12 Canadian books that will make you laugh out loud this summer

Here are 12 books by Canadian writers that will make you laugh out loud this summer.

Property Values by Charles Demers

Charles Demers is a Juno Award-nominated comedian and author. His crime novel, Property Values, uses comedy to explore themes of urban gentrification, gang violence and the challenges of purchasing a new home in the modern world. 

• What's the secret to being funny? Comedian and novelist Charles Demers has the answer

Trust No Aunty by Maria Qamar

Based on her popular Instagram @hatecopy and her experience in a South Asian immigrant family, Trust No Aunty by Maria Qamar is a comic book filled with anecdotes and advice exploring what it's like to grow up a South Asian girl (Desi) in North America under the eye of watchful female elders. 

• Why Maria Qamar turned her art into a guide for girls growing up in South Asian families

A Brief History of Oversharing by Shawn Hitchins

Humiliation fuels Shawn Hitchins's A Brief History of Oversharing. This collection of essays reveal how laughter helped him confront difficult situations and relationships from his childhood in Egypt, Ont., to his adult life in Toronto.

• Why Shawn Hitchins invented a new genre for his memoir A Brief History of Oversharing

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

BuzzFeed News writer Scaachi Koul's debut book, One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, speaks to her experience being of South Asian descent in Canada in a collection of funny nonfiction essays that deal with racism, sexism and life as the daughter of immigrants from India. 

• Scaachi Koul on what to do if you liked a book by a garbage human

Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jonny Sun

In Jonny Sun's comic book, a lonely aliebn is sent to study Earth where he meets a myriad of wise, vivacious woodland creatures. Full of heart, humour and friendship, this book also examines how loneliness can be an ever-present, unshakable feeling. The book is inspired by the comedian's aliebn alter ego Jomny, who has over 500,000 followers on Twitter.

• Jonny Sun, Lin-Manuel Miranda collaborating on Twitter-inspired book of personal affirmations

Sputnik's Children by Terri Favro

This speculative fiction story by Terri Favro injects inventive humour within its premise: a cult comic book creator who confronts alternate timelines, nuclear war and her own fictional superheroes — just not necessarily in that order.

• How growing up during the Cold War inspired Terri Favro's new novel

Take Us to Your Chief and Other Stories by Drew Hayden Taylor

The short story collection by award-winning playwright and author Drew Hayden Taylor combines Indigenous stories with science fiction. The book was a finalist for the 2017 Stephen Leacock Medal, a prestigious Canadian literary prize for humour writing.

• Drew Hayden Taylor on the battle to write funny stuff

Gone to Pot by Jennifer Craig

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Jennifer ​Craig is a B.C.-based nurse-turned-novelist. Her most recent book, Gone to Pot, is a funny tale about a grandmother who resorts to growing and selling marijuana in order to make ends meet. Balancing her life as a doting grandma, respected community member and drug dealer turns out to be trickier than expected. Gone to Pot won the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. 

• Why does Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour finalist Jennifer Craig keep writing?

Young Frances by Hartley Lin 

Young Frances is illustrator Hartley Lin's first collection under his real name after a decade of publishing under pseudonym Ethan Rilly. It is an early chapter in the lives of Frances and Vickie, characters from his Pope Hats series, as they attempt to stay connected despite their careers threatening to pull them apart.    

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Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

Laurie Gelman's Class Mom follows a year in the life of a mother who has to navigate tricky school politics along with special requests to bring brownies to curriculum night. The humorous novel was a finalist for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. 

• Laurie Gelman got fired from being a 'class mom' — and the experience inspired her new comic novel

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

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Mona Awad's debut novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, has struck a chord with readers — it won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The book features gentle humour as it follows a sharp-voiced young woman named Lizzie, who struggles with her weight as a teenager and then with her weight loss as an adult. Fatness and skinniness seem to factor into all of Lizzie's relationships, feeding the tension in this compelling, compact debut. 

• Mona Awad: How I wrote 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

Manfried the Man by Caitlin Major, illustrated by Kelly Bastow

Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow's Manfried the Man takes place in an alternate universe populated by anthropomorphic cats that have dim-witted, but cute, human men as pets.   

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