The Book That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

The Book That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

I have been following the #bookaday tweets over the last month on Twitter. I was told it was important for the business to have a twitter account and while I’ve been getting used to ‘tweeting’ it has been gods send for me because I’ve had something to tweet every day. This month, as they’ve just published the new list, I thought it would be great for me to use it for blogging about books for all you Lotus Book Club fans. Not only will it help me blog quickly every day, but on every different subjects that might invite more comment.

The book that made me laugh out loud was Marina Lewycka’s ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’ and I often re-read it when I’m between books and feeling low. It was even better when my mum read it too and we could read bits to each other and giggle together. I remember reading parts out loud and laughing till tears ran down my face. The funniest part of the whole book is the main character’s father who is from the Ukraine. He is grumpy, irascible and very difficult to handle. The reason I laugh so much is that I once lived with a character just like this. My late husband had Polish parents and when we made a big move back up North after my graduation, my father-in-law came with us. His plan was to live with us half the year and half the year with his other son in New Zealand. This character reminded me of him so much and the laughter is fond because despite his unique manner and behaviour, we have grown to love him and though he moved out to NZ permanently after my husband died I do miss him. He had a wonderful way of saying exactly what was in his head just like the character in Lewycka’s book. One Sunday lunch with many guests he was juggling emergency chairs and said to a lady ‘I’ll take the stool, you’re bottom is much slimmer than mine’. On a similar theme he once brought me a magazine article which scientifically proved that pear shaped women live longer! Just like Lewycka’s character he had no concept that his pronouncements could be seen as rude or offensive in any way; they were true so what was the problem? He would also had a similar way of making desert by stewing the hell out of cooking apples in the microwave – something the character called Toshiba apples – and then popping a crust over the top and in order to cool it all down once cooked he would leave it in the middle of the garden while we were eating our roast. Of course he didn’t try to marry a woman half his age like the father in the book, because the book takes this wonderfully funny character to extremes precisely to make us laugh.

Prior to Lewycka’s book it was the work of James Herriott and Sue Townsend that kept me laughing. I remember being unable to speak after reading the exploits in James Herriott’s series, mainly at the action of the irresponsible younger brother Tristan. The scene where he has been dressing up as a ghostly monk and terrorising one of the local roads is hysterical. I must have read this story near a hundred times but it still never fails to make me laugh till I cry. The thought of the poor monk crashing through the undergrowth while the local copper chases him with a truncheon makes me smile and the episode of the ‘shitting’ cat who escapes his box while in a moving car is another episode to make even the hardest reader giggle away. The beauty of a book that really makes you laugh is that hopefully they become like really good friends. You might not see them for a while, but when you’re feeling low you can take them out and they’ll never fail to cheer you up.