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 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