Here are 60 books that The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman fans have personally recommended if you like
The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman.
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I have been writing fiction since an early age, and I naturally create central female characters that I hope are warm, funny, and in some way flawed. Modules of my university degree dealt with psychology and sociology, and I automatically studied other people to inspire elements of my character. Lee Child is quoted as saying readers remember characters more than the plot, so when compiling my list, I recalled five female leads that have made me laugh, cringe, and relate to in equal measure. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
I’ve never read a book as quickly as I read this one. Our eponymous lead character is quirky and odd, but the story is written with so much empathy, depth, and humor that I was rooting for her from the start.
I loved how the relationship between Eleanor and Raymond plays out and avoids the predictable ‘boy meets girl’ ending. It doesn’t surprise me that the book is ‘in development’ as a movie, as the story plays out like a film when you read it. Definitely read this one first before you see the film! (It probably won’t take long as I couldn’t put this book down.)
"Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!" -Reese Witherspoon
No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of…
I learned to read at four and have been telling stories ever since. Books were my escape from unhappiness into a new and endless world. Left to myself, I’d read ten or so weekly, and my mind was packed with characters, dialogue, jokes, prose, and poetry like an over-brimming literary reservoir. Words are my thing, and I am an avid collector of them. I was reading David Copperfield at eight and specialised in 18th and 19th-century literature at university. I’ve written five books and am working on the sixth. I love writing humour but have also authored Jane Austen Fan Fiction and poetry. Without books, my world is nothing.
To my knowledge, no one has written a main character like Don Tilman before. A tall, handsome genetics professor who’s never had a second date, he approaches his need for a wife with typical precision and the use of a complex spreadsheet. Don navigates the unfamiliar world of feelings and unplanned activities with his customary efficiency, but what is this strange new emotion he’s feeling?
I simply adore this book and often read it twice a year. It’s an absolute delight, funny, poignant, and so incredibly life-affirming. You’ll be cheering Don and Rosie on and hoping that everything works out for them. I do every time, and I know what happens!
The international bestselling romantic comedy “bursting with warmth, emotional depth, and…humor,” (Entertainment Weekly) featuring the oddly charming, socially challenged genetics professor, Don, as he seeks true love.
The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.
Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her…
As a reader, I’ve always been attracted to novels that are character-driven, filling my shelves with books about people who seize the day and fight for what they want, who are interesting, relatable, and flawed but who don’t let those flaws define them. As a writer, I like to put my own flawed characters in situations that force them to face who they are and either come to terms with it or overturn themselves and their lives entirely, and all the novels I’ve listed have a hint of this, too. I hope you enjoy them!
I loved the completely unique plot of this novel; I haven’t read anything quite like it before or since. I was entranced by the story of a completely ordinary person who decided to do something extraordinary, not for attention or fortune, but because they became convinced that if they did, it would save the life of someone they once cared about.
It’s poignant, funny, moving, and I cried more than once. If you like to really feel things when you read a novel, try this one.
'Impossible to put down' TIMES 'Life-affirming delight. A comic pleasure' WOMAN AND HOME 'Profoundly moving' RICHARD MADELEY
OVER 4 MILLION COPIES SOLD. SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE STARRING JIM BROADBENT AND PENELOPE WILTON ____________________
When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other.
He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life.
I am Peter C. Bradbury, and it was reading the books of P.G. Wodehouse that attracted me to the career of being a butler. I have also always loved murder mysteries, so when I started writing, I combined those aspects into my first book. I chose these particular books because of the details and the subjects. I was a butler for over twenty years in the UK and the USA, and it annoys me when household staff are incorrectly portrayed. I love movies like Gosford Park and series like Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. The butler sees and hears everything, so I like the writers who know that.
I loved this book because I worked in hotels before I became a butler, and the protagonist is a maid. You can walk into many situations in a hotel room, so a murder mystery is no big stretch. I love hotel or rich home dramas, especially if they portray the staff correctly. Domestic staff are generally likable, meticulous, quiet, and honest. This is a really nice, cozy murder mystery.
*THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES & SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER *WINNER OF THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION *A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME PICK
'An escapist pleasure' SUNDAY TIMES 'Delightful' GUARDIAN 'An instantly gripping and delightful whodunnit' STYLIST 'Smart, riveting, and deliciously refreshing ' LISA JEWELL
I’ve written fourteen novels about family, friendship, food, and love; stories that I hope transport people so completely and utterly, that they almost forget they are reading and instead find themselves walking in the shoes of the characters. That’s what I’m aiming for anyway. As a reader it’s what I want also – to laugh and cry, and feel the characters are people that I know and feel sorry to leave them behind when I turn the last page.
