Reading
I’m trying and failing to think of a book which makes me laugh out loud. I can think of lots that have made me cry though! The saddest book I’ve read in recent years is “We Need to Talk About Kevin” by Lionel Shriver.
Which books have made you laugh out loud and which books make you cry?
dang i cnt really think of a book that has ever made me lol, mainly cuz i read comics >_> btw like the paper used for the sofas =)
Apathy by Paul Neilan and Two Years, No Rain by Shawn Klomparens
Two Years No Rain YES!!!
Wow, Pauline must be a sadist or something. O_o Had to look up the novel title that she was reading, and the synopsis was the most depressing thing I’ve ever read.
i was just about to look that up, thanks.
pauline .. .__.
Do graphic novels count? I would site anything by Doug TenNapel, especially Black Cherry, Iron West, and Creature Tech.
Books though, I’m thinking Kurt Vonnegut? But I can’t quite remember.
Douglas Adams “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” is ok
I was thinking the same thing. Douglas Adams cracks me up.
Yup. Hitchhiker’s Guide definitely did it for me.
Yes! I’m sure I laughed out loud at those. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is also full of LOLs.
i read a GREAT book recently that made me both laugh and cry… it’s called “of bees and mist”. i highly recommend it to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a fairy tale
the book that made me cry the hardest was “The Boy Called It”….
Opps wait…Was it The Child Called It?
Hahah sorry, very long since I last read that
That made my older sister cry. I have never read it though.
Everything is Illuminated. Jonathan Safran Foer
omg thissssss
I read it a second time and it still made me cry ;___;
A book that made me laugh AND cry: The Book Thief
So goood!!!! I highly recommend it.
All the Christopher Moore books made me lol big time…
I can only recommend Fool – A parody of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. The latter isn’t even spiritually worthless
I love Christopher Moore, no matter how many times I read Lamb, I still burst out laughing.
Christ she’s completely evil!! I read that book and it was the most depressing two weeks of my life!!
“Without Feathers” and “Getting Even”, both by Woody Allen, make me laugh every time I read them. Usually a funny book doesn’t get much more than a smile from me, but those have me in stitches every time.
LOL – Miss Match by Erynn Mangum, and also Winnie the Pooh (the book). I laugh my head off reading those. “Holl, holl, a Hoffable Hellerump!” (from the latter)
Cry – pretty rare for me to cry over a book, but I recall crying twice over The Raider’s Promise by Lois Walfrid Johnson. Although the second time I cried, it wasn’t because the book was sad, it was because I reached the end and wanted more.
All the P.G. Wodehouse books are immensely funny!
Definitely! The Jeeves books always make me laugh. I had to stop reading them on the train.
a book that made me laugh:
wigfield by amy sedaris, stephen colbert & paul dinello
Just about every book I read I find the humour & the pressure of the emotions, hah, so I don’t know if I can separate them.. Though I guess I will choose The Five People You Meet in Heaven because my goodness, the first maybe 3ish pages where Frank (main character, but I haven’t touch that book for years) is about to die, I sob like nobody’s business. Even explaining it makes it teary-eyed, and that was maybe 7 years ago.
ooo, that one is on my “book club” reading list. I ought to get round to reading it. I’ll be sure to have lots of hankies ready.
Terry Pratchett! He’s my most favourite fantasy/humour writer ever!
Yes! I’m trying to choose what my favourite Terry Pratchett book is, but I can’t because there are too many gooduns.
Now we know Pauline is a psychopath.
Saddest book I’ve read recently: Nevil Shute’s On The Beach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_%28novel%29
We read that in school once, I agree it really is kind of depressing. Might be related to the fact that there’s not much survival happening there.
Books are always making me cry! A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold are tear jerkers. Anything by Terry Practchett or Douglas Adams is great for making you laugh out loud and embarassing yourself on the tube! I like Danny Wallace too.
ahahah this ones really funny lol the road LOLZ
The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy and the sequels all made me laugh aloud with their sheer insanity and unexpectedness!
Indeed. I haven’t read the sixth one yet though. “And Another Thing” but Eoin Colfer. I’m worried that I might hate it.
anything by Tom Holt, Robert Rankin and Douglas Adams make me giggle immensely. One flew over the cuckoo’s nest made me cry and laugh at times. So much easier to think of books that make me cry though!
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Funny, sad, clever, wondrous.
Read it.
I can’t think of a book that made me laugh that much, but i can think about the best ending in the world, which made me cry for sadness & joy too, i was so sad to end it but yet so happy for havin red it and it’s so awesome: Cien años de soledad, by Gabriel García Marquez. That is an awesome book, dammit!
Unfortunately, I’ve never heard of “The Road”, but I’d assume from your question about books that make us cry and laugh that it’s a really, really sad book.
The only book that’s ever made me cry is “Though None Go With Me” by Jerry B Jenkins. Very touching story.
Hmmm. A book that made me laugh? The last one I recalled would be Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Of course anything by him makes me laugh like an idiot.
And of course the crying part. The Gunslinger by Stephen King. It’s not an intentionally sad book but there some sad parts in there. They shouldn’t be sad enough to make a person cry, but I couldn’t help but shed a tear.
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers is hilarious, even if he is sometimes also heartbreaking.
she’s right i didn’t get it haha
but then i looked up the book and read the synopsis.. she’s sick and evil haha
Anything by David Sedaris makes me laugh out loud every time, especially if I’m reading it out loud with my sister. I was reading a book of Irish fairy tales with her, too, and I was crying laughing. But I think that was partially the book and partially her.
aww! Sisters are the best!
