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Book
Auckland-born Simsion won international acclaim for this light-hearted story of a genetics professor with Asperger’s - considered simply as the way Don is, and not as a problem to solve - and his project for finding a wife.
"This was the most laugh-out-loud, clever, and deliciously ridiculous book I've read in a long time… I don't want to give it back to the library!" Luckily for you, the Auckland Libraries member who left this review on our catalogue did give it back.
Like Nick Hornby books? This darkly comic novel about a third-best bartender and his relationship difficulties could be for you. Or try "One last thing before I go" by Jonathan Tropper, another good read in the midlife male coming-of-age genre.
This wickedly funny parody of pastoral melodramas and romantic clichés is by now a classic. It has influenced many generations of the comic arts (e.g. the cold comfort family at Cold Comfort Farm is named Starkadder) and continues to find new fans.
Greene's story of a hapless vacuum-cleaner salesman turned spy, along with his "Travels with my Aunt" (a hapless retired bank manager and his eccentric aunt) are for anyone who enjoys dry English wit, adroit intelligence and virtuoso prose.
If you can see the funny side in obsessive-compulsive behaviour, sexual obsession, modern love and motherhood, if you find misfits endearing, and if a bit of S and M or an unreliable narrator isn’t a deal-breaker, this could be your book!
If you join the multitude of fans of this droll Scottish novelist, you won't lack for reading: the 44 Scotland Street series (which includes this title), the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series and more.
Is eccentric schoolteacher Miss Brodie comic or tragic? Like so many memorable characters, both; also, headstrong, proud, foolish and fascinating. And "At Freddie's" by Penelope Fitzgerald is a brilliantly comic look at a theatre school headmistress.
This funny and touching reminder that friendship, humour, rebellion and love do not need to be relinquished with age is one of the biggest literary phenomena of recent years - and still no one knows who Hendrik Groen really is.
eAudiobook
Wrapping up our list with an eAudiobook, an ever more popular format. This BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation is a great way to appreciate the oldest book on our list, one which many literature lovers believe is the funniest book ever written.
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