This novel is elegantly written and emotionally authentic, and while it is a light and zippy read, the more you think about it, the more it seems to say.
It is about a week in the life of Melbourne man Simon Larsen. Things are not going very well for Simon. He was a successful architect but during lockdown his business failed and his beautiful home had to be sold. Now Simon has moved his family to a tiny flat, and he is unemployed, broke, and can hardly get off the sofa.
While Simon seems hopeless, the family he has married into are formidable, from his beautiful wife Tansy to his terrifying mother-in-law Gloria. I loved the Schnabels but still, I’m not sure I would want to be related.
'I loved every page of this funny, warm, delightful novel!' LIANE MORIARTY
'A smart, funny novel about love, marriage and family.' Weekend Australian
'With sharply observed characters and comic set-pieces to make you laugh out loud, Dinner with the Schnabels is great fun to read and casts a more mature and acerbic eye on modern masculinity.' Sydney Morning Herald, Fiction Pick of the Week
You can marry into them, but can you ever really be one of them?
A novel about marriage, love and family.
Things haven't gone well for Simon Larsen lately. He adores his wife, Tansy, and his…
I like to read and write novels that are uplifting and life-affirming where the main character, who's often quirky and upbeat, must find their way out of the drama and chaos life has dealt them. Growing up in a family where humor – often black – reigned supreme, with a father who penned silly limericks, I’m drawn to seeing the funny side of things. Showing the light and dark of life in a comedic yet poignant way not only makes for entertaining reading but is enlightening and inspiring. I believe novels should reflect us and our failings while offering hope that it’ll all be alright in the end.
In a similar vein to the previous book, this novel focuses on a man whose life is spiralling out of control. His professional life begins to crumble, he nearly gets run over by a car and his two teenage children get themselves into angst-causing strife. What I love the most about this book is that it’s narrated in the second person by the main character Michael who’s essentially having a mid-life crisis breakdown. This can be hard to pull off, but it works here as it’s like Michael’s providing commentary on himself and his life as if observing someone else. It makes for some hilarious writing, despite the serious theme. The author shows that sometimes to really appreciate the highs of life, you need to hit rock bottom first.
Michaelo O’Dell is hit by a car, and when he doesn’t die, he is surprised and pleased. But he can’t seem to move, frozen in the crash position. He can’t concentrate, or control his anger and grief, or work out what to do about much of anything. His professional life begins to crumble, and although his wife Wendy is heroically supportive, his teenage children only exacerbate his post-accident angst. His daughter Rosie punches out a vindictive schoolmate, plunging the family into a special parent-teacher hell. Meanwhile, his son Declan is found with a stash of illicit drugs, and a strange…
I’ve always been fascinated by people, especially people who don’t follow the herd, who lurk on the edges of society, who are strongly individual. Their opinions often seem wiser than those of society and the media, and I find it refreshing to climb into their shoes… That’s why my fictional characters might be obsessively making harps, counting everything in sight, or embarking on a mission to save penguins! The books I’ve listed here contain a range of eccentrics. Molly The Maid, Harold Fry, Iona Iverson, Noman Foreman, and Janice are all marvellous characters who made me laugh, cry and ponder. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
Again, here is a fantastic cast of characters: the bold Mrs. B, the swearing Fox terrier, Decius, and the unassuming protagonist, Janice. Quiet, kind, thorough, outwardly unremarkable, Janice is a cleaner. She is also a wonderful listener. What a joy it is when, with a little help from her friends, she finally unlocks her own story and transforms her life.
Here’s the moment when Janice grasps how much hope can be found in stories: "She looks around at the shelves of books, every one of which she has handled, and she begins to think there may be a way. A way of finding that hope. She is, after all, a collector of stories and a storyteller. Maybe she could tell her story as she has told other stories?"
