It’s not easy to find a good laugh. But I often find myself thinking, “I sure could use a good laugh.” Comedy is tough business, which is why most nights when I go looking to laugh all I end up with is crossed eyes from an optical illusion and an urban definition for the phrase “throw shadow.” Oh why can’t I read that “Making Fun of Anthropologie” article and laugh as hard the second, or third, or tenth time? Comedy is quick business, too.

Which is why I am wondering why I didn’t include comedy in my Best Books list. I guess I don’t usually think of reading comedy (as opposed to watching it). I can’t tell you any comedy books I have read. Perhaps Haven Kimmel’s Girl Named Zippy and She Got Up Off the Couch. I have meant to read Me Talk Pretty One Day for years of NPR listening, but I just never have. I think, deep down, I consider comedy writing to be somehow inferior. Despite the fact that it might be one of the hardest things to write. Despite the fact that I sure could use a good laugh.

What happened is Private Parts popped up on my TBR (like for a year from now). And I thought, heck no, and then I looked into it and actually it’s supposed to be a great book. Like moving. And funny. And surprising. So–in like a year from now–I guess I’ll give it a shot, partly because it sounds so good to read and laugh. And that made me wonder, why didn’t I put comedy on the TBR? As a matter of fact, why don’t I read comedy? (The TBR includes YA, general, literary, classics, theology and religion, philosophy, and fantasy. Actually, that makes me wonder why I didn’t include memoirs, nonfiction, and history, because I like a good one of those, too.)

So I did a little online research. (Isn’t that what “research” implies, anymore?) And I came up with a list of best comedy books synthesized from here and there. I was not surprised that I had read almost none of them but had heard of many of them. And the funny thing is (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha) that I am still reluctant to add them to my TBR and stir them in with War and Peace and Of Mice and Men. I mean, isn’t looking to laugh somehow inferior to literary enlightenment? Pah! (I do, however, pause at this: it is entirely possible that many of these books pull from the baser human tendencies in order to be funny. I do have a line. And comedians often cross it. Then again, finding superb, clean comedy is so rewarding, just like finding a superb, clean show or movie these days makes it extra special.)

It’s a long list, but somebody had to do it. Maybe I’ll just scoot over here and pick up one of these whenever I just really need it.

2030, Albert Brooks
America, Jon Sterwart
The Areas of My Expertise, John Hodgman
The Ascent of Rum Doodle, W. E. Bowman
Assassination Vacation, Sara Vowell
A Bad Idea I’m About to Do, Chris Gethard
The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, J. P. Donleavy
The Bedwetter, Sarah Silverman
Blue Boy, Rakash Satyal
The Bottle Factory Outing, Beryl Bainbridge
Born Standing Up, Steve Martin
Bossypants, Tina Fey
The Boy Who Never Slept and Didn’t Have To, D. C. Pierson
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
Bridget Jones’ Diary, Helen Fielding
The Broke Diaries, Angela Nissel
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Comedy at the Edge, Richard Zoglin
The Comedy Writer, Peter Farrelly
The Commitments, Roddy Doyle
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Crooked Little Vein, Warren Ellis
Daddy’s Boy, Chris Elliott
Dangerously Funny, David Bianculli
Dave Berry Slept Here, Dave Berry
Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh
The Diary of Nobody, George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
Essays of E. B. White, E. B. White
Fraud, David Rackoff
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Francois Rebelais
Gasping for Airtime, James Mohr
Girl Walks Into a Bar, Rachel Dratch
God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F**cked, Darrel Hammond
Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Going Too Far, Tony Hendra
Great Comedians Talk About Comedy, Larry Wilde
Happy Accidents, Jane Lynch
And Here’s the Kicker, Mike Sacks
The History Man, Malcolm Bradbury
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
How I Became a Famous Novelist, Steve Hely
How to Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran
How to Sharpen Pencils, David Rees
Humblebrag, Harris Whittels
I Am America (and So Can You!), Stephen Colbert
I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron
I Didn’t Ask to be Born, Bill Cosby
I Don’t Care About Your Band, Julie Klausner
I Like You, Amy Sedaris
I Love You More Than You Know, Jonathan Ames
I’m Dying Up Here, Willam Knoedelseder
The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde
Irene Iddlesleigh, Amanda McIttrick Ros
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling
John Dies At the End, David Wong
Kasher in the Rye, Moshe Kasher
Kick Me, Pail Feig
Kill Your Friends, John Niven
Lamb, Christopher Moore
The Late Shift, Bill Carter
A Liar’s Autobiography, Graham Chapman
The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne
Live From New York, Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller
Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson
Lost in the Funhouse, Bill Zehme
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh
M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Molesworth, Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
Mr. Mike, Dennis Perrin
My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Handler
An Object of Beauty, Steve Martin
On the Real Side, Mel Watkin
The Onion Book of Knowledge, The Onion
Pnin, Vladimir Nobokov
Porterhouse Blue, Tom Sharpe
Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
The Pro, Garth Ennis
Puckoon, Spike Milligan
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, Mill Millington
Queen Lucia, E. F. Benson
Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
SCTV, Dave Thomas
The Second City Almanac of Improvisation, Anne Libera
Show Me the Funny!, Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis
Side Effects, Woody Allen
Someone Could Get Hurt, Drew Magary
Sleepwalk With Me, Mike Birbiglia
The Stench of Honolulu, Jack Handey
The Sugar Frosted Nutsack, Mark Leyner
Tasteful Nudes, Dave Hill
Thank You, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse
This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper
There Is a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell, Laurie Notaro
Three Men In a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Wake Up, Sir!, Jonathan Ames
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
The War for Late Night, Bill Carter
What a Carve Up!, Jonathan Coe
Where’d You Go Bernadette, Maria Semple
The Will to Whatevs, Eugene Mirman
Without Feathers, Woody Allen
You’re Lucky You’re Funny, Phil Rosenthal
You’re Not Doing It Right, Michael Ian Black
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Patton Oswalt