A: Viv Groskop, writer, broadcaster and standup comedian, writes:
I am tempted to answer with more questions. Define “book.” Define “really funny”. Define “recently.” After all, Nora Ephron is recent in historical terms, though she is also dead. I also slightly balk at “by a woman” because – this is crazy! – men can be funny too and anything by Craig Brown or David Sedaris would always be at the top of my make-me-laugh-dancing-monkey wish list.
But I will obey your demands. If you’re looking for fiction, you need to be checking out Reasons to Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe , Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Grown Ups by Marian Keyes or All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. (Those last two are out in spring 2020. Take that for recent.)
For the simplest approach, think about any woman you love on screen. She will have most likely published a book in the last year or thereabouts: Fleabag: The Scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Cunk on Everything by Philomena Cunk, Dear Girls by Ali Wong, Sex, Power, Money by Sara Pascoe, Between the Stops by Sandi Toksvig, Sunny Side Up by Susan Calman or Till the Cows Come Home by Sara Cox. Funny is the most subjective thing in our lives. So I’m giving a lot of wide-ranging suggestions here.
I particularly recommend seeking out transatlantic essay collections with long, sarcastic, neurotic titles like We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul and You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein. Ultimate shortcut? The Private Eye Annual. Not 100% by a woman but definitely “really funny” and always painfully recent.
Viv Groskop is the author of Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition, out next March (Bantam, £12.99). Submit your question for book clinic below or email bookclinic@observer.co.uk
