Sunday, 3 November 2013

The Wrong Box

Which is the funniest book of all time in your opinion? 

It might be Decline and Fall, Scoop or A Handful of Dust but it might be this unjustly obscure (and oddly modern) masterpiece by Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous3 November 2013 at 16:18

    If short stories or essay compilations are allowed, let the short Jeeves and Woosters fight it out with Robert Benchley. If it has to be a novel: A Confederacy of Dunces. Matthew Coniam

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    1. Political Refugee from the Global Village3 November 2013 at 16:21

      I have not got far with Confederacy. If short stories are allowed it has to be this one. http://nbu.bg/webs/amb/british/6/greene/accident.htm

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    2. Political Refugee from the Global Village3 November 2013 at 16:24

      I have tried a score of times but I do not like Wodehouse much except for his non fiction which makes me laugh aloud.

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  2. Anonymous3 November 2013 at 16:23

    Dead Souls. I love Waugh's novels deeply, but at his peak Gogol was in another league entirely

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    1. Political Refugee from the Global Village3 November 2013 at 16:24

      I looked at Dead Souls last night in the shop and reflected that aged 12 I thought Taras Bulba the best book of all time but never tried Dead Souls.

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  3. Anonymous3 November 2013 at 17:38

    Love AN Wilson and think Noel Coward as an author is vastly under-rated but probably THE funniest belongs to Love in a Cold Climate. Jane Woolley

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    1. Political Refugee from the Global Village3 November 2013 at 17:43

      I couldn't like LIACC. I loved Coward when 13 but now not very much. AN Wilson is fun - not sure he will live. I like much more Angus Wilson's short stories. Barchester Towers is funny and Jane Austen much more so.

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  4. Anonymous4 November 2013 at 15:59


    And Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy doesn't even make it on the list to compete? It's much more political satire than Gibbon and his wacky Romans ever were. Dan Teodor

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