Must-Read
Books That Are Actually Funny
Genuinely comic novels with real moral architecture. Rita Mae Brown's revelation comedy. Douglas Coupland's deadpan Microsoft journal. Janet Evanovich's pre-Plum forced-proximity comedy. Comic novels that earn their laughter and earn their stakes.
6 books on this list.
Venus Envyby Rita Mae Brown
4.0“Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown 1993 review. A Virginia gallery owner mistakenly told she has weeks to live writes the truth to every important person in her life. Then she does not die.”
Microserfsby Douglas Coupland
5.0“Microserfs by Douglas Coupland review. The 1995 novel about Microsoft programmers starting a Bay Area startup. The defining Silicon Valley novel of its decade.”
Love Overboardby Janet Evanovich
3.0“Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich review. A 1989 contemporary romance about a Vermont woodworker booked onto a schooner cruise with a captain who is not what she expected.”
Thanksgivingby Janet Evanovich
3.0“Thanksgiving by Janet Evanovich 1988 review. An early Evanovich romance set in Colonial Williamsburg about a veterinarian, a single-dad pediatrician, a runaway rabbit, and one badly burned turkey.”
Rubyfruit Jungleby Rita Mae Brown
5.0“Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown 1973 review. The landmark coming-of-age novel about Molly Bolt, a smart, queer Florida kid who refuses every social script she is handed.”
Alma Materby Rita Mae Brown
4.0“Alma Mater by Rita Mae Brown 2001 review. A coming-of-age novel set at a small Virginia women’s college about a senior who falls in love with her best friend during her last spring semester.”