If this book was just a eulogy, that would be more than enough reason to say that you must read this, but it offers readers so much more. Another group of authors turned out grad-school-level texts on the historical, cultural, and emotional fallout of comedy, if not exhaustive looks at towering comic phenomena.

The second-generation Asian immigrant experience in America has provided the inspiration for some terrific 21st-century fiction. Comedy tends to follow the rule of three, where you set up a pattern and then misdirect readers so they are surprised and amused. We provide you with some of our favorite titles that will not only make you laugh, but also teach you how to be funny. A welcome relief from the flood of performance studies theory, being firmly based in a lifetime of practice .Although it was written partly out of the pain of discovering his first wife’s adultery and ends on “the biggest battlefield in the history of the world”, it is continuously amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny. Written by author James Patterson in collaboration with Chris Grabenstein and illustrated by Laura Parks, the books have captured young readers’ attention for the pun-filled stories and brilliant illustrations. It is a subversive, witty story about teenage orphan Flora Poste and her stay in Sussex with the doomed Starkadders. Packed to the rafters with hilarious, shocking and cringe-worthy anecdotes, this book reads like a joy-ride through Daisy’s life – and what a ride it is.

Jamie Grimm is a middle schooler on a mission: he wants to become the world's greatest standup comedian–even if he doesn't have a lot to laugh about these days. This collection of essays is split into two parts: the first is about Sedaris' upbringing in North Carolina and move to New York City; the second is about his move to France, and doomed attempts to learn the language and fit in. I’d had that exact thought many times, starting when I was about 10, and had felt myself ridiculous. A family party often makes for the most entertaining of settings, and Grown Ups by comedy queen Marian Keyes is no exception.But in this hilarious, often poignant memoir, subtitled Life Stories from Way Back Then, Gilligan opens up about the moments in his life – long before his online comedy videos sprung him to national, then international fame – that made him who he is today. Less so now perhaps, but a book that consistently makes me laugh is Penelope Fitzgerald’s At Freddie’s, a comic masterpiece from 1982 that really should be better known. You can come up with a story idea that is funny and entertaining by taking a classic story and twisting it around. Recently I’ve enjoyed Obstacles to Young Love by the late David Nobbs (of Reginald Perrin fame) published in 2010; like the best comic fiction, it’s funny, sad, dark and poignant all at the same time.

Mortimer was apparently so surprised by the first bit of good press she got for it, she promptly vomited. At first glance, a novel about a teenager with Asperger's syndrome solving a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery about finding a neighbour’s dog dead on the lawn, impaled on a garden fork, doesn’t sound rich in comedy. Bleak and acerbic, it's an acquired taste, but once you have it The Pumpkin Eater is uniquely, acidly funny. Honest, raw, surprising, life-affirming, and because it's Jo Caulfield, of course, it's very, very funny.Sia meticulously tracks Jewel’s book, using her titles as jumping-off points for his own verse, replacing the illustrations with crude pencil drawings and re-creating the original cover design, in which the author looks sad on a field of handwritten, painfully earnest lines (“I die on the page every time / What do you know about push-ups? The only book that’s ever literally made me fall out of bed laughing is Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn.

The rule of three requires pairing two like ideas together and then adding a third, off the wall idea. If you find the idea of a baffled chef funny, or titles such as “Jelly Result”, “The Stupid Conversation”, “I Eat Fog”, “The Nose Furnace”, “I Blame Ferns” or “The Man Who Gave Birth to His Arse”, then you’ll love it.Take, for instance, a queasily over-familiar character described as "that one white guy at every black wedding who’s, like, super-hyped to do the Cupid Shuffle".