We may have been saved by a holiday weekend, dear readers, but yesterday was Blue Monday, aka: the most depressing day of the year. The concept was first mentioned by Sky Travel in 2005, who purported to use “science” (ahem) to calculate the day when the glitter of the holidays fall off, the drear of winter sets in, it’s Monday again, and we have to get out of bed and act like grown-ups. Pseudoscience it may be, but there is something to the fact that these dark winter days, no matter how unseasonably snow-free they may be, can get a bit…wearing. And, as ever, the Library is here to help.
In order to combat the dread Blue Monday blues, The Guardian asked a group of authors, both well-established and up-and-coming, to discuss the books that made them laugh out loud, sometimes inappropriately loudly. These titles range from established classics like Evenlyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies (which David Lodge called “continuously amusing and often laugh-out-loud funny. Many scenes and episodes…still make me laugh every time I reread the book) to the newest selections, like the children’s book I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, which was selected by Jenny Colgan, who wrote a beautiful review, saying “It is funny in whatever language you read it (22 and counting) and to almost every child in the world. And like many parents and carers, I suspect, I hoard my children’s laughter like miser’s gold: one day, when I am old and drowsy, I want the memory of it ringing out to be all I hear.”
One of my favorite reviews came from Charlotte Mendelson, who discussed P.G. Wodehouse’s The Code of the Woosters (one of my own favorite laugh-out-loud reads), using Wodehouse’s own genius to do her work for her: “Wodehouse’s sleight of hand – the apparent casualness of his observations, the Chandleresque daring of his similes – makes every description a joy: “Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove”; “I marmaladed a slice of toast”; “the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows”.
We’ve talked before here about the power of laughter, both to help you feel better and to destroy the things that frighten you, and I think it’s important to reiterate that laughter is one of the healthiest things you can do for yourself. It reduces stress, improves your health, and releases endorphins–all of which are good things. Your body craves laughter so much that even if you fake-laugh, you can induce actual laughter. Go on, try it. We won’t judge.
And here, in honor of Blue Monday and in case you need a good laugh any time in the future, here are a few more selections of classic books that may very well induce a good chortle or two in you. There’s a lot of British-ness here, I realize, as I look over this list. And this probably reflects my own brand of humor more than anything else, but we’ll try and counteract that as we go on:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: As profound as it is goofy, this science fiction classic deals with the end of the earth, alien abduction, multiple existential crises (from the end of McDonald’s to the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything), and the power behind the very universe itself…while also relating to everyone’s hatred of self-important amateur poetry, hatred of overly-chipper technology, and the very real fear that animals are smarter than we are. And it does it in a way that, quite seriously, almost anyone can enjoy. Adam’s big-heartedness and utterly wacky imagination makes every scene in this book memorable, whether it’s for his depiction of a pessimistic robot to his directions for how to really anger a computer (count next to it quietly). This book has been one of my staple bad-mood destroyers for years and years and years now, and I can only hope it has the same effect on you.
Cold Comfort Farm: Stella Gibbon’s novel subverts every English pastoral novel ever written with acerbic wit that remains funny (and relevant) even today, particularly for those who have ever felt like they just don’t quite fit in. When Flora Poste is left orphaned, she moves to her rural relations, the Starkadders–who live up to every stereotype of rural relations you can imagine–on their farm–which lives up to every joke you’ve ever heard about rural life. What keeps this book from being cruel or dated is the very obvious love that Gibbons has, both for Flora and for the Starkadder clan. Most of the laughs in this book come from their utter inability to communicate with each other, making this a family that almost anyone can relate to, on some level or another.
Lucky Jim: A perfect answer to Cold Comfort Farm, in that it makes fun of academics rather than farmhands, Kingsley Amis’ beloved novel is considered by many as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the twentieth century, even if it first scandalized readers when it was published in 1954. This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” This is a treatise against boredom, and against the people and institutions that insist on producing boredom in people, and, as such, is also a timely and still ridiculously funny work today.
Betty White: Yes, I realize she’s not a book, but in order to counter-act the British-ness of the above list, and also to recognize her 95th birthday, why not check out the charming genius of this American classic today! White got her start in radio, and later made her career in television game shows, appearing on such classics as The $25,000 Pyramid and Match Game. She became the first woman to receive an Emmy Award for Outstanding Game Show Host in 1983 for the show Just Men!, and is recognized as the first woman to produce a sitcom for Iowa Public Television. Since also starred in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls (hooray!), and she continued her career with Hot in Cleveland, giving us a career spanning 75 years, and each of them full of laughter. And it is our pleasure to wish her a very happy 95th birthday today!