Funny books to read in 2026

Reading lists

Funny books guaranteed to make you laugh out loud

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Mood-lifting books with only happy endings

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7 extremely funny books written by women

Nina Stibbe on what makes an Almost-Perfect Christmas

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Interviews

The Penguin Podcast: Nina Stibbe on what makes an Almost-Perfect Christmas

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The Penguin Q&A: Nina Stibbe

Winner of the 2019 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction

Reasons to be Cheerful

Lizzie Vogel's story continues in Reasons to be Cheerful, the brilliantly comic sequel to Nina Stibbe's hilarious books Man at the Helm and Paradise Lodge. 
 
WINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION 
WINNER OF THE COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT PRIZE 
 
 'I read all of Reasons To Be Cheerful in one glorious gulp' CAITLIN MORAN 
 
***** 
 
 Teenager Lizzie Vogel has a new job as a dental assistant. This is not as glamorous as it sounds. 
 
At least it means mostly getting away from her alcoholic, nymphomaniacal, novel-writing mother. But, if Lizzie thinks being independent means sex with her boyfriend (he prefers bird-watching), strict boundaries (her boss keeps using her loo) or self-respect (surely only actual athletes get fungal foot infections?) she's still got a lot more growing up to do. 
 
From the bestselling author of Love, Nina comes a brilliantly funny and heartbreaking story of growing up and finding the independence you might not actually want . . . 
 
***** 
 
'Funny, charming, odd-in-the-best-way and gorgeously uplifting! A delight from start to finish' MARIAN KEYES 
 
 'Pitch perfect vintage comedy' GUARDIAN 
 
 'Lives up to its title' SUNDAY TIMES 
 
 'Joyful. Stibbe's comedy probes what it means to become an adult' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
 'Loved it! I so love Lizzie. She is brave and kind and funny and totally original' KATIE FFORDE 
 
 'Comedy gold . . . Reasons To Be Cheerful is just the read you need right now' STYLIST 
 
 'Nina Stibbe is an author of such effortless wit that she could turn a shopping list into a bestseller' WOMEN AND HOME 
 
NINA STIBBE'S NEW NOVEL ONE DAY I SHALL ASTONISH THE WORLD IS AVAILABLE NOW

My friends, you will UTTERLY ADORE Nina Stibbe's latest novel Reasons To Be Cheerful . . .It is SO SO funny, charming, odd-in-the-best-way and gorgeously uplifting! A delight from start to finish

Stibbe's comedy probes what it means to become an adult, and how we form our financial, sexual, moral and political selves

So dense with amusing detail that I thought about holding the book upside down to see if any extra funny bits might spill from the creases between the page

I read all of Reasons To Be Cheerful last night in one GLORIOUS gulp and it's SUCH a joy - Nina Stibbe turns out more perfect, sharp, unique sentences than anyone else in the game. It just CARTWHEELS

If you loved Adrian Mole you'll adore Lizzie Vogel . . . quirky and witty, it also packs an emotional punch

Comedy gold . . . Reasons To Be Cheerful is just the read you need right now, seamlessly weaving together the big themes of life with charm and warmth

Reasons to be Cheerful's tone has been compared to Sue Townsend's but I could haul in Alan Bennett, Barbara Pym and even Jane Austen . . . she writes brilliantly

Full of comedy, but with moving themes of loss and grief, it's an utterly charming coming of age story. A reason to be cheerful indeed

A joyfully meandering, episodic novel that probes what it means to become an adult

Very few writers can find the delicate balance between heartbreak and hilarity like Nina Stibbe

This made me laugh and broke my heart, it's a gorgeous, profound, tender book about growing up and discovering that other humans are charming, obnoxious, enlightening and odd. I think Stibbe is one of the all time greats

Funny, charming, odd-in-the-best-way and gorgeously uplifting! A delight from start to finish

'Nina Stibbe is an author of such effortless wit that she could turn a shopping list into a bestseller'

Loved it! I so love Lizzie. She is brave and kind and funny and totally original . . . I couldn't have liked it more (as I think Noel Coward said.)

A wonderfully funny novel . . . Nina Stibbe is still on sparkling form.

There's a strong Sue Townsend/Alan Bennett flavour to it all . . . funny and sweet

An idiosyncratic, bittersweet coming-of-age tale that certainly justifies its title

Nina Stibbe was born in Leicester. She is the author of two works of non-fiction - Love, Nina and An Almost Perfect Christmas - and three previous novels: Man at the Helm, Paradise Lodge, and Reasons to be Cheerful, which is the only novel to have won both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award. Love, Nina won Non-Fiction Book of the Year and was adapted by Nick Hornby into a BBC TV series. Nina Stibbe lives in Cornwall.

