5 Humorous Books You Should Read In November

It’s not too late to have a sense of humor or read a book about it. A sense of humor can be like an amplified good-natured attitude, but there is also the notorious put-down humor, used to criticize and manipulate through teasing, sarcasm, and ridicule. Having a sense of humor also has the risk of offending people or hurting their feelings. Risking offending people is something independent and professional comedians risk every day. People in general are concerned about offending others. Part of having a sense of humor is having the ability to laugh at yourself and find something to laugh about in both positive and negative everyday situations. 

Humor can be your greatest asset, which helps you to interact with others, improve your health, and even diffuse difficult situations. Too often, people with a sense of humor are not funny, but the beauty of having a sense of humor is that you do not have to be funny. The physical, cognitive, emotional, and social benefits of a sense of humor include reduced pain and stress, increased mood and creativity, increased friendliness, and happier relationships with others. 

Humor
Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Everyone I know loves hilarious stories, witty puns, and well-timed jokes. You may have been told that it takes 43 muscles to frown and only 17 muscles to smile. Surprisingly, some people think it takes 26 muscles to frown and 17 to smile. It’s nearly impossible to determine how many muscles are used when smiling or frowning. All of us don’t have the same amount of facial muscles, so there is a chance that we are not using all of our facial muscles when we smile. Is a smirk a smile? If you half-smile, you probably are not using your full potential. Take advantage of smiling while reading about five humorous books that you should read in November. 

5. We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

We All Want Impossible Things By Catherine Newman

While it may seem downright impossible to smile in your daily life, reading We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman may get the job done. You will read about heartbreak, but it’s supposedly a loyal love letter to a female friendship (between Edith and Ashley) that lasts over 42 years. 

Together, the couple shared plentiful memories involving: trick or treating and binge drinking, Gilligan’s Island reruns and REM concerts, hickeys and heartbreak, surprise Scottish wakes, marriages, infertility, and children. While Edi is dying of ovarian cancer, Ash is struggling with her imperfection as a friend, wife, and parent and is stumbling into heartbreak surrounded by her daughters, ex(ish) husband, dear friends, and a poorly chosen lover. 

When The Fiddler on the Roof Soundtrack plays all day, the couple cannot help but reminisce on the past, trying to let go. Let’s see if you can find the humor in We All Want Impossible Things. I’m sure the title sounds utterly depressing after I described the book, but it’s supposed to be humorous. 

4. Friends, Lovers and The Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry

Friends, Lovers and The Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir by Matthew Perry

If you’ve never watched a single episode of the NBC television sitcom, Friends the odds are you’ve heard of it. While Matthew Perry acted as Carol Seaver’s boyfriend (Sandy) in season 4 of Growing Pains and made guest appearances in The Good Wife and other shows, he is best known for his role as Chandler Bing on Friends. 

The story begins by saying, “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” I would say his message has excellent comedic timing as an attention-getter, but his saying “he should be dead” may not age well, because we all are going to die one day. We’ll just see if Friends, Lovers and The Big Terrible ages well with humor.

The story talks about everything from his childhood ambition of fame to addiction and recovery. When he was five years old, he went from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents. When he was 14 years old, he was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada, and when he was 24 years old, he earned a coveted role as a lead cast member in the talked-about pilot, Friends (originally called Friends Like Us). 

3. Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen 

It’s the Summer of 1994 and the only thing Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results, so she can finally leave the Northern Irish town she has grown up in. She wants to get away from the crowded home and the silence and sadness surrounding her sister’s death. Most importantly, she wants to get away from the ongoing violence in her divided community. 

Maeve has a summer job at a local shirt factory, working alongside Protestants with her best friends kindhearted Caroline Jackson and clever Aoife O’Neill. Passing her exam is not all she must do in order to leave her town. She has to survive a paramilitary campaign, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day, and deal with the attention of Andy Strawbridge, who is an untrustworthy English boss. She is trying to earn money before attending university, but she has to endure life. Factory Girls is expected to be released on Nov. 29, 2022, and is already available for pre-order

2. Have I Told You This Already? Stories I Don’t Want To Forget by Lauren Graham

Have I Told You This Already? by Lauren Graham

The icon, Lauren Graham, who is the author of Talking as Fast as I Can, uses her down-to-earth writing style in Have I Told You This Already? Have I Told You This Already? Is an essay collection full of personal stories about her life and career, from her experience being a waitress in New York City to living on her aunt’s couch during her first Los Angeles pilot season and her thoughts on aging gracefully in Hollywood.

Graham graced countless television screens with her hilarious talk show appearances as well as sitcoms Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. Now, it’s your decision to wonder if Lauren told you the stories that are already in her book. Have I Told You Already? is set to be released on Nov. 15, 2022. 

1. Dr. No: A Novel by Percival Everett

Wala Kitu is a mathematician, who explains that Wala, his first name, means “nothing” in Tagalog and Kitu is Swahili for nothing. Already the story sounds amusing and it gets better. He is an expert at nothing and it’s good to realize that someone is an expert at nothing. That’s what can motivate a person to improve, but he is an expert at nothing, and he does nothing about it. So how is Wala doing nothing about being an expert at nothing while still being a mathematician? 

His lack of expertise is what makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill who has the bad intention of breaking into Fort Knox to steal. They are not going to steal gold bars but steal a shoe box containing nothing. Hopefully, nobody gets harmed in the process.

I wonder what gave the author the idea to write about this story. Could it be nothing? Actually, in an interview with Los Angeles Times, when Percival was asked, “Which came first: the idea or the desire to write a caper,” he said. “It was actually my thinking: What would happen if the character from my novel ‘Glyph’ grew up?” At the beginning [Wala Kitu] identifies himself as Ralph Townsend [the toddler-prodigy narrator of “Glyph”]. That’s where it started for me.”

By the time you read Dr. No, make sure you don’t confuse it with Dr. No (1958), which is a James Bond story. Dr. No: A Novel, which is coming out in November, is meant to be a Bond-style caper about nothing.