Reddit mentions of The Vintage Mencken: The Finest and Fiercest Essays of the Great Literary Iconoclast

I've heard both George Bernard Shaw and Henry James (a friend of Wilde's) compared to him in a very positive way. I've never read Henry James but I've read several of Shaw's plays and would agree. I'd recommend getting a collection of his plays. The best ones I've read are "Man and Superman", "Heartbreak House" and "Pygmalion". As for the rest of the authors I'll mention... the similarity to Wilde may vary, some may even have very dark humor, but I find them all just as amusing (though perhaps in different ways).


Mark Twain has as many (maybe more because he was so prolific) hilarious one-liners and is overall filled with mordant observations. I'd recommend reading Huck Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Letters from the Earth and any of numerous collections of his short stories. I'm sure there's more by him to recommend but that's mostly what I've read. If you're fond of irreverence there's also some good collections of his writings about religion that are very amusing, but he pokes fun of every aspect of society.

P.G. Wodehouse is probably one of your favorite author's favorite authors. He's credited as Douglas Adams chief literary inspiration, and Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens have both written essays on how much they love him. I have collection called "The Most of P.G. Wodehouse" which is a great introduction to him, "Right Ho, Jeeves" and "The Code of the Woosters" are his most well known works. Also, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie starred in a show that adapted stories about two of his characters called "Jeeves and Wooster".

H.L. Mencken might be the most controversial one. Kurt Vonnegut said he was the closest America got to a second Mark Twain. Christopher Hitchens called him "a German nationalist, an insecure small-town petit bourgeois, [...] an antihumanist [..], a man prone to the hyperbole and sensationalism he distrusted in others".(replace German with American and I think Hitchens words apply to himself as well) I agree with them both, actually. I don't like his politics and some of what he says is downright cruel... but the guy knows how to write. He's genuinely funny, even when I disagree with him. The best books to start with for him are The Vintage Mencken and Chrestomathy



Others: Voltaire, (a collection of "Candide and other stories" is the best place to start with him), Jonathon Swift (Gulliver's Travels and any collection of his "best" works are the best place to start) Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide series and Dirk Gently series), Joseph Heller (Catch 22), John Kennedy Toole (Confederacy of Dunces), and Kurt Vonnegut (Everything, starting with Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse 5).

Okay, that was probably a bit more than you were after, but I hope you find some things of value in it.

Nothing. I didn't say I had solutions. I've read enough books that have left me with nothing but disdain for our democracy. I see no solution to it. Read Parliament of Whores or the Vintage Mencken if you want insight into how someone can feel this way about our political system.

The Vintage Mencken

Brain Rules

The Road

If you like sports at all Friday Night Lights, Ball Four and Moneyball are amazing reads. World War Z and Zombie Survival Guide is pretty interesting. Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes is an awesomely fun read set in the golden age of piracy, and if you like noir/hard boiled detective stuff, Richard Stark's Parker series, starting with The Hunter, is outstanding.