Teenager Lizzie Vogel has a new job as a dental assistant. This is not as glamorous as it sounds. At least it means mostly getting away from her alcoholic, nymphomaniacal, novel-writing mother. But, if Lizzie thinks being independent means sex with her boyfriend (he prefers bird-watching), strict boundaries (her boss keeps using her loo) or self-respect (surely only actual athletes get fungal foot infections?) she's still got a lot more growing up to do.

An Almost Perfect Christmas

Nina Stibbe, bestselling author of Love, Nina and Reasons to Be Cheerful, delves hilariously into the festive season with a selection box of Christmas stories. You'll read one and have to go back for a cheeky second helping! 
 
'This book is the seasonal garnish we all need' Observer 
 
 ***** 
 
"My mother is not a foodie. But for as long as I can remember, once a year, she becomes possessed of a profound and desperate need to serve up a perfect roast turkey. Faced with a walk into the village though, she might think 'oh, f*** it' and decide to get a frozen one from Bejams on the 23rd and leave it to defrost in the downstairs toilet for not quite 48 hours." 
 
 From perennially dry turkeys to Christmas pudding fires, from the round robin code of conduct to the risks and rewards of re-gifting, An Almost Perfect Christmas is an ode to the joy and insanity of the most wonderful time of the year. 
 
'All festive life is in these short stories' Red 
 
'It's Stibbe who truly captures that typically English attitude of adhering to traditions while grumbling about them ceaselessly' Stylist 
 
'Prepare to ignite your Yuletide spirit' Glamour

This book is the seasonal garnish we all need. There is no subject upon which Stibbe could not entertain . . . It ends with "Zest: a vital ingredient in many Christmas dishes". But the essential zest, I'd say, is Nina Stibbe herself

I'll return to An Almost Perfect Christmas year after year...it's Stibbe who truly captures that typically English attitude of adhering to traditions while grumbling about them ceaselessly

The author of Love, Nina delves hilariously into the festive season

This will have any recipient chuckling out loud

All festive life is in these short stories

These festive essays are the perfect anecdote for anyone who doesn't "do" Christmas

Anyone who's suffered perennially dry turkey, the dreaded round-robin and having all your beloved's family in the same room at the same time, will laugh and laugh

Witty, intimate, beguiling... Ideal for a Christmas stocking

Nina Stibbe is coming on as the new Sue Townsend or Alan Bennett

"I vowed from a young age never to cook a turkey and I never have - unless you count turkey mince (which you don't). I've seen the damage turkeys can do and the tyrannical hold they have over otherwise robust, rational people and my mother. My mother is not a foodie. But for as long as I can remember, once a year, she becomes possessed of a profound and desperate need to serve up a perfect roast turkey. Faced with a walk into the village though, she might think 'oh, fuck it' and decide to get a frozen one from Bejams on the 23rd and leave it to defrost in the downstairs toilet for not quite 48 hours." 
 
From dry turkeys to Christmas pudding fires, from the perfect present for teacher to the risks and rewards of re-gifting, Nina Stibbe offers her inimitable wisdom and humour on the most wonderful time of the year.

Despatches from Family Life

Love, Nina

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 
 
 A laugh-out-loud true story of the trials and tribulations of being a live-in nanny in 1980s London and inspired a major TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. 
 
***** 
 
In 1982 Nina Stibbe, a 20-year-old from Leicester, moved to London to work as a nanny for a very particular family. It was a perfect match: Nina had no idea how to cook, look after children or who the weirdos were who called round. And the family, busy discussing such arcane subjects as how to swear in German or the merits (or otherwise) of turkey mince, were delighted by her lack of skills. 
 
Love, Nina is the collection of letters she wrote home gloriously describing her 'domestic' life, the unpredictable houseguests and the cat everyone loved to hate. 
 
***** 
 
 'I adored this book and could quote from it forever' Nick Hornby 
 
 'Funny and sharp: no book this year has made me laugh more' John Lanchester, Guardian 
 
 'The funniest book I've read in ages' Sunday Times 
 
 'An unassuming comic genius' Independent

I adored this book, and could quote from it forever. It's real, odd, life-affirming, sharp, loving, and contains more than one reference to Arsenal FC

Last year, we had Roger Mortimer's splendidly bufferish Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son. Love, Nina - funny, quirky, vivid and touching - is every bit its equal

I loved this book. What a beady eye she has for domestic life, and how deliciously fresh and funny she is - a real discovery.

