds his consciousness uploaded into his work’s Slack. Entirely written as Slack messages, Several People Are Typing is a sharp-silly satire of offices where words are rarely spoken out loud. As Gerald tries to convince his colleagues he’s really trapped in the cloud, he snoops on their DMs – just like how your bosses can.
A book that can be read in one sitting, so the gimmick avoids dragging on. If only most office conversations would too. – Jared Richards
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Penguin Random House US, US$17
Lights, camera, action!
Imagine if the edges of a film set were the edges of the world: if Hollywood bit parts were real-life careers. Willis Wu has spent his life playing versions of Generic Asian Man: Delivery Guy, Disgraced Son, Guy Who Runs In and Gets Kicked in the Face. He longs to be cast as Kung Fu Guy: the only leading role men like him are ever offered. But at what cost? Charles Yu’s silver-screen satire is a trope-smashing, form-busting riot. A parable of (in)visibility. – Beejay Silcox
This article was amended on 5 January 2024 to correct the title of the Pratchett novel listed and Bryson’s nationality.
