My favorite author, David Lodge, writes books that discuss ideas and are funny to boot. Two that especially fall into this category are "Small World" and "Changing Places." Both are terrific.

For lighter reading, try Lawrence Block's "Burglar Who..." books. Besides being funny, they are good mysteries.

joe keenan! emmy-winning writer for "frasier," he also wrote "blue heaven" and "putting on the ritz," two gay-themed comic novels that are so funny i couldn't read them while eating or drinking (owing to the inevitable "spray effect").

also: nicholson baker's "the mezzanine" -- slim, absurd but had me cracking up my seatmates on the metro with my vain attempts to hold in the laughs...

Janet Evanoviches Stephanie Plum books make me laugh.Also Charlotte Hughs who write the Bubbles series is really funny.

Lori summerrain03

I would suggest something by Bill Geist (especially TURNING 50). You will smile

She's a bit off the literary radar these days (I think she had a baby +40) but Sandra Tsing Lo used to be a favorite author. She writes about life as a struggling performance artist in Los Angeles... She's also got a terrifically interesting family -- there's this great essay she writes about Angelica Houston picking up her hitchhiking dad in the Mulholland hills. He, being a frugal man, is of course carrying his court papers (he's a judge) in a pink plastic shopping bag.

Probably her most famous book is A Year in Van Nuys

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

I have not read any of his works. I will have to add him to my reading list.

What metro do you ride? I used to live in the DC area and sometimes took the Washington, DC metro to work.