Book: Show us a book that made you laugh out loud.
Submitted by Red Pen.
I don't usually read many books for comedic reasons, but one book I read a couple of years ago that really tickled my fancy was "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" by J Maarten Troost. It is reviewed here most excellently by Hannabanana.
The protagonist — if this book can be said to have one — is a disenchanted, serial academic type that doesn't really seem to need or to want to work for a living. As an adventure, he heads off to the south seas with his wife as she has taken a job doing third-world aid. His ideas of an idyllic paradise complete with swaying palm trees and nymphesque micronesian women is quickly disabused. What follows is one of the funniest travelogues I've ever read — his sheer incredulity that this world EXISTS in the same one with cell phones, cable tv, and modern transportation is hysterical.
"Gil's All Fright Diner" by A Lee Martinez really should be a movie. Its a hoot. A very quick read and apparently the first book by Martinez, this strange book covers the "buddy story" of a couple of unlikely heroes (even on "Hereos") — a disgruntled werewolf and a cowardly vampire as they stumble into and try to prevent The Apocalypse. Great dialog. Really amusing.
Pictures two B movies in the making. Executive Producer – Steve Betz
Aw Steve, thanks for the props :) I've added Gil's All Fright Diner to my ever-increasing list of books to read.
I didn't think that "Gil's" was as funny as Troost's book, but its pretty good — and a really good poking-fun-at-your-own-genre sort of story.
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