From 1994 to 2015, James Naughtie’s was the voice that woke us up in the morning – if you started your day with the Today programme on BBC Radio Four, at least. But alongside that, he was – and still is – the welcoming and ever-curious host of the radio channel’s monthly Bookclub show, proving he is just as passionate about literature and interviewing authors as he was about grilling the prime minister of the time or unpicking current affairs.
He is also an author himself, writing everything from spy thrillers to books about the American Dream. This year, he is one of the judges of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, which chooses the best comic fiction of 2025. But which are the novels that make Naughtie laugh? Here, he shares the five books he can always rely on when he wants to be amused.
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
“The Code of the Woosters may well be Wodehouse’s funniest book – the debate continues. But, wherever his comedy of errors – which kicks off with Bertie Wooster being charged with stealing an antique cow jug and splinters into various farcical subplots from there on – sits in the pantheon it remains uproarious, life-giving and gilded with brilliance. The plotting, the slapstick, the garish group of characters. Comic fiction at its peak.”
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
“If you want to turn to a darker romp, pick up Catch-22. Joseph Heller’s penetrating anti-war satire tells the story of Captain Yossarian, an American bombardier in the Second World War who comes to believe that war is inevitably absurd. Yossarian is stuck in a Catch-22 – an airman can only avoid flying another life-threatening mission if he’s crazy, but if he can argue that he’s crazy, then he is proving that he’s sane. No wonder Heller’s title entered the general lexicon.”
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
“Another anti-war novel that manages to be funny – and which is based on Kurt Vonnegut’s life. Fighting for the Americans in the Second World War, Vonnegut was captured and then interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing raids on the city. Vonnegut’s ability to bring readers into the world of an impossibly destructive conflict is still thrilling – and thanks to its eye for absurdity, strangely hilarious. I once sat with Vonnegut to watch the official RAF footage of the Dresden bombing taken from the air. He was somewhere on the ground, in a cellar. He still found it possible to laugh. A wonder.”
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
“I still can’t pick up Scoop without laughing aloud. Evelyn Waugh turned his own slightly ridiculous adventures as a journalist in Abyssinia in the 30s into the funniest book about Fleet Street that we have. The escapades of William Boot of The Beast newspaper never fail to entertain – and to persuade you of the endless perils about to befall you in life.”
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
“Lennon’s debut novel won last year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. His Glorious Exploits turns the escapades of an unlikely cast of characters – caught in Sicily in 412BC during the Peloponnesian War – into an irresistible farce. Two out-of-work wanderers decide to put on a production of Medea in the amphitheatre, using prisoners of war as the cast. Told in contemporary Irish vernacular as they wrestle with Euripides (can you believe it?), it is a brilliant novel, squarely in the tradition of the best comic fiction.”
The winners of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Vintage Bollinger Prize will be announced on 1 December, wodehouseprize.com
