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The Feast of Love: A Novel 162 reviews
Charles Baxter
Vintage, 2001
Give Me Another Helping
+ Great Almost to the End
+ A little racey
+ Sharing a Feast of Love
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The Ginger Man 67 reviews
J. P. Donleavy
Grove Press, 2001
Review by The Literate Man (www.literateman.com) posted June 21, 2010
+ Hilarious, Witty, and Brilliant!
+ A manifestation of human desire in its physical state - JP Donleavy is brilliant!
The Ginger Man is perhaps the most eloquent portrait of debauchery ever painted in the English language. And it may just be the greatest American novel that no one has ever heard of. I can only barely read in any language other than English, so I don't really know what they have to say about ...
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The Bear Went Over the Mountain: A Novel (Owl Book) 92 reviews
William Kotzwinkle
Holt Paperbacks, 1997
Funny and funnier and smart and smarter than your hairy honor student
+ Every re-read makes me laugh again
I frequently wonder why people purposely write reviews where they say things like "This is the worst book I've ever read" or "I don't see the point." Do you also wonder? Does it make you think, "That reminds me of that girl I'm glad I didn't marry"?
This book is funny, as everyone (who counts) ...
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The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure727 reviews
William Goldman
Del Rey, 2000
Even better than the movie!
+ All-Time Classic
+ In Which the Fourth Wall is Demolished
This was hilarious! I've been reading a lot of screenplays lately and was curious what Goldman's novel was like compared to his movie. Although the funniest dialogue was in the movie ("'Inconcievable'- you keep using that word. I do not think it means, what you think it means"), the novel adds its ...
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The Trial49 reviews
Franz Kafka
Schocken, 1999
Analyses of Kafkas', "The Trial"
+ One man against the incontrovertible righteousness of the law
+ the trial
+ Not a Plot Summary
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House Mother Normal: A Geriatric Comedy4 reviews
B. S. Johnson
New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1986
a black comedy set in an old people's home
+ A phenomenal technical achievement
House Mother Normal tells the story of a night in an old people's home as told by eight of its residents - all with varying degrees of senility - and their perverted carer, the "House Mother" of the title. Each of the nine narratives is synchronised in time and within the text, so that a ...
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Walking Across Egypt (Ballantine Reader's Circle)53 reviews
Clyde Edgerton
Ballantine Books, 1997
Wonderful nostalgic book!
+ Fun, light, and will make you laugh
+ Well written feel-good story
+ "Walking Across Egypt"
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Otherwise Engaged (Sunrise Key)3 reviews
Suzanne Brockmann
Loveswept, 1997
Really Cute!
You almost can't go wrong with a Susanne Brockmann novel. She is a master storyteller, and this book is no exception, even though it is obviously some of her earlier work. Not only is the story a good one, but the characters are well-developed enough where you feel a connection to them and their ...
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Catch-22882 reviews
Joseph Heller
Simon & Schuster, 1996
As advertised. Highly recommended.
+ messy masterpiece
+ Outrageous and funny
+ My favorite novel, ever
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Auto-da-Fe24 reviews
Elias Canetti
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984
Very pleased
+ This world has to burn
+ Way to post a spoiler review Amazon
+ A Nightmare
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The Franchiser: A Novel (American Literature (Dalkey Archive)) 2 reviews
Stanley Elkin
Dalkey Archive Press, 2001
This is the most accurate Bicentennial picture of America.
+ Elkin at the height of his art
You won't come acoss a more side-splittingly funny portrait of America in 1976 than what Elkin gives us here. I don't know which is the more: the humor in America that is depressing or the depression that is humorous; in any event, the book is a must for anyone who likes his or her humor ...
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The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition107 reviews
David James Duncan
Sierra Club Books, 2002
I have bought probably 10 copies as gifts...
+ Made me appreciate fishing... a little
+ Classic Storytelling
+ The River Why Review
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Woodcutters7 reviews
Thomas Bernhard
Knopf, 1988
One of Bernhard's best books
+ Searing
+ Life of the Mind
+ Oh, to be a lumberjack!
+ impossible to forget
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The Full Catastrophe5 reviews
David Carkeet
Linden Pub, 1990
Laughs on every page!
+ The second volume of a trilogy
+ Understated comic genius
+ How can someone so smart be so naive?
+ Hilariously inventive!
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Tempest-tost (Salterton Trilogy)7 reviews
Robertson Davies
Penguin (Non-Classics), 1980
An Astounding Feat
+ Modern classic
+ A sheer delight
+ Yes, he was younger then.
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The Ballad of Habit and Accident2 reviews
Rock Brynner
Wyndham Publications, 1981
a wildly funny and anarchic odyssey through the sixties
+ This book was no accident
This is Brynners semi-autobiographical account of his life from 19 to 30. I don't know how much is fact and how much fantasy, but it is wonderful reading. Brynner tells the story of his drunken wanderings across the world and of the strange and unusual people he encountered on his quest for a ...
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Ulysses433 reviews
James Joyce
Vintage, 1990
The Yeats touch
This is the most beautiful book to come out of Ireland in our time. One thinks of Homer.
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Diminished Capacity9 reviews
Sherwood Kiraly
Berkley, 1997
Forgetful hero tells unforgettably brilliant tale!
+ Between the Covers: Book Review Blog at blogspot.com
+ Diminished Capacity
+ Wacky, loveable characters & a fun story
+ Rich, 3 dimensional characters and hilarious writing!
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Watt19 reviews
Samuel Beckett
Grove Press, 1994
Funny AND Avant-garde
+ Watt a larf
+ ''and they say there is no God"
+ Brilliant and Insane
+ It's so hard to get good help in a Beckett novel...
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Sixty Stories (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)21 reviews
Donald Barthelme, David Gates
Penguin Classics, 2005
A feather, a stone, a tooth, a bit of uranium ore, an octopus sucker...
+ 1) Keep an open mind, 2) Definitely worth the [...]!
+ master of parody, suspender of belief
+ MR BARTHELME
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