The Big Read - Comedy

Top 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read:

Selected by the Guardian's Review team and a panel of expert judges, this list includes only novels – no memoirs, no short stories, no long poems – from any decade and in any language. Published in thematic supplements – love, crime, comedy, family and self, state of the nation, science fiction and fantasy, war and travel. ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction )

149 books in the comedy section of must reads. How many have you read? How many have you started but not finished?



Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Money by Martin Amis

The Information by Martin Amis

The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge

According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge

Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes

Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford

Molloy by Samuel Beckett

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Queen Lucia by EF Benson

The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon

Illywhacker by Peter Carey

A Season in Sinji by JL Carr

The Harpole Report by JL Carr

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington

Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary

The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

Just William by Richmal Crompton

The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield

Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot

A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

Ennui by Maria Edgeworth

Cheese by Willem Elsschot

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Caprice by Ronald Firbank

Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert

Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn

The Polygots by William Gerhardie

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Brewster's Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)

Squire Haggard's Journal by Michael Green

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene

Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith

The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal

The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes

Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood

The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson

Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage

Changing Places by David Lodge

Nice Work by David Lodge

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

England, Their England by AG Macdonell

Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie

Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen

Cakes and Ale - Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham

Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

Puckoon by Spike Milligan

The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills

Charade by John Mortimer

Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin

La Disparition by Georges Perec

Les Revenentes by Georges Perec

La Vie Mode d'Emploi by Georges Perec

My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett

A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau

Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler

Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth

The Westminster Alice by Saki

The Unbearable Bassington by Saki

Hurrah for St Trinian's by Ronald Searle

Great Apes by Will Self

Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe

Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed

Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons

Moo by Jane Smiley

Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith

The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett

The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark

A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

White Man Falling by Mike Stocks

Handley Cross by RS Surtees

A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift

Penrod by Booth Tarkington

The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell

Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon

Tono Bungay by HG Wells

Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle

The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson

Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse

Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse

Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse

Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse

The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse

Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse