My favorite books to make you laugh about the absurdities of life

Mary Roach displays an uncanny ability to make science accessible and death hilarious in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. If you have even a hint of morbid curiosity, you must read this book. She answers so many questions that I’d always been afraid to ask, like what really happens to a body donated to science (hint: it’s not quite what you imagine). You’ll also learn about the science behind cremation, decay, and get an inside look at the forensic workings of a body farm. You wouldn’t think such topics could be so delightfully entertaining, but Roach has a way of making them so. This book was a great reminder to me not to take life—or death—too seriously. 

This is, hands down, the single funniest book I have ever read. What’s amazing is that in addition, it’s really a heartfelt memoir. Harrison Scott Key can take contentious family relationships and use them to simultaneously make your heart ache and your face hurt from laughing so much. He’s also skilled at self-deprecating humor, unabashedly highlighting his own flaws throughout his story. The title refers to the author’s father and the book chronicles interactions from youth onward—all the cringe-worthy moments when a parent and child simply cannot see eye to eye (and you can tell they probably never will). And yet the undercurrent of love throughout is what brings in the heartache that balances out the hilarity. Again, this is the single funniest book I have ever read, and that should count for something! 

A few years ago I began a love affair with Spain. To be more specific, locations north of Madrid up to the Basque country. When I picked up Paterniti’s book, I felt I’d found a kindred spirit. The author obviously shares my love for this corner of the world, and he also knows how to write about the culture of small, Spanish mountain towns in a way that rings true. The cheese! The wine! The pride of men! It’s all woven together in this wonderful tale that’s equal parts memoir, mystery, travelogue, and cultural study. This was one of those books that will stick with me forever. 

Fiction at its finest, A Gentleman in Moscow seems to follow a charming man caught up in extraordinary circumstances (house arrest at a luxury hotel) following the Russian Revolution. This is a false sense of security. What Towles really does, right under the reader’s nose, is lay the groundwork for a kismet of unexpected events against the backdrop of the beginnings of the Russian Communist regime. The book is an excellent study in the absurdities of governments and politicians. As someone who speaks Russian and spent a good deal of time in Moscow and its suburbs, I thought the author absolutely nailed Russian culture. I was shocked to learn that the author isn’t Russian (he’s from Boston), doesn’t speak Russian, and hadn’t even been to Russia (at least at the time of his writing the novel). He was inspired after staying at a luxury hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. Learning these things made the book all the more impactful for me. Even without that background, the writing and storyline were more than enough to sweep me away and leave me melancholy when I reached the last, perfect page. 

I don’t know where Bonnie Garmus has been all my life, but I love her. And I love the main character of her novel Lessons in Chemistry, Elizabeth Zott, a chemist in the 1960s. As you might imagine, Zott’s plans to be taken seriously as a female scientist are constantly thwarted. But she’s a no-nonsense chemist on a mission, and she does what she must to navigate a world that refuses to accept her genius, much less her role as an unmarried mother. Hilarious, inspiring, and highlighting the ridiculousness of patriarchy, Lessons in Chemistry is pure delight.