Written by the great master Thomas Mann when he was over 80 years old and frequently in a bad mood, this sprightly and picaresque novel of a young con man in his early years disappoints you only once...when it suddenly ends.

Hemingway claimed to re-read Huck Finn every other year; though he was probably exaggerating, the point is correct -- the book is worth reading again. We tend to forget what a prose master Twain could be, and this was his greatest work. Along with Moby Dick, one of the two Great American Novels. And very funny.

Milan Kundera's funniest novel, both parable and farce, set in a socialist health spa.

The great bohemian pamphleteer and activist Hasek creates a character for the ages in the bumbling Zen fool Schweik, who shows us the only human way to react to war is with outrage and a sense of humor. A colossal book, tragically curtailed by the author's death.

Twain's acerbic satire of medieval social inequality is an entertaining parable about all governments.

The Jeeves stories are sheer madcap humor, told believably.

Halldor Laxness's great novels are comedies and tragedies at the same time, just like life. This one tells the tale of a too-sensitive poet in an Icelandic village.

Everybody has their favorite Vonnegut; I guess this is mine that zany, weird philosopher.

A grand imitation-18th century picaresque farce, like a cross between Barry Lyndon and Monty Python, a prodigious display for lovers of verbal pyrotechnics, and a persuasive argument against the tragedy of naivete.

A light-hearted fairy tale for adults, an ancient immortal Chinese warrior meets a young, sexy, smart American professional woman.

Alison Lurie's suburban American and lightly comic take on Rashomon -- she looks at the lives of two ordinary couples by retelling the same story through four sets of eyes, revealing how much humans conceal from each other and from themselves.

T.C. Boyle is America's greatest contemporary humorist and Water Music is one of his best works. The hilariously stupid adventures of a dumb white man on the loose in pre-colonial Africa.

Philip Roth sets out to write a funny book and a baseball book at the same time, and succeeds on both counts. The absurd but believable adventures of a surreal ballclub.

Maugham was one of the most facile writers in history. In this book he is not trying very hard, but still spins off an amusing entertainment about a diplomatic chess game played between Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia, with a farcical erotic subplot. A good beach read.

Though this is best described as a psychological suspense-thriller, its view of human nature is so unrelentingly dark that it made me laugh more than once; whenever you think things can't get worse, Highsmith is just getting started...she is a like a literary version of Alfred Hitchcock, macabre and funny at the same time.