Top 5 comedy books, chosen by author and screenwriter James Alistair Henry 

James Alistair Henry knows a thing or two about what what makes good comedy, having been on the writing team for Smack the Pony, Green Wing and Piglets. Following praise for his bestselling debut novel, Pagans, he chooses his favourite laugh-a-minute books

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett 

Pratchett’s first City Watch book in the greater Discworld series mashes up police investigator characters with the tropes of fantasy fiction (including a particularly scary dragon), while gradually taking a deeper look at the relationships between those in power and those they’re supposed to protect.  

Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen 

Hiaasen’s mostly Florida-set novels are witty, bizarre and often concerned with environmental themes. His first solo novel, Tourist Season, focuses on a group of eco-warriors who kidnap a beauty queen, only to realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. 

Read more:

• The Last Laugh: Why there’s such nostalgia for the funny men who brought the nation together
• Joy Ride: A modern kind of gross-out comedy
• I Love You, Byeee by Adam Buxton review – catnip for comedy nerds

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams 

More famous for the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, Adams also wrote three (technically two and a half) novels starring the self-styled ‘holistic detective’ Dirk Gently, who runs up enormous expense accounts investigating cases involving time travel, Norse gods and psychic powers. 

Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith 

Not the most laugh-out-loud example in this list, but the second Ripley novel includes a series of increasingly strange deaths and tortured misunderstandings that make it almost impossible to read with a straight face. 

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard 

Leonard is not usually considered a comic writer, but few could deny how dryly funny most of his books are. Get Shorty is perhaps the most humorous of all, because it centres around Hollywood, an institution for which Leonard has intimate knowledge, but zero respect. 

James Alistair Henry’s debut novel Pagans is out now (Moonflower Publishing, £16.99) and in paperback from 29 January. These titles are available to buy or preorder from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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