Deborah Moggach, author of 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

Breezy, sophisticated, hilarious, rude and aching with sweetness: Love, Nina might be the most charming book I've ever read

Maria Semple, author of 'Where’d You Go, Bernadette'

Funny, warm, life-affirming and accutely well-observed, Love, Nina is a gift that will keep on giving . . . A hoot

The snippets of dialogue and vingettes evoke the characters and atmosphere brilliantly . . . Funny, sharp

Even if Adrian Mole wrote about the Primrose Hill set, it wouldn't be as funny and absorbing as Love, Nina

Like a 1980s Mary Poppins with a sense of humour

The funniest new writer to arrive in years

Adrian Mole meets Mary Poppins mashed up in literary north London . . . Enormous fun

Being a nanny is great. Not like a job really, just like living in someone else's life. Today before breakfast Sam had to empty the dishwasher and Will had to feed the cat. 
 
Sam: I hate emptying the dishwasher. 
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns. 
Will: I hate the cat. 
MK: We all do, that's why we take turns. 
 
In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There's a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs. 
 
From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton.

Hilarity and pure escapism from a true British wit

Paradise Lodge

Lizzie Vogel's story continues in Paradise Lodge, the brilliantly comic sequel to Nina Stibbe's hilarious Man at the Helm. 
 
'LOVE it! Instant classic - funny, wise, touching, entirely delightful' MARIAN KEYES 
 
***** 
 
Working in a care home is not really a suitable job for a schoolgirl but 15-year-old Lizzie Vogel went for it. It just seemed too exhausting to commit to being a full-time girlfriend or a punk (it is the 1970s after all), plus she has some knowledge of old people. They're not suited to granary bread, and you mustn't compare them to toddlers, but she doesn't know there's a right way to get someone out of the bath - or what to do when someone dies. 
 
When a rival old people's home with better parking and daily chairobics threatens to take all their residents, Paradise Lodge's cast of staff and helpers have to come together to save the home before it's too late. 
 
From the bestselling author of Love, Nina comes a story of being very young, and very old, and the laughter and tears in between. 
 
LIZZIE'S STORY CONTINUES IN REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL! 
 
***** 
 
'The one problem with reviewing Stibbe is that I just want to quote entire pages: it's all so brilliant' THE I 
 
'Stibbe looks at another chapter of her life through the prism of her trademark deadpan, acutely observed humour' STYLIST 
 
'A dollop of nostalgia and very British humour' GLAMOUR

LOVE it! Instant classic - funny, wise, touching, entirely delightful

The funniest new writer to arrive in years

The one problem with reviewing Stibbe is that I just want to quote entire pages: it's all so brilliant. She captures exactly what it's like to be a teenager, with all its contradictions, confusions, anxieties and ambitions.

There is a laugh out loud moment in every chapter. Paradise Lodge brilliantly captures the internal panic of a teenager

A touch of Holden Caulfield in 1970s Leicestershire... I wouldn't mind fetching up at Paradise Lodge when my time comes: at least we'd all share a laugh, a hug and a terrible cup of tea before the dying of the light.

There is never a dull moment in this lively, sensitive, roaringly funny tale

Stibbe looks at another chapter of her life through the prism of her trademark deadpan, acutely observed humour

Irreverent, warm and hugely entertaining

The whole book surprises and impresses... I'm not surprised to see that Stibbe's writing has been compared to Jane Austen's

Stibbe is a terrific writer with a gift for sharp dialogue

Laugh-out-loud funny and full of spot-on 1970s details

Stibbe is herself becoming a worthy successor to Pym, that peerless chronicler of the melancholy pleasures and small struggles of 20th-century English life on the sort of days when, as Lizzie puts it, "there was nothing for lunch except ginger cake and tins of marrowfat peas

Witty and thoroughly chortle inducing

A dollop of nostalgia and very British humour

Nina Stibbe was born in Leicester. She is the author of two works of non-fiction - Love, Nina and An Almost Perfect Christmas - and three previous novels: Man at the Helm, Paradise Lodge, and Reasons to be Cheerful, which is the only novel to have won both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Comedy Women in Print Award. Love, Nina won Non-Fiction Book of the Year and was adapted by Nick Hornby into a BBC TV series. Nina Stibbe lives in Cornwall.

The hilarious debut novel from one of Britain’s wittiest writers

Man at the Helm

The very start of Lizzie Vogel's story. From the much-loved author of Love, Nina, discover a wildly comic, brilliantly sharp-eyed novel about one family's fall from grace. 
 
'All hail a book that's funny!' Barbara Trapido 
 
***** 
 
Meet Lizzie Vogel, 9. 
 
