Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by The Broke and The Bookish! This week's topic was a struggle for me, honestly. I'm not super into comedy-type books, so this was really hard for me to put together. But I got to ten!
Bossypants: Tina Fey is amazing. Weekend Update, Mean Girls, 30 Rock. She's a total role model: super smart, successful, best friends with Amy Poehler, cute husband and adorable kids...it really doesn't get more #goals than that. Reading her witty prose is about as close as I'm ever going to get to hanging out with her and having her tell me stories, so of course I love it.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?: Mindy Kaling feels like a Tina junior to me. She's not my role model so much, she's more the person I wish was my best friend because she's so relatable and her humor feels so spot on with my life...she's only about five years older than me, so her words resonate with me hard and are usually really applicable to my life. This is more wry chuckling than full-on cackle, but it's wonderful and I really liked it.
My Horizontal Life: My dad actually used to watch
Chelsea Lately, and when I was living with him after law school trying to get a job, we'd hang out and watch it together. Which might not have always been the best idea, Chelsea Handler gets pretty bawdy. She's much more so in this, her first book, which I enjoyed enough to buy her second which promptly underwhelmed me. I haven't tried another one of her books since, but if you're into dirty humor, this is great.
Approval Junkie: Like I said in my review, it wasn't a sidebuster, but that Bill O'Reilly chapter and when she talks about her feelings about her husband's dog are both really funny.
My Booky Wook: As a Yank, I was mostly aware of Russell Brand for some MTV VMA hosting, which as I recall fell pretty flat, and of course, his marriage to Katy Perry. But before he came to our shores, he was quite a celebrity in his own right in the UK. His memoirs of his sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll lifestyle before he got clean made me chortle like a crazy person on the airplane when I read this.
Bridget Jones' Diary: Moving out of the realm of "books written by comedians" and into the realm of "books that are just funny". I found the sequel to be a little much and the third book so unpromising that I have no interest at all in reading it, but the O.G. Bridget Jones is a classic for a reason. Helen Fielding's chronicle of Bridget's quest to smoke less, lose weight, and find a man is filled with actual laughing out loud moments.
Angus, Thongs, And Full Frontal Snogging (series): I remember picking up the first one at a bookstore in a mall on vacation with my mom in California. I was 13 or 14, and Georgia Nicholson's exploits made me cry I was laughing so hard. The whole series is a little hit or miss (with the usual decline in quality near the end that seems to happen in an extended series), but there are enough truly hysterical moments to keep on reading!
Lamb: Religion can be a sensitive subject, and if your Christian faith is very meaningful to you, this is probably not the right book. But if you're comfortable laughing about the misadventures that Christopher Moore concocts for Jesus and Biff (the Lord's childhood bestie), this is a delightful and irreverent treat!
Catherine, Called Birdy: This is an older book, and much more middle-grade focused, but that's because I first read it in middle school. It's held a special place in my heart ever since. Catherine is clever, witty, and determined to make sure that her parents plans to marry her off to one of her disgusting prospective suitors don't come to fruition. There's some heart along with the humor, but it's mostly humor and it's really funny.
Hyperbole And A Half: If you've never visited Allie Brosh's website, you need to stop now and go there immediately. After you're done making sure you didn't pee a little because you're laughing so hard, you should think about buying her book. It's mostly repeats of what's online, but it's somehow even better to hold it in your hands while you're shaking with laughter.
Posts
