Five books that will actually make you laugh out loud

Katie Yee from BookMarks lists books that actually makes you stifle snorts on the subway and provokes a rumbling of hearty belly-laughs in Starbucks… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free right now!

The Sellout: A Novel

by Paul Beatty

Kindle Price: $9.99

Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review

Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek, The Denver Post, BuzzFeed, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly

Named a “Must-Read” by Flavorwire and New York Magazine’s “Vulture” Blog

A biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant.

Calypso

by David Sedaris

Kindle Price: $11.99

David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.

If you’ve ever laughed your way through David Sedaris’s cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you’re getting with Calypso. You’d be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it’s impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

by Bill Bryson

Kindle Price: $10.99

A travelogue by Bill Bryson is as close to a sure thing as funny books get. The Lost Continent is no exception. Following an urge to rediscover his youth (he should know better), the author leaves his native Des Moines, Iowa, in a journey that takes him across 38 states. Lucky for us, he brought a notebook.

With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colorful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here’s Bryson on the women of his native state: “I will say this, however–and it’s a strange, strange thing–the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable … I don’t know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked.”

Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think?

Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): A Novel

by Andrew Sean Greer

Kindle Price: $9.99

Who says you can’t run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would be too awkward–and you can’t say no–it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

A Confederacy of Dunces

by John Kennedy Toole

Kindle Price: $9.07