Lizzie is concerned about her newly divorced mother; thirty-one years old and trapped in a hostile village in the English countryside with only three young children and a Labrador for company. It isn't that having a husband is good, but in 1970s rural Leicestershire, not having one is bad. The women in the village think Lizzie's mother is after their husbands - and no one will let the children into the Brownies! 
 
Worried about their mother's drinking, her (bad) playwriting and social workers sending them off to the infamous Crescent Home for Children, Lizzie and her sister embark on a misguided campaign to find their mother a new husband. 
 
LIZZIE'S STORY CONTINUES IN PARADISE LODGE AND REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL! 
 
***** 
 
'[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book' OBSERVER 
 
'Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy. Read it and be charmed' INDEPENDENT 
 
'A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness' SUNDAY TIMES

I can't remember a book that made me laugh more . . . Man at the Helm is a winner - it even trumps Love, Nina

A wicked anatomising of a dysfunctional family . . . Buoyantly comic: farcical yet tender, rude with a forgiving sweetness

Read it and be charmed. Just the right mixture of childhood innocence and incredulity for the necessary deadpan delivery of Stibbe's particular brand of comedy

All hail a book that's funny!

[A] joyous read, full of wit and charm . . . I am already longing for Nina Stibbe's next book

A beguilingly comic blend of naivety and precociousness

Within a few pages I was completely caught up in the lives of Lizzie and her family . . . I couldn't have loved it more

Fantastic. Comical, moving and brilliantly evocative of British childhood

This book is very, very funny. Stibbe has a fine eye for absurdity, and her writing has an unforced charm. [And] there is real darkness here, which makes the humour shimmer all the more

Lizzie's voice is convincingly childlike but also confidently witty . . . What is most moving here - and what makes the book most similar to Love, Nina - is its celebration of the happiness possible within the family. Stibbe's feat is to remain unsentimentally barbed while subtly and triumphantly demonstrating the value of the kind of understated love found within the strangest and least obviously functional families

Fans of Love, Nina will not be disappointed. Amusing, the writing is never less than accomplished

This densely populated coming-of-age story (for both mother and children) has retained and even expanded on Stibbe's signature antic charm ... The appeal of Stibbe's novel lies less in plotting than in the way she shades a sequence of comic vignettes with seriously sad undertones. It's not too much of a stretch to conclude that Man at the Helm, with its jauntily matter-of-fact social satire, wouldn't be out of place on the same shelf as Cold Comfort Farm and I Capture the Castle

Nina Stibbe

Nina Stibbe is one of our funniest novelists - it's time to take her seriously

Stibbe writes some of the best-turned comic sentences in contemporary writing. Like Susan, she makes it look easier than it must be.

I love Nina Stibbe and her new novel, One Day I Shall Astonish the World, is such a lovingly observed testament to the complexities and profundities of female friendship

Sue Townsend's heir . . . A moving ode to marriage and friendship and the great joke of agency in a world where everything can turn upside down in a heartbeat

I loved it so SO much! Funnier than ever but with a new depth and maturity

Nina Stibbe's latest novel, One Day I Shall Astonish the World buttresses her position as the Kingsley Amis of the twenty-first century. . . . Stibbe's genius, like Amis's, is for noting the cadences of ordinary speech and the idiotic platitudes we all spout. In the anatomy of English conversation, Stibbe (born 1962) takes up where Amis (died 1995) left off. There are echoes of Adrian Mole, Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood - but with no copying or pastiche. Stibbe makes the everyday funny. If a Martian asked me to explain the tragicomedy of normal English life, I would direct him to Stibbe

As a comic novelist, Stibbe is so truly incomparable, I can only describe this perfect novel as Stibbe meets Stibbe, with a touch of Stibbe. (And if you love Nina Stibbe...you'll love this.) For as long as I could make it last, the world just felt a bit nicer. A true gift of a novel, I utterly adored it

Nina Stibbe takes on female friendship and ambition in a novel that has all its predecessors' gossipy bookishness and quirky charm

It's darker than Stibbe's previous novels, but her trademark wit is still in evidence and her odd and eccentric characters remind us that we are odd and eccentric too!