'I absolutely loved it! So different, clever, funny and charming' Sunday Times bestseller Katie Fforde
'Funny, wise, moving and full of lovely moments...The characters are endearing and unforgettable' Hazel Prior, author of the Richard & Judy Book Club Pick Away with the Penguins
'Janice is a wonderful woman whose authenticity pulls you along...the breadth and originality of supporting characters makes this debut an immersive delight' Dorset Magazine
'Absolutely spellbinding...a warm-hearted, thoughtful, funny and yet deeply poignant' Celia Anderson, author of 59 Memory Lane
'A treasure of a book. Beautiful, emotional and heartfelt with a cornucopia of characters you'll love spending…
I’ve always been fascinated by people, especially people who don’t follow the herd, who lurk on the edges of society, who are strongly individual. Their opinions often seem wiser than those of society and the media, and I find it refreshing to climb into their shoes… That’s why my fictional characters might be obsessively making harps, counting everything in sight, or embarking on a mission to save penguins! The books I’ve listed here contain a range of eccentrics. Molly The Maid, Harold Fry, Iona Iverson, Noman Foreman, and Janice are all marvellous characters who made me laugh, cry and ponder. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
This novel made me giggle and made me think, too. It’s written from the perspectives of several very different people whose lives unexpectedly intermingle on a train. The one who steals the show (for me, at least) is Iona Iverson. She’s a middle-aged eccentric, equipped with an ever-ready handbag and French bulldog, and she is magnificent with it! She does not care what others think of her and has her own rules and routines firmly in place, but she has a huge heart.
Some advice from Iona: "Your past experiences… are the foundations on which to build your future. Build them on pride, not shame."
Nobody ever talks to strangers on the train. It’s a rule. But what would happen if they did?
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project comes an escapist read that will transport you, cheer you, and make you smile—and make you, too, wish you had Iona’s gift for bringing out the best in everyone.
“A not-to-be-missed read in the mode of Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.” —Booklist, starred review
Every day Iona, a larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, travels the ten stops from Hampton Court to Waterloo Station by train, accompanied by her dog, Lulu.…
My fascination with crime fiction has come from reading about it. I have no idea how many novels I have read focused on baddies and the catching of them, but it’s numbering now in the many hundreds. I think the fact that a crime novel can incorporate elements of all other genres – horror, history, romance, the supernatural, etc. are what make them so appealing and add to the joy of writing them. Untangling the threads that make up a crime novel is very satisfying. Maybe in another reality, I would be a detective – I love that idea, but for now, in this bit of the multiverse, I’ll just carry on making them up.
Another Police Procedural series introduction. I love James Oswald’s writing and his characters are fascinating. There are some of the usual tropes in here but there is enough that is new and different to keep it fresh. I loved the fact that this had a horror element to it – I don’t read horror but enjoyed it in this case as a bit of seasoning. I think Edinburgh seems to be a great place to set a crime novel, and Oswald seems to know it well and it becomes a character in its own right I think.
Natural Causes is the first novel in the Detective Inspector McLean series, from Sunday Times best-selling author James Oswald.
A young girl's mutilated body is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains are carefully arranged, in what seems to have been a cruel and macabre ritual, which appears to have taken place over 60 years ago.
For newly appointed Edinburgh Detective Inspector Tony McLean this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority - but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death.
Meanwhile, the city is horrified by a series of bloody killings. Deaths for…
I like to write characters and situations that readers relate to and find reassurance from. Laughter comes from shared experiences of frustration and mistakes, it reassures us that we are normal and not alone, giving us a big hug when feeling overwhelmed or down. I love the healing power of comedy and use it in all my work. Reading how other authors use comedy improves my writing and expands my viewpoint. I also perform comedy with a mixture of storytelling, standup, and belly dancing, I learn from the audience's reaction and feedback, which not only feeds into my novels but makes me feel like a million dollars.
Deliciously Scottish with sparky dialogue that had me laughing out loud.
The characters are all flawed, making mistakes I can identify with. I find relationships difficult at times, and this book was reassuringly familiar—like I wasn't "the only one". I also love the wee boy Bertie and his desperate need not to hurt anyone, a familiar feeling I could relate to, and found myself forgiving the "pushover” in me.
Life for Bertie seems to be moving at a pace that is rather out of his control. In Drummond Place gardens it seems that Olive has their future together all planned out. Meanwhile, upstairs at 44 Scotland Street, Bertie's father Stuart is powerless to stop over-bearing Irene and her motion for Bertie to travel to Aberdeen on a three-month secondment. And, further up in the New Town, while Bruce Anderson plots with old-school chums, love blossoms in Big Lou's Cafe.
Warm hearted, humorous and wonderfully wise, Love in the Time of Bertie offers philosophical insight as well as sartorial elegance.…
