Episode 110 - Comedic/Humorous Fiction

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

This episode we’re discussing Comedic/Humorous Fiction! We discuss what makes something funny, the different types of humour fiction, when you can’t tell if something is supposed to be funny until you know the context, and more! Plus: Comics’ comic comics! (That kind of makes sense in context…)

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In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Announcements

• Check out Matthew and RJ streaming Were|House on our Twitch Channel on Friday, October 9th at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific Twitch stream
• • Monster Mash - Friday Night Spooktacular Visual Novel Stream
• Our genre-specific lists of books by people of colour
• Vote for what genre we read in November

Things We Read This Month

• Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
• • “Somebody once said that the library is actually the dominant life form on the planet. Humans simply exist as the reproductive means to achieve more libraries.” from Fforde’s book The Constant Rabbit
• Giant Days, Vol. 1 by John Allison, Lissa Treiman, and Whitney Cogar
• • Matthew thinks the analysis he mentioned is somewhere in PanelxPanel #16 - Giant Days
• The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher
• • Dear Committee Members
• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
• My Man Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
• An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• • Booker Prize (Wikipedia)
• Yotsuba&!, Vol. 1 by Kiyohiko Azuma
• Ozy and Millie by Dana Simpson
• • Read online

Sixteen Comedic/Humorous Fiction Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors (see all our lists here)

• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Moccasin Square Gardens by Richard Van Camp
• 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter
• Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang
• The Wangs vs. The World by Jade Chang
• Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen
• The Marriage Game by Sara Desai
• I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal
• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
• The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Members Only by Sameer Pandya
• Crees in the Caribbean by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Other Media We Mentioned

• The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry
• Making History by Stephen Fry
• The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
• Get Out (Wikpedia)
• • Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
• The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
• Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (Wikipedia)
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (Wikipedia)
• • Cucumber sandwich (Wikipedia)
• Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson

Links, Articles, and Things

• Comic novel (Wikipedia)
• Themes of Pedophilia in the Works of Piers Anthony
• Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth
• Episode 053 - Comedic Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour (Wikipedia)
• Hark!
• • Tweet your eggnog sightings at RJ!
• Code Switch - Battle Of The Books
• • “What kind of books are best to read during this pandemic? Books that connect you to our current reality? Or ones that help you escape it?”
• Plotless Fiction

Suggest new genres or titles!

• Fill out the form to suggest a genre or title!

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Join us again on Tuesday, October 20th when we’ll be playing Happy Birthday Dracula!

Then on Tuesday, November 3rd we’ll be discussing the genre of Business non-fiction!