Darkly funny and wry story is full of nostalgia and friendship

Warm and wonderfully well-observed . . . One Day I Shall Astonish The World reminds us that the richness of life is in its small details, not the grand plans. This is author Stibbe at her entertaining and heartwarming best

Nina Stibbe is one of our most beloved comic writers: One Day I Shall Astonish The World, about the lifelong friendship between two women, will cement that reputation further

While there may be echoes of previous greats, however, Stibbe's voice is utterly her own . . . One Day I Shall Astonish the World is, unsurprisingly, very funny. But it might also be Stibbe's most moving novel yet . . . so hilarious and rewarding

Funny, kind, sad, relevant, and raucous in all the right places. I loved it so much

Nina Stibbe is not just very funny but absolutely life-affirming

Clever and funny, it takes a sharp look at the intricacies of marriage, friendship, work, and driving. As with all Stibbe's writing there is a pleasingly perfect balance of wisdom with jokes

I started off highlighting all the brilliant observations and one-liners but had to give up because there were so many. Nina Stibbe makes being funny look easy, but that's just because she's very, very good at it

Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures

Her best yet and it's a delight to watch this gifted comic writer go from strength to strength . . . You'll be rooting for Susan on every page of a novel packed to the gills with perceptive, laugh-out loud observations and idiosyncratic turns of phrase, putting the quirks of ordinary life under the microscope

For beautifully funny and well-observed comic writing, Nina Stibbe is your go-to author. In her latest release, a tale of lifelong friendship between Susan and Norma, she explores the mistakes, rivalries and love we all experience in life

[Stibbe's] new novel is Elena Ferrante re-scripted as English comedy

Funny of course but also a real departure as it packs most of a life and a long, messy marriage into barely 300 pages and its humour springs from a deep understanding of social pain. This acute portrayal of frienmity is up there with Cats Eye and as nourishing as Anne Tyler on top form

I absolutely loved every single page of it! I honestly think it's the funniest thing she's ever written

Garth Jennings, writer and director of 'Sing' and 'Sing 2'

From the comic voice of her generation comes a suburban tale of dysfunctional relationships full of charm, wit and lightly told wisdom

A master wielder of dry British humour, Stibbe here chronicles 30 years in the lives of frenemies Susan and Norma - a tangle of sweetness, snubs and secrets from their university days to middle age. There's an LOL moment on almost every page, which makes the pandemic ending astonishingly moving

Very funny . . . Nina does gentle wisdom well

Another wonderful, funny slice of fiction from the author of best-seller, Love Nina. Her latest novel explores a decades-long friendship between two women and what happens when your paths diverge

Good Housekeeping, Books We're Looking Forward to in 2022

Nina Stibbe's very funny novels are full of charm, and her latest brilliantly captures the mordant humour of British suburban life. Through the 90s to the present day, it follows Susan from her job in a haberdashery shop to working at the local university, and the ebbs and flows of her relationships with her husband and best friend

Evening Standard, Best Fiction Books to Look Forward to in 2022

The wayward, wildly original and beautifully noticing sentences are perfectly cadenced . . . Despite the sparkling, satirical voice, and her laughter at the littleness of Little England, Stibbe creates a world in which tolerance and forgiveness are the key, even in these dark and scary times, to the possibility of a happy life

It's a rare novel that makes me laugh out loud but Stibbe has a knack for extracting humour from everyday moments

In One Day I Shall Astonish The World by gifted comic writer Nina Stibbe, Susan and Norma have been best friends for 30 years, but when Norma's life takes an unforeseen turn, Susan begins to wonder if she's followed the wrong path in life- and in friendship

One Day I Shall Astonish the World by the always entertaining Nina Stibbe is a story of female friendship

Irish Times, Books To Look Out For In 2022

In April look out for...Love, Nina writer Nina Stibbe's One Day I Shall Astonish The World

Nina Stibbe is one of the great comic writers of our time

Stibbe is one of the all-time greats

Marian Keyes on ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’

Joyful. Stibbe's comedy probes what it means to become an adult

Daily Telegraph on ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’

I love everything Nina Stibbe writes and this was my favourite of the novels. It's so sharp and painful and brilliantly funny. There are sentences you could eat for Christmas dinner. If you haven't read it already - you probably have but just in case - I really do think you'd love it

Susan and Norma have been best friends for years, at first thrust together by force of circumstance (a job at The Pin Cushion, a haberdashery shop in 1990s Leicestershire) and then by force of character (neither being particularly inclined to make friends with anyone else). But now, thirty years later, faced with a husband seeking immortality and Norma out of reach on a wave of professional glory, Susan begins to wonder whether she has made the right choices about life, love, work, and, most importantly, friendship. 
 
Nina Stibbe's new novel is the story of the wonderful and sometimes surprising path of friendship: from its conspiratorial beginnings, along its irritating wrong turns, to its final gratifying destination.

Nina Stibbe

Books by Nina Stibbe

Series by Nina Stibbe

The Lizzie Vogel Series

Articles featuring Nina Stibbe

Funny books guaranteed to make you laugh out loud

Mood-lifting books with only happy endings

7 extremely funny books written by women

The Penguin Podcast: Nina Stibbe on what makes an Almost-Perfect Christmas

The Penguin Q&A: Nina Stibbe

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