Reading Lists These books prove that wanting to kill someone can be funny It’s not easy, getting people to laugh in the presence of murder. It’s also hard to cut a list down from fifty brilliant novels, and I’ll admit my picks are completely subjective—some for their humanity, some for consistency, some for their sheer originality. Everyone owes a debt to Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake, who in turn owed a debt to Raymond Chandler and P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Parker. And what is funny, anyway?