“We need to talk about Kevin?” The movie version of that was filmed right near where I work!
ooo! I didn’t know there was going to be a film! I can’t imagine that book working as a film to be honest, but then I always think that about films of books and sometimes I’m wrong.
as you say in your comic, cormac mccarthy’s always good for a chuckle. i read child of god by him not long ago – incredibly sad and horrific, weirdly written, but absolutely brilliant! thoroughly reccommended.
as for a laugh, i’d reccommend terry pratchett – he never fails to raise a smile.
Demian by Herman Hesse made me cry like a little schoolgirl…
For a laugh? Terry Pratchett or Christopher Moore :]
I don’t think I’ve read a book that made me outright cry, but Night by Elie Wiesel and Unwind by Neal Shusterman both choked me up.
One book that made me laugh till my stomach muscles hurt was The Order of Odd Fish by James Kenndy. It was a very awesomely weird book
Well… my first language is spanish( the explanation of why my english sucks…) so a book that cause these effects is “La Tregua” by Mario Benedetti… I don’t know if this was translated to english…mmmm whoever who cares??
‘The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil’ by George Saunders is SO FUNNY. It’s short but it’ll be the most hilarious two hours of your life.
‘High Fidelity’ by Nick Hornby. One of the only books I have ever repeatedly laugh out loud to.
Much much better than the film may I add!
I’m going to look up all these books and authors and make myself a reading list. I’ll mix up the tearjerkers and laugh-out-loud funny books so that my mood will remain stable overall.
Either stable or you’ll switch from maximum riduculositiy to depression an back for a few weeks
A lot of books make me laugh
I laugh easily 
But the Maximum Ride by James Patterson series and the Percy Jackson & The Olympians by Rick Riordan series make me laugh the most! 
And books that make me cry… Hmm. I don’t usually cry in books. O.o
bad kitty by michele jaffe made me laugh so hard.
i can’t think of any books, but two movies that made me laugh really hard were “The Hangover” and “Nights in Rodanthe” the first one was a comedy, the second one was so clicheed and predictable, it was HILARIOUS!!!
yeah….i think im a sadist too
Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men and Carpe Jugulum to name only a couple. All his books have me laughing out loud. In children’s books are The Exiles by Hilary McKay. There are also The Exiles At Home and The Exiles in Love. These had me laughing out loud as well.
A book that made me laugh out loud was Chelsea Handler’s Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. That woman is hilarious.
‘Where the Wild Things Are’ makes some people cry.
The Princess Bride always makes me laugh (Both the movie and book)
Oh man this one made me laugh out loud for realz!
It’s weird:
The happiest and the saddest book was Dangerous Angels: Weetzie Bat.
Recently, If on a winter’s night a traveller made me laugh out loud.
I remember that this book made me laugh out loud in the library. Several times. Enjoy: http://www.amazon.com/Belly-Laughs-Naked-Pregnancy-Childbirth/dp/073820949X
Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy
“Bel Canto” is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read.
I had to read “The Road” for a fiction class at my university some years back now, and it was life-scarring, honestly! When I saw this comic I busted a gut laughing at Pauline finding it funny. XD
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is a hilarious book. I was reading in public once and laughed out loud. Got a lot of funny looks. It’s a great book.
Oh me too, I laughed out loud on the train at that one.
As someone who has read “The Road” …!!!!
There were parts of that book that were funny.
You laugh at things that normally wouldn’t be funny, because you look for comic relief.
The Road is sometimes a funny book.
2 books that never fail to make me laugh OUT LOUD, are The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 3/4, and Adrian Mole – Weapons of Mass Destruction. Detailed accounts of mundane life scenarios make me truly laugh
I could usually titter a bit about “Rage” by Richard Bachman
Anything by P.G. Wodehouse!
John Swartzwelder (writer of 59 episodes of The Simpsons) self-publishes a book each year through Amazon.com and they never fail to make me laugh out loud and laugh hard, all the way through (some of his books include “The Time Machine Did It,” “Double Wonderful,” “Dead Men Scare Me Stupid” and “The Exploding Detective”).
Others that immediately come to mind are “Areas Of My Expertise” by John Hodgman (and his sequel to that book), “Why Not Me?” by Al Franken, the various books published by The Onion and books by George Carlin.
Wow I guess the road is funny!
I don’t get it….
It’s because you havn’t read, or seen, The Road. It’s about apocalypse, and you follow a dad and its son trying to survive. Some people have become cannibals and stuff even worse. I think I didn’t laugh watching it (’cause I’ve seen the movie, and never read the book) I was too stressed about what would happen DDD:
HAHAHAHA! OK now I’m going to Hell.
anything by Christopher Moore will ALWAYS crack me up in public places X)
David Sidaris always makes me laugh out loud. I try not to read it in public.
Try Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. It’s right funny, and about the apocalypse.
Discworld embarrasses me frequently in public. Pay no attention to the tittering man in starbucks.
Oh gosh, this happens often when I find myself laughing at a book in the company of others. x3
Now as for books that have made me laugh and/or cry I would have to say I can’t remember ones that have made me laugh a whole lot since I haven’t read any that have recently (well I haven’t read any books that weren’t for school at all it seems) but this one book I read for school called “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak was really enthralling and actually managed to make me cry. It wasn’t the “I’ve-just-got-a-little-dust-in-my-eye” sort of cry, but rather the “tears-streaming-down-my-face” kind. I’m not one to normally cry like the latter for mediums of entertainment: movies or books. Although, I surprised myself with all the tears coming out. I was able to tear up once with another book and that was “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck.
But anyways, enough about books. I just want to say that your comic is so utterly witty and adorably designed. I absolutely love it and I am thoroughly enchanted with your characters and humor. Keep on with the incredible work!